This is my in absentia response to Gareth’s Totem Pole workshop:
Totes
Each face I carve will tell
a small part of the story.
Each animal will represent
a portion of the whole.
Each nose, each eye, each painted cheek
create a collage of confusion,
erected as a presentation
just for you.
It’s quite an ugly thing,
a mashed-up montage, formed of
half-ideas, splinters of memory,
in-jokes, unfulfilled ambition,
lips that are too big, birds with beaks
and wings out of proportion,
from some creepy animation,
drawn for you.
I didn’t mean to carve the pole this way:
it just grew out of what I am,
and all its inconsistencies
are reaching up to guide your eyes
towards the sky – above this bleak
and unforgiving apparition:
my carved, complex creation,
made for you.
