Beneath the Covers
Books are cemeteries where old thoughts go to die—
landscapes of words spread out under a variegated sky.
Bright children might discover them ‘neath covers in the night,
searching for new universes where the erudite
join them undercover to whisper down through time:
literature, history, philosopy and rhyme
Prompt words for the day are variegated skies, bite, erudite, bright and cemetery. Image by Klim Sergeev on Unsplash.
Write a “tion” poem? Okay, hold onto your hat!
Exhortation
Discussing a good book can improve any conversation,
while other books just serve us as a means of rumination.
Books come in many forms from poetry to exhortation.
Some use them to improve their minds, others as decoration.
Books furnish everyone a chance to get an education
as writers entertain us and provide elucidation.
Ghost stories and horror books give rise to palpitation.
Action and adventure lead to heights of exultation.
Comics lead to laughter and beyond—to jubilation.
Histories tell tales of conquerors and usurpation—
deprivation due to wars, like bombing raids and rations,
slaughter, mayhem, battle strategies and amputations.
Some books furnish thrills while some serve only as sedation.
Some books read as sermons, others bombastic oration.
Preachers read from Bibles to provide their congregation
with words that furnish some with hope, others with trepidation.
Some dread books they feel may raise their “lessers” to their station.
Some fear the joy they rouse in us and label our elation
as the hands of Satan, which they’ll cure with amputation,
labeling their action as an act of “God’s creation.”
Driven to destroy the means of all our excitation,
having few words of their own, a zealot’s main “quotation”
is burning books they fear in a colossal conflagration
that gives another meaning to the word “illumination!”
Whatever you might like to read, a certain exultation
waits for you when reading is your favorite vocation.
A torrid romance may work best while on a beach vacation,
(the heat a good excuse for your excessive perspiration.)
Mysteries serve for planes and trains—all forms of transportation—
either while you’re riding or just waiting in the station.
Books are everywhere. They form a great accumulation.
They bore us, reassure us, or provide great inspiration.
Information in most books serves as a vaccination
against hate and bigotry and all discrimination.
For those trapped by fate, they make a good means of migration,
as reading has no borders as to neighborhood or nation.
Free
The lady was omnilegent (which means she was well-read.)
She read while doing dishes, after her kids were fed.
A book propped in the laundry, another on the tub,
balanced there precariously as she had her scrub.
The draconian measures her spouse took to confine her
were fruitless for she did not choose his attempts to define her.
Reading was her gateway to a wider world
and all those intense pleasures waiting to be unfurled.
She held fast to a firm resolve that one day she’d be free.
Her husband could not curtail her mental liberty.
One day when the kids were raised, she’d leave this sunless hollow.
All the words she’d read for years like breadcrumbs she would follow.
Prompt words for today are draconian, uncertain, omnilegent, intense and gateway.
Books
The fresh bookstore smell of them,
bending the pages to crack the spine,
notes scribbled in the margins,
underlines,
hearts with initials on the flyleaf,
something to loan or to wrap for a gift,
something propped up on the bathtub edge,
its paper sprinkled with drops-—
pages wrinkled into a Braille memory—
that rainstorm run through,
how he put it in his back pocket.
Poetry touched by fingers.
Single words met by lips.
Words pored over by candlelight or flashlight
in a sleeping bag or in a hut with no electricity.
Books pushed into backpacks
and under table legs for leveling.
Paper that soaked up
the oil from fingers
of the reader
consuming popcorn
or chocolate chip cookies
in lieu of the romance on the pages—
finger food served with brain food.
Passions wrapped in paper and ink—
the allure of a book and the tactile comfort.
The soul of a book you could touch, fold, bend.
Books are the gravestones of trees
but also the journals of our hearts.
Cities of words,
boards and bricks of letters,
insulated by hard covers or the curling skins
of paperbacks.
Something solid to transfer the dreams
of one person to another in a concrete telepathy
of fingers and eyes.
Books are the roads we build between us,
solid and substantial—
their paper the roadbed,
the words the center lines directing us.
What will fill the bookcases of a modern world?
Wikipedia replacing dictionaries,
Google already an invisible bank of Encyclopaedia Britannicas.
What will we use our boards and bricks for,
if not to hold up whole tenements of books?
How will we furnish our walls?
What will boys carry to school for girls?
What will we balance on heads
to practice walking with perfect posture?
What will we throw in the direction of the horrible pun?
Will there be graveyards for books, or cities built of them?
Quaint materials for easy chairs or headboards for beds?
Will we hollow them out for cigar boxes
or grind them up for packing material?
Where do books belong in the era of Kindle and Audible?
These dinosaurs that soon will not produce more eggs.
Perhaps they’ll grow as precious as antiques.
Perhaps the grandchildren of our grandchildren
will ponder how to open them. Will wonder at their quaintness,
collecting them like mustache cups or carnival glass,
wondering about the use of them—as unfathomable as hieroglyphics.
That last book closing its pages—one more obsolete mystery
fueling the curiosity of a bygone era that has vanished
into a wireless universe.
Yes, you are right. These are chairs made out of books.
In response to The Daily Addictions prompt of obsolete Of all the technologies that have gone extinct in your lifetime, which one do you miss the most?
The Daily Addictions prompt is obsolete.
This poem written over two years ago and edited a bit today seems to fulfill the requirements of today’s prompt word. As I look at those who have already read it, I see only a few familiar faces. (Hi, Marilyn) so I’ll risk running it by again. (The prompt word today was mystery.)
Books
The fresh bookstore smell of them,
bending the pages to crack the spine,
notes scribbled in the margins,
underlines,
hearts with initials on the flyleaf,
something to loan or to wrap for a gift,
something propped up on the bathtub edge,
it’s paper sprinkled with drops–
pages wrinkled into a Braille memory–
that rainstorm run through,
how he put it in his back pocket.
Poetry touched by fingers.
Single words met by lips.
Words pored over by candlelight or flashlight
in a sleeping bag or in a hut with no electricity.
Books pushed into backpacks
and under table legs for leveling.
Paper that soaked up
the oil from fingers
of the reader
consuming popcorn
or chocolate chip cookies
in lieu of the romance on the pages–
finger food served with brain food.
Passions wrapped in paper and ink–
the allure of a book and the tactile comfort.
The soul of a…
View original post 311 more words
The prompt word today was controversy. Are Kindle and Audible a blessing or a curse? Will libraries and bookstores become a thing of the past, vanished like scrolls and slates and blackboards? Will technology continue to wed the concrete and the abstract until there is no difference? In looking for one of my photographic images to accompany this prompt, I found this poem written two years ago and decided to reblog myself!
Books
The fresh bookstore smell of them,
bending the pages to crack the spine,
notes scribbled in the margins,
underlines,
hearts with initials on the flyleaf,
something to loan or to wrap for a gift,
something propped up on the bathtub edge,
it’s paper sprinkled with drops–
pages wrinkled into a Braille memory–
that rainstorm run through,
how he put it in his back pocket.
Poetry touched by fingers.
Single words met by lips.
Words pored over by candlelight or flashlight
in a sleeping bag or in a hut with no electricity.
Books pushed into backpacks
and under table legs for leveling.
Paper that soaked up
the oil from fingers
of the reader
consuming popcorn
or chocolate chip cookies
in lieu of the romance on the pages–
finger food served with brain food.
Passions wrapped in paper and ink–
the allure of a book and the tactile comfort.
The soul of a book you could touch, fold, bend.
Books are the gravestones of trees
but also the journals of our hearts.
Cities of words,
boards and bricks of letters,
insulated by hard covers or the curling skins
of paperbacks.
Something solid to transfer the dreams
of one person to another in a concrete telepathy
of fingers and eyes.
Books are the roads we build between us,
solid and substantial–
their paper the roadbed,
the words the center lines directing us.
What will fill the bookcases of a modern world?
Google replacing dictionaries,
Wikipedia already an invisible bank of Encyclopaedia Britannicas.
What will we use our boards and bricks for,
if not to hold up whole tenements of books?
How will we furnish our walls?
What will boys carry to school for girls?
What will we balance on heads
to practice walking with perfect posture?
What will we throw in the direction of the horrible pun?
Will there be graveyards for books, or cities built of them?
Quaint materials for easy chairs or headboards for beds?
Will we hollow them out for cigar boxes
or grind them up for packing material?
Where do books belong in the era of Kindle and Audible?
These dinosaurs that soon will not produce more eggs.
Perhaps they’ll grow as precious as antiques.
Perhaps the grandchildren of our grandchildren
will ponder how to open them. Will wonder at their quaintness,
collecting them like mustache cups or carnival glass,
wondering about the use of them–as unfathomable as hieroglyphics.
That last book closing its pages–one more obsolete mystery
fueling the curiosity of a bygone era that has vanished
into a wireless universe.
So Many Books
I don’t “do” lunch, I don’t do sport.
They’re things to which I don’t resort.
For time just seems to be the stuff
of which I never have enough.
As I grow older, and years grow tight,
I find that I would rather write.
So, much as I might like to look
at a favorite once-read book––
Jane Austen or a Bronte sister––
time after time, I must resist her.
So many books are being written
that when the reading bug has bitten
and I find the time to view one,
inevitably, I choose a new one
The Prompt: Second Time Around–Tell us about a book you can read again and again without getting bored — what is it that speaks to you?https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/second-time-around/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 