Best Bookstore Poems
A San Francisco Haiku Quartet
Oh San Francisco
Beat poets Ferlinghetti
North Beach was our city
Hushed conversations
Rich coffees and biscotti
Smothered in rich fog
Our French cigarettes
Then under table footsies
Moonlit hills our home
Cable cars singing
Golden Gate from our window
Heaven and stars..ours
{In Memory of Ralph}
May 4, 2020
2:30pm PST
English Haikus
Sitting in the café, of my favorite bookstore,
Writing poetry for my book
I find myself staring at words, close my eyes
And let the words just pass me by.
People walking past me, wonder what I do
I continue writing as if I knew.
They seem to think I concentrate
When all the while I hesitate
I’m looking for some inspiration
Interest and communication
Inspired by some motivation
To help me write with dedication
But all I do is fall asleep.
Picking up my pen at last
Returning to the words that passed
Is what I want to-do
Sitting in the café, of my favorite bookstore,
Writing poetry for my book
I find the inspiration needed
In the words of the poets on the shelves around me
Clay saucer
clay pot
potting soil
striped triangular stone
tiny green bud
tall bamboo stalk
fleshy green leaves
held in place by
patio umbrella crank
sits on latticed
black round wrought iron
table at Bart’s Books
Ojai, California,
quiet, peaceful,
so serene
till a bookstore-hating baby
screams.
As I pass the Bookstore,
I can smell the parchment of opened books.
The colorful covers call me forth.
The stories continuously call my name.
The poetry asks me why I’m not there.
My poems chide me to hurry and sally forth.
Here my need to write attacks my soul.
As passion over whelms my heart,
I scurry home to do my part.
Maybe someday my dreams and talent,
Will tear down the barriers so I too, can display my art.
Written 5-03-2011
In the bookstore; need a gift.
Choices do abound.
Spend an hour in the aisles,
Looking all around.
Hard to tell what would appeal;
The present’s for a baby.
Though his shelves are empty now,
Each book elicits “Maybe.”
So I stand there, skimming through
The shiny cardboard pages,
Wondering if this or that
Will be one that engages.
Finally, I make a choice
As patience starts to dwindle.
All I hope is that as yet,
He doesn’t own a Kindle!
A brown man with a full beard passes
I continue to read.
A young white man--handsome--
stops and sips at the fountain directly my left
An old women, wearing a winter coat with leopard print--wealthy looking--
hobbles by
A middle aged women--indeterminate--
walks slowly by
I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke
I say a quick prayer for her
I continue to read.
If I told you I loved you would it come from a novel?
Creating fantasy on a page of unrealistic thoughts and romance.
Sometimes mere words add no reflection to what sleeps inside...
And to articulate such a memory of love in the middle of uncivilized war I would every day fight tooth and nail for your smile.
But hopeful words do not make you inspiration instead they show your immaturity.
Love isn't created in a bookstore....
Yet every page is more soothing then the most loveliest of lullabies.
Almost like a melody connected to the heart strings of mankind back before he knew of sin.
So pure..
Wish you could read this with me then maybe you wouldn't think my affection for you was silly...
But then again I found you between the lines of society.
And not once have you turned to my page.
Robert Burton-
Paper thin
Frail to the touch
Time passes
It cracks
And rips
Stripped of beauty
Left with age
Dry and worn
Sorrow upon the fingertips
Musty smelling
Spine broken
Missing pages
Wisdom remains
Deep within ink
With each new reader
A new lover
Caressed and full of hope
A new adventure
As the pages turn
Listen for the its breath
And its growing heartbeat
I met Carl Marx in a bookstore
hanging around in the classics, waiting
some casual reader's mind to seduce
his weaver, painter, plowhorse, produce
a strange dream of worker equality
the value of labor, everyman matters,
An oxcart teeters, ideas splatter
into his subtile, beguiling reasoning
I read on, in a dream, this worker paradise
A place where each of our labors have worth
If I study and become a doctor of medicine
I am the same as the welder and the shopkeeper
I felt the burdens of the laborer upon me
I saw his vision of classlessness preside
I wanted to buy that book! but it's silly
I am a capitalist, shamelessly bourgeois..
Bookstore, Musty Galore
Allen's Old Gold Discover,
SecondStory Pages of Glory,
Kelmscott Shelves Soar & Hover,
1st Editions Scarce Recovery,
Fore Edge Paintings Lover,
However It's Cheapo Papery,
Provides a Comfy Nest Plover,
Finding Fresh Author Flesh Scary!
Going Broke Buying A Great Cover,
I'm Not Waiting 'til Old & Hairy,
Grazing Tomes is Similar to Clover,
Diet As Extant Goodreads is Nary!
Please excuse me if occasionally I repeat myself…If these words you’ve heard before…
but if you want a true depiction of what the world is like…go inside any bookstore.
Outside a bookstore there are people under the shadow of religion and politics
pretending they want everyone to be free…
but telling us what books we should read, who we should love
what color or gender we need to be.
Inside our bookstore yesterday I watched a man reading a book to his young son.
He read in English but spoke Spanish to him too…
because when people are blessed to speak two languages…this is often what they do!
But another young boy watching from across the store…through a pair of innocent eyes….
walked up to the man and said, “I don’t speak your language…but I would like to try.”
He said, “I know a little Spanish I can say Hola and Cumpleaños too…”
Do you know what they mean, the young man asked.
The little boy smiled, “I know hola means hello
but as to the other…I haven’t got a clue.”
The boy’s mother joined in their conversation…
and I was blessed with a front row seat…
right there in the bookstore…as I watched two cultures meet.
Outside the bookstore there are people trying to destroy
our uniqueness…our beautiful medley…our diversity…
Inside the bookstore we are happy to welcome and embrace all three
Which makes me wonder…if we could see the world as one vast bookstore
a bookstore without any walls.
where each one of is our own book with our own unique stories
our own chapters large and small…
Then we would all be inside a bookstore….
as it stretches from sea to shining sea….
celebrating each book for it’s beauty and its diversity…
the way our creators meant us to be.
When is a bookstore not a bookstore…certainly we have books galore…
but I think that sometimes it all depends on who comes in the store.
Some people come in for the air-conditioning…some to get out of the rain
Some people only peek their heads in and quickly pull them out again.
There is one women who comes in…an older woman…she always wears a hat.
She sits in a chair near the counter and all she wants to do is chat.
Yesterday a mother carrying her daughter on her shoulder walked into the store
Her daughter quickly smiled then toddled away when her mom set her on the floor.
The days when my children and grandchildren were that small are long ago in the past.
I had forgotten, in the interim, how something that small could move so fast.
Her mother immediately shot me a smile…or was it a look of dread?
“She headed down that aisle.” I pointed. “Toward the children’s section.” I said.
As her mother ran to the back of the store…now fully engrossed in the hunt
I had to smile as her daughter…had already returned to the front.
I heard her mother call her name…in that deep voice of a headmaster…
which only caused her daughter to smile and run away a little faster.
As I watched the daughter play this game and heard her mother’s sighs
I remember back to those sweet days of my own parental exercise.
The mother finally corralled her daughter…(she somehow found a way)
saying, “I don’t think the bookstore was a good idea…we’ll come back another day.”
And again in the interim I had forgotten toddlers are smarter than we think…
because as she waved goodby from her mother’s shoulder…I’m sure I saw her wink!
When is a bookstore not a bookstore?
When it’s a place in which people peek…
When it’s a place to sit and chat a while…
or for a child to play hide and seek.
you read the times
or books on your mind
or do you just look
at the signs
do you seek much more
you no where to go
not the picture show
go tot the
BOOKSTORE.
Looking For Treasure
By R.e. Taylor
I want to go out
Spend the day treasure hunting
No, I don’t need no map
Don’t need no “X” marks the spot
I will find it all on my own
I want to search the backstreets
The alleyways where no one goes
Maybe find an old bookstore
Not one of those mass-market stores
No neon light or organized shelves
I want books on the floor, on pine shelves
And someone who understand books
Their the ones who should be running the place
And I sure don’t want me no Stephen King
No Anne Rice or Dean Coontz
I want me some Douglas Adams, Louis L’Amour
And for sure some Agatha Christie
I will keep looking for that bookstore
Searching day and day for years
I know it’s there
It has to be
I just have to find it.
Working behind the counter of a bookstore I have a chance to look…
to browse among our shelves and find the oldest books
I love the feel of them in my hands, to gently turn their pages and what’s more
I like to think about the paths these books have taken
before coming to rest here inside our store.
The words written on its pages tell a story…that’s well known
but the book has also made a journey and has a story of its own.
The story within the pages of the book is repeated each time the book is sold
but the story about the book itself…forever remains untold..
I recently came upon a book whose story is not yet through…
a tiny pocket-sized book that was given to a soldier in World War II.
(It’s interesting to note since they were small enough fit in pockets and gunny sacks…
these books helped launch the acceptance…and popularity of books in paperback)
It was a little weathered…its pages yellow and tattered by time
and I had to wonder how…from the hands of a soldier in the war
did it find its way to mine.
Did this soldier see much action…was he injured…did he make it out alive?
In the horrors of a war…did this little book help him to survive?
How much time did it spend in Europe?
Was its journey fast…or slow?
How did it find its way back across the ocean?
These are things I’ll never know.
For that is the dichotomy of a book is it not?…
On its pages it reveals its secrets for everyone to see
but the secrets of its journey shall remain a mystery.
So while I am it’s caretaker…
as I wonder about the adventures it has undergone…
I shall do my best to protect her
before she journeys on.