you've become books on shelves
though your bones are long gone
and the learned ones of this age
yawn, skim yours thoughts
As your followers
attempt to play the Frankenstein
and fleshen your words
as though you were there -
reading to them your wit
and your wisdom...

And here I sit,
among the rows
facing the stacks,
writing a poem
about poems
and swimming
among the titles
before my eyes,
wondering if
I should pause
and pull
any book
and briefly,
for a moment,
be captured
by the momentum
of a poet
and their attempts
to relieve
the boredom as I
go among the rows
and stand before
the stacks

book covers

As they say and
continue to do so
"judge not a book
by its cover"

but

I am captivated
rather by
the titles that
hook themselves
into the flesh
of my brain,
causing at times
to lift my
right hand to
the spine while
the left hand
slaps it and say
"get back to work"

a prose painting of a moment

Cranberries in hand
I stand upon
the stool
And survey the
faces of my domain,
faces that have been
translated into print
with eyes that
never blink yet
read the reader
leaving imprints
of self upon their
fleshy minds

(causing these victims
to translate more faces
into worded pictures)