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Dressing as Franz Kafka
If I could only find the necktie (it has to be
in the top drawer among the shirts
I keep for special occasions) I’d be able to step
outside the parentheses in which I find myself
trapped whenever I sit down to write
and expect the world to writhe, as you promised
it would, at my feet in ecstasy. As often
as I run a finger around this collar,
so stiff against my neck, I can’t breathe freely
but the struggle with starch somehow
parallels that which I endure with the paper
waiting patiently for my first word (sometimes
maintaining its purity is the best
I can achieve). Only now, alone
in a room, do I wear my suit. I’m ashamed
to be formal where anyone can see me.
I’ve been polishing my shoes for hours
but when I pace up and down
they hurt my feet, or perhaps the memories
of cleaning them the way I was brought up to
is what tightens as I walk. So I sit
back down and continue the inner journey
with a raincoat folded over my arm
in case there’s a change in my mood (right now
I’m nervous) or the impulse to pose
pretending the room is the Old Town Square
where a storm is about to break
and rain words down around me
so all I have to do is collect and arrange them
into language. All that’s missing
is the tie. I emptied the contents
of every chest and closet onto the floor (creating chaos
where order used to reign) and I know
the word is there if I could only bend (I’m afraid
to crumple these trousers) down to pick it up.
David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in England, and spent several
years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. He enjoys listening to very old music, birding,
and hiking in the Arizona landscape. Along with poems in magazines, he has a list of chapbook
publications with Places You Can’t Reach (Pudding House Publications, 2006) being the latest,
and recent books: A Normal Day Amazes Us (Kings Estate Press, 2003), Return to Waking Life
(Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2004), and Waiting for the Quetzal (March Street Press, 2006).
Email: David Chorlton
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