The Rough [Sentence]

The Rough [Sentence]

Sketched [on the page]
without planing,
without the sharp shaving
[of the English teacher]

Rustic and beautiful
mis-tensed knots
and wide grains of words
curving and cracking
under the stress of thought
[under the stress of poetry]

Under the poverty of grammar,
the off-kilter twist,
creating its own kind [ugly] beauty

Laying one bent board against another
until a magnificent structure
of natural arches rise above
the neatness of a graded foundation,
in spite, [not because of] the blade
that grades off the rough earth
of the mind into clean white sheets
with proper black marks organized
according to a long line of [misguided] gate-keepers.