Best Bookshop Poems

Try leave behind "Book Of The Week"
And head upstairs where floorboards creak.

Where people tilt their heads to look
At every spine on every book.

Where murderers and secret lovers
Plot and scheme between the covers.

Where transport from another age
Transports you to another page.

Where old detective books reside
Each with...

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BANISH ME TO THE BOOKSHOP

Chain me, so I can roam. Lock me away in this bower.
Banish me to the bookshop - i’ll enjoy this affair for hours!

First editions recline behind smudge-proof glass.
Lock-and-key lick of lips, but I can’t afford the brass

ring, the covet of unopened...

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I enter, the smell hits me,
Old oak floors and shelves,
Walking into a labyrinth
Into which I can delve.

I can lose myself for hours,
In each work of art.
From cover sleeve to pages,
They really cheer my heart.

Travel books can take me
To lands across the sea,
Awakening my senses,
Really inspiring...

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Of bookshops I recall at least a few.
They dwell inside my mind, for with my past
they may have got torn down – those spots I knew
back in my state. I doubt that they could last
with competition from the internet.
If they’ve survived, they’re relics now like...

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As I walk down the busy street,                                      ...

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People peering. Printed pastiches....

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neatly bound, so neatly aligned,
glistening blue, in perfect rows,
labelled in gilded gold letters,
wisdom packed many printed books,
from left to right a thousand years,
travel time, flick history pages,
cookery across in next aisle,
vegan diets or gourmet meals,
climb the stairs, if fiction you like,
crime, romance, dreams or adventure,
varnished...

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The ‘classics’ section is not small.
Ranks of tightly printed editions
squeeze a concertina of time.
The glossy acrylic smell of new books
is cordite to my nose,
I dodge a graphic array of explosive masterpieces.

Movies have usurped many of these books
Wikipedia factoids précis lengthy sagas,
Hearsay, and word of mouth
account...

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Mystique of mouthful aisle eats intrepid footsteps
Bespoke brick shelf scrapers muffle internet tweets
Eyes provide sole light source, borers of exploration 
Closed cover modesty encroaches on curiousity 


Timorous piled rectangles least represent symmetry 
Shifted to stained beige paged, folded back scars
Markers of importance boast creased corners...

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Ranks of glossy printed editions
squeezed into a concertina of space.
The acrylic smell of new books
is cordite to my nose.

Then in softer contrast,
the musky ambiance of the old and well-thumbed,
a well used dust on dust-covers.
A tactile nosegay of leather-bound
classics.

Fact or fiction,
all are revelations revealed.
The appeal of...

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millions of words all neatly filed 
silently shouting please try me ,
open my covers escape to my worlds 
i’m so small and neat you should buy me 
here i could browse linger ‘til i drowse
under their awesome power.

but I wonder if at night
when they switch...

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The glossy acrylic smell of new editions
is cordite to my nose,
an explosive mixture of - need to know.
I finger trawl over dust covers
mindreading unread masterpieces.

Movies ransacked many of these novels,
hearsay and word of mouth
account for aisles
of open secrets and
commonly revealed revelations.

I should obtain a dozen...

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