Reality
i love books because every ending is tied up with a pretty bow
all loose ends addressed
instead of the empty half-ever-afters full of questions
sorrows
pain
confusion
left behind after you're screwed over
you don't have to wonder
you know
Poems on the topic: book
Poems on the topic “book” on Poets.by.
Immortality
Its spine broken and torn
Leaves left devoured by silverfish,
Corners crumbling with age -
My hands tremble as I open the book.
Carefully, tenderly, I turn the frontispiece -
Shabby, tattered yet holding up together
With a dignity that only books can have -
I shake out the dust and faecal matter.
The book is still silent, slightly embarrassed
But not showing any -
Like my mother, paralysed
As I clean her with wet cotton blobs.
In the left corner of the first page
The book said -
‘With all good wishes to my son’
Signed, my father, forty years ago.
A Library of Love
My friend! What brought us together?
Was it the love for each other’s presence?
Was it the comfort in each other’s being?
Was it the glow in our eyes and hearts?
Was it the joy, the warmth and mirth
Was it regard, respect, the reason
Or was it because we just felt at ease?
Was it just the way we were?
Weren’t there times when it came to an end,
Weren’t there moments when we flew apart?
Why to each other did we take
Why each did we value, more than others?
What made you my friend, my friend?
What was the chemistry, what was the fusion?
What, pray tell me you see in me
What made you say I am your friend?
Unseen
Like the lands I will never see
The books I will never read
The minds I will never learn.
If only one could be everywhere!
If only one could see them all!
I could’ve loved more –
And, in return, be loved –
Just a little!
The Sonnets XXVI
I wake up back aching from soft bed Pat
gone to class Ron to work (I
never heard a sound) its my birthday. I put on
birthday pants birthday shirt go to ADAM'S buy a
pepsi for breakfast come home drink it take a
pill I'm high. I do three Greek lessons
to make up for cutting class. I read birthday book
(from Joe) on Juan Gris real name Jose Victoriano
Gonzales stop in the middle read all
my poems gloat a little over new ballad quickly skip old
sonnets imitations of Shakespeare. Back to books. I read
poems by Auden Spenser Pound Stevens and Frank O Hara. I hate
books.
I wonder if Jan or Helen or Babe
ever think about me. I wonder if Dave Bearden still
dislikes me. I wonder if people talk about me
Goodbye to All That
Each does a little
more than what
he does best, but trusts
his genius, hers
shines through nonetheless
& if it hurts the eyes
to wade across the tonsured
head, a metaphor
for poetry
barren of truthfulness
then close the book
turn off the light, &
seek the member of the
species with whom
you've been blessed
to spend these moments
The Will of Andre Breton
When books are trapped
in the snow
they could be camelias
or bald headed men
collected predicaments
magnificent translations
a shape
something to remember
and relearn
When music is siphoned
through a weather vane
water will freeze
on the strings of the violin
The ice age will sound
silently
A time will come
One
Sleeves dripping
from my hike
through heavy
autumnal rains,
I find shelter
amid tall books:
drying my hands,
I find one, lifting it
down with care from
that high shelf:
prints, depicting
with love, hard
country lives —
sudden tears.
Old Susan
When Susan's work was done she'd sit,
With one fat guttering candle lit,
And window opened wide to win
The sweet night air to enter in;
There, with a thumb to keep her place
She'd read, with stern and wrinkled face,
Her mild eyes gliding very slow
Across the letters to and fro,
While wagged the guttering candle flame
In the wind that through the window came.
And sometimes in the silence she
Would mumble a sentence audibly,
Or shake her head as if to say,
'You silly souls, to act this way!'
And never a sound from night I'd hear,
Unless some far-off cock crowed clear;
Leisure
If I should make no poems any more
There would be rest at least, so let it be;
Time to read books in other tongues and listen
To the long mellow thunder of the sea.
The year will turn for me, I shall delight in
All animals, and some of my own kind,
Sharing with no one but myself the frosty
And half ironic musings of my mind.
Possessions
An old and quiet house set down
A windy field or two from town.
And a great clump of lavender,
All day with cross, small bees astir.
Larkspur, hot-blue as with a sting;
And mint, so brief and sharp a thing.
Tall, well-thumbed books upon a shelf;
A green, white-flowered jug of delf.
Old friends, who from the village walk
On Sunday afternoons, to talk
Of the new shop; the guests from town;
The wind that blew the apples down.
They go; the dusk comes from afar,
Like music blown from out a star.
Those Others drift across the dew;
My early love — and you — and you!
Japanese Hokku 10
Life is history.
Turn not away from the book.
Write on every page!
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: