The Razor’s Edge
— W. Somerset Maugham, 1944
What a race of giants.
Came from where and to where went?
Their ancient implement, left-behind, once sharpened, now stands end-up against the desert wind.

Their whetstone and leather strap long-ago retracted, lost;
the razor’s worried all-about with gray, blood-stained mottles
and nearly endless pock-marks from past ceremony,

and hard-vanquished blood—from nicks from that lost race.
Now a torrid winter sun evacuates all
gray ledges of their all-exterminated eyes.

This upright blade displays fatal scars of unmeasured
applications; its shocking wear-and-tear
could be consequence of skinning parties,

war or battle, amputations well away from anesthesia.
Else why these multiple cracks and bitter striations
which divide its crosswise planes

into unremarkables very near its sunlit edges.
Visible, some meager, long-dead hieroglyphs that may, eras past,
be of confident machining inside a cottage’s

heated forge; the maker and his sons or his daughters
have taken pleasure by defiling a raw-smoking ingot
through impress of their ancient credentials.

The razor’s edge—now still and dull—transcends a cloudy back-plain.
Once, it served its masters well; now faithfully connives to empty out
a bitter well of longing, lust, and hate majestic.

Sated, undefended or pristine inside its torn-and-worn image.
R. J. Keeler

Photo courtesy of ©John Anderson
'
Dear Editor: I have a photo to attach to this poem; please send me the email address that I can send it to, thanks.