Row the Blood Ashore

I started this door two g-d years ago
Left it half-done for months (I’m not that g-d slow)
Picked it back up in June (or July? I’m not sure)
But I knew, when I did, I was painting this door!
Still I had to keep stripping, because I had started
(Didn’t know it’d end like a scene from Departed).
I stripped it half-assed, then I asked His opinion
Because He has knowledge from old guilded unions
“It’s done, right?” I said. “There are no more steps in it?”
“It’s done,” He agreed. “If you just let me Bin it.”
I was leery, I wanted this job to be mine
But I also wanted this door to look fine
And – if you’ve never seen how Irish-guild jobs go –
Amateurs, in comparison, paint like bonobos
(Might I remind you of this little number?

Himself can do better than that in his slumber)
So he looked, and he started, and he called from the hall
“I don’t think that we will be painting at all!”
Oh crap (I thought), I’d put that thought on the shelf.
Why, oh why (I went on) did I consult Himself?
So then “Yes, Dear?” I answered. “Just what are you thinking?”
And tell me, while you’re at it, just what you’ve been drinking…
“No, no,” says my love, “I have seen this before
“You’ll never believe what they put on this door.
“I spent my whole youth doing re-work like this
“Not a soul in this country would know what it is!”
He said what he knew, and when he showed me how,
I recalled that the heat made it smell like a cow.
I remembered the dust turning everything pink,
And seeing the kitties react to the stink.
He was right, I realized, and I thought it was cool;
We can’t just paint over this bit of old-school!
So I went online to share this information
With my bleader friends. I made a contestation
Of it: anyone out there who gleaned Johnny’s knowledge
Gets poeticated (hey, I went to colledge)
Lots of you guessed, and some were just silly,
I got answers from Tara and Jen (but not Willy)
I heard from MP, and from my kiwi Nana
And I wished for rosewood thanks to modernemama
Honorable mention goes to Stephanie
Who weighed in too late, but with a recipe.
The winners of this, though, are Michael & Sandy
If they were here, I’d serve treacle & brandy
Which would be disgusting, but not so much more
Than the finish that somebody put on this door.
Oxblood it is, and we mean that in earnest:
Real blood, from real oxen, or (for rhyme's sake) oxern-es.
I made that word up, as I am wont to do
But this ox blood thing? Johnnykins swears that it’s true.
So we cannot just cover it over, we’re sure
(Plus, Johnnykins says that the wood there is fir).
The finish is finished, of course, it’s no good
But the memory of it remains in the wood
We'll wash it, varnish over, it will still be pink
We have to leave that finish there, don’t you think?