BALLAD OF THE BOOKS
They gather on my shelves like crows
in mocking, gleeful disarray,
and where they come from no-one knows.
At times I make some go away
but more return. These dreadful rows
at which I yell profanity –
they are my friends, they are my foes,
they are my curse, my sanity.
Voluminous dust-specks drift, to close
upon a private realm, where they
accumulate like waves, like snows,
unsortable and all astray . . .
yet where they land up a sun glows.
They are my vice, my vanity,
they are my friends, they are my foes,
they are my curse, my sanity.
The shelves sing a raucous song. Time goes
to bits, space clutters. In dismay
I know the richest things are those
which wreck our ease, turn night to day.
These jewels of poetry and prose,
these seed-beds of humanity,
they are my friends, they are my foes,
they are my curse, my sanity.
Reader of same, do you suppose
they chuckle at our inanity?
They are our friends, they are our foes,
they are our curse, our sanity.
