1. The Book Lady

She travels with grace

through the caverns of books,

searching for the neglected,

the forgotten, the abandoned,

then slowly, sadly,

she pulls them off the shelves

and places them in the box of fate

destined now either for adoption

or a re-incarnation in some lesser form–

perhaps as paper bags or toilet paper–

what once had been thoughts and poems

and even magical words….

 

2. The Lonely Book

I took a book out of the library,

Where it had stood amongst

Its brethren for 25 years, unused,

unborrowed—I know this because

Its pages were crisp, never bent

By a greedy reader, and were yellow

From time’s effect, a drug that

Ages books as it does readers….

 

Someday I guess all books, both

The virgins and the overly used,

Even abused, will be no more: all

Replaced by sterile zeros & ones,

And my future self will never again

Have the soft pleasure of turning

Crisp pages and feeling tangible

The words of a stranger’s mind.

 

3. WHAT POETRY IS

What poetry is,

is magic

and words appear

and disappear

in profound meaning.

 

What magic is,

is God.

Freud and Moses

both agree,

God is magic

and magical

is our Creator.

He disappears

and then reappears

in meaning

deep as death.

 

What God is,

is creation–

it’s going on

everyday, everywhere.

Think about it.

Explain otherwise

fire and seed.

 

What creation is,

is poetry.

An infant wakes,

thousands perish,

a girl smiles,

wars rage,

a skyscraper grows.

 

All beings themselves

are poems:

bad poems or

beautiful ones,

poems of evil or

poems of holiness,

blank verse or

lyrical rhymes

but all creatures

live poetry.

 

 

What poetry is,

is magic

is creation

is God

is you

is I

is life

is death

is infinity,

and then some….