Best Paperbacks Poems
Quote By Author "Dear Writer, Have a blessed day
writing away your beautiful writes to all of the readers."
A writer chooses their words with glory,
their words will tell a story.
Sometimes it will be sad,
many times it will make you glad.
Books and poems come in different sizes,
paperbacks can have cheaper prices.
Reading the words can be beautiful or fun,
especially sitting under the sun.
My hat is off to the writer,
writing must make you feel like a bullfighter.
Finding the right words is not always easy,
other times it can be breezy.
Thank You to the reader,
you are our very best cheerleader.
Driving through a small mining town
Angle parking in front of an old drug store
Memories flashed back to my childhood
Those days are gone forever more
Sitting on a stool at the soda counter
Large cherry coke for a dime
The place had its own kind of smell
A memory lost in time
Hamburger was more than worth the price
With a toasted bun and an onion slice
A metal Coca Cola ad hanging on the wall
For a nickel you could buy a red sponge ball
Fountain soda tasted mighty good
Floor was clean and it was made of wood
Get a prescription filled and something to eat
An ice cream soda was a special treat
They had Squirrel Nut Zippers and Mary Janes
Red hot dollars and candy canes
Good n' Plenty and crackerjacks
Magazines and paperbacks
Baseball cards came with gum inside
The owner flew our flag with pride
I looked to the sky and heard myself say
Lord, I'd trade all I own for yesterday.
Was round about the 60's
And I a budding teen
Was influenced and touched
By a program I had seen
Rod Sterling was the narrator
Of a series quite well known
With weekly visits to a world
Named the "Twilight Zone"
And to this day one episode
The best without debate
Has taught me 'bout the frailty
Of Man against his fate
A short meek man from Queens, New York
Henpecked by his wife
Found his joy in reading books
To assuage a bit his strife
Voracious was his appetite for
Tomes and all that's written
Yet blind without his glasses
He's as docile as a kitten
In the vault under his bank one day
While making a transaction
The world above was subject to
A nuclear reaction!
When he surfaced to the top
To view the mass destruction
He found that only he'd survived
And came to this deduction
No wife! No rules! No one to shriek
Or tell him what to do!
Only stacks and shelves of books
To read, peruse and view
Paperbacks and hardcover
Pamphlets, primers, scrolls
The whole damn New York Library
With him at the controls!
Then as he pictured life
In a world with voices hushed
He bent his head to grab a book
His glasses broke..........................
All crushed.............
Piles upon piles of dust and mold
Gather in a large closet up in the attic,
Where junk of memorabilia resides
Untouched for years as I scan the heap
Of treasures accumulated: a prom's corsage
At 17, shelves of dresses, high-heels that
Tell me now I have grown four sizes larger!
Paperbacks circa 1980, eaten by bugs
from a Literature nerd in grade school...
Journals theater souvenirs looking like
Fossilized antiques from medieval ages,
Along with broken Parker pens and oil
Tubes defying a frustrated artist,
With drawers of lace, beads, threads
As glue guns ( in yellow) stick on interior- design
Folders: then to reach out for music records;
Dollars saved in a jar as a novice in advertising:
Oh the thongs , underwear kept in cedar boxes--
A vision of dates with sleek metro princes,
Discoing on till they turn into wimpy frogs...
How chlorine scent jams my nostrils as I clear
The unwanted pile-- mounds of pile that
Stain my dingy face my hair a rocker's mop.
Die as I flood you with ammonia !
Not the keepsakes...but those stinking fungi!
3/2/2017
Unwanted Guest Contest
Sponsored by Shadow Hamilton
Books line my bookshelves, dog-eared with love.
Hardcovers, paperbacks and a few leather-bounds.
Some classics, some romances and poetry abound.
Rummaging in used bookstores plays out in my mind.
I'm always seeking out those special finds.
I'm drawn to the unique old musty, heartwarming smells,
Especially the leather-bounds marked with old age.
Feeling the crackling pages, seeing ink on faded white.
I've been known to flip through pages and breathe it in.
It's the sensory experience, a connection with the past.
I curl up with words and they curl around me.
Wrapped for rest with a real book in my hand.
It's the actual presence of my most treasured books
That brings the ultimate pleasure than its digital reads.
It is the physicality of a book I believe.
PAPERBACKS AND COKE
Two partners in crime, my love affairs…
Bookmarked pages dumped on my soft bed
An urge to roam among fays and lords,
With visions of despair or triumph
Knowing insomnia is the nemesis;
While Advil cannot comfort night’s plea
A hubris …firing my imagination.
While leafing through chapters, I find relief
From another quirk; an ally so sweet…
Oh,cold fixes of Coke Zero quench
This need to satisfy all day’s thirst,
Eluding water therapy…how bland
How tasteless when hero and villain
Begin a venture of mighty feat;
Jittery, hand reaches for the next soda
As my brain excrete adrenaline…
With paperbacks and Coke at 3 am,
I conquer twilight’s watch, quite drained!
But life is short, my love affairs agree;
Did I include the M&M’s cravings?
For rob carmack, A Vice You Love
11/21/2015
will it pass this way again?
nobody knows because the community
library
has to many paperbacks and the clouds
to many sins.
will twain swirl in the rain?
will steinbeck hit the deck?
will it pass?
will a folk singer from the north play the
harmonica
piss into a gutter and give some simple
remedy?
Now there is baptist marmalade in the
sun.
Now there is rye bread in the oven,
but in a cafe on main street
there is still.....
black coffee.
white porcelain cups.
thick calloused fingers.
all the regulars gathered there just like
every other day.
an old tv flickers over the counter just off
to the left of a
warped mirror that has labor union and
mason stickers
from the early 90s on it.
A pool table lined with blue felt
sports a lively, raucous game,
ivory cracks, the men drink,
shoot the bull while they play.
A humidor lined in fine wood
stocked with Cuban cigars,
a smoking lounge grandiose,
ceiling painted like the stars.
A bar right out of the Wild West
serves beer and old whiskey,
an insurance guy loosing at darts
to a bookworm with a PhD.
A library stocked with real books,
no paperbacks or e-books there,
classics vaunted alongside the
spy novels and western fare.
Gym in the basement, no windows,
where everyone toils and sweats,
a sauna large, and no member
has grown tired of a steam yet.
Upstairs is the banquet hall,
used once a month for feasts,
where steak is served bleeding red,
no concoctions of soy or yeast.
On the third floor, rooms to crash
if you’re visiting from out of town,
or if you’ve drank a bit much,
relax, and lay down you head.
Fixtures in brass and mahogany,
reminders of more elegant times,
side rooms for talking business,
a cellar filled with fine wines...
This is our place, our shelter,
when the world rears and ugly head,
yet at least once a month feminists
show up outside and wish us dead.
They like to shout and chant a lot,
with their one word, ‘patriarchy,’
never seeming to realize
their protests are pure malarkey.
This world had lady-only gyms,
and female-only hair salons,
they never decry that as sexism,
they just go along to get along.
Turn-about must be fair play,
so we made ourselves this place,
what really bothers them about us
is the mere existence of male space.
But this club is a private affair,
so they’re wasting their powers,
they have places where men don’t tread,
so this place, this is ours.
I went to the Frankfurt Book Fair the other day.
It was mind-boggling..
Books! There were fat books, thin books,
White books, black books, tawny books,
Paperbacks, hardbacks, beautifully bound books,
Pure books, lax books, learned books, lay books,
Plain books, books of many colours,
Books on every subject under the sun,
Not to mention other books on
Distant galaxies, pulsars, quasars, black holes,
Books on any theme you can think of,
Or on themes you can’t even pronounce, from:
Art to Arthropods,
Bees to Biochemistry,
Cats to Catastrophes
Drugs to Decadence,
Energy to Ergonomics,
French Cooking to Frescos,
Guns to Gout,
History to Hippopotami,
Internal Medicine to Icebergs,
Julius Caesar to Justification,
Kulturkampf to Kinetics
Lace to Logogriphs,
Man to Manchuria,
Nietzsche to Nonsense Rhymes,
Opera to Ophthalmoscopes,
Poodles to Pollution,
Quantum Mechanics to Queen Victoria,
Russell to Rabbits,
Shaw to Shingles,
Tao to Torts,
Urdu to Ultimatums,
Virgil to Vivisection,
Whales to Witchcraft,
X-rays to Xylographs,
Yoga to Youth Hostels,
Zen to Zola,..
By closing-time my legs were giving out.
A voice, it seemed, was saying:
“Of more than is taught by these, my son, take care.
Of making many books there is no end,
And much study is weariness of the flesh.”
I don’t know about making them, I thought,
As I commenced my get-away from the Penguin stand,
But it takes something of an athlete just to glance at them.
I felt crushed, not only by the crowds
but also by the weight of my appalling ignorance.
I see you hipsters in rustic coffee shops with pictures of Marlyn Monroe and contemporary art,
the girl in all black with a black beret to make her look more avant-garde and red colored hair that was obviously bought from a drugstore. Strolling through the downtown streets wearing swedish backpacks that are a statement piece for impracticality for they are not large enough to hold textbooks but are meant only for small sentiments of music and poetry. Their fishnet stockings that only go up a little past the ankles to be seen out of the tops of Doc Martens shining against the sips of a blue moon witbier brew. Drinking lacroix which in my opinion tastes like a substitute for watered down alka-seltzer or more like sprite without flavor. Listening to their radiohead and pink floyd and nirvana in a fervorous rage against conformity or simply riding a chill wave through the early 2000’s. The boy with his colorful button downs buttoned all the way to the very top- which is somewhat strangulation because I have tried it myself. Where they occupy their bookshelves with paperbacks of Jack kerouac and John Green while looking for Alaska on the road travelling through paper towns. I see you modern day rebels wearing your frown with a fedora or newsboy cap which never looks as good as you think they might because newsboys no longer exist like that. Beanies that hang off the back of your heads while you wait in line for your frappuccino to condense. Hanging from the ceiling are small cactuses and crystals among bouquets of dried roses and daisies. Flowers and succulents are to be cherished like baby from dirty dancing who never gets put in the corner along with the Buddha and Billie Eilish although no one ever really went through with the eightfold path because it took too damn long and besides Kurt kobain turned out to be a saint anyway.
old novel with the author you
cant quite remember.
we can worry about it later
just like in the old days.
now tealeaf stimuli is twice as light in the city.
the somewhat unfriendly cat in the
bookstore on the corner seems disinterested.
watching a woman on the sidewalk
holding a wet paper grocery bag,
her arms wrapped around the bottom.
the bag is falling apart and the clouds are rolling
backwards.
it will be dark soon.
we are falling apart and talking about heading
south into the high desert.
we pass the time by reading paperbacks that have
been soaked in mineral oil for days and
hardened under the sun.
Some call it scripture.
we feel holy and then a little less holy.
your heavy sweater purchased at
a thrift store, the faint smell of mothballs
still lingering on the thick threads.
the cat has taken an interest in
your side pocket pulling with its claws and mouth.
soon the rain will cough up the paperbacks as well,
everything will change.
hood covered lutherns wear their naratives
under a furrow of clouds.
their earmuffed headphones filled with lukewarm
monotones from garrison kiellor.
they discuss the northern progressive aesthetic and
of what it means to 'feel minnesotan'.
gathering together in an east wind they descend
down along icy tundra's to form weavers guilds in
the grass.
they read faulkner and hawthorne paperbacks
talking a little less nonsense than most.
where strong coffee meets warn out floor mats
a hand radio with a little static and a little oscillating
magnetic current searches through the snow driven
clouds for warmth and reason.
The book sale happens once a year;
I stock up when I go.
The choices wait in boxes,
Alphabetically, by row.
I search for larger paperbacks
(The ones considered "trade"),
Although they cost as much
As all the hardbacks there displayed.
My son says, "Get a Kindle"
But I love a book in hand,
A feeling that I know that many
Others understand.
Today they had the book sale
And I carted off my treasures,
So now I have the reads I need
For many summer pleasures.
Summer meant playing with cousins
Until the fireflies started to dance and glide
Soaring just beyond our small hands
And, then, sometimes reaching the end
Of a journey inside a Mason jar
Summer meant riding with the window down
In a gold Ford that was dented
Rusting and not too pretty, but sufficient
For rides through a small town
Where the square held a courthouse
Library, hardware store, barber shop
And so much more that I couldn’t see
Beneath the curly lashes that edged
My bright blue eyes
Summer meant dirt and dreams
Little things like laughter and happiness
Whispers into ears who listened
With a head held down for attention
To the details that were voiced
On the other end of vibrant emotions
Summer meant Granny’s cornfield beans
Fried okra and crooked neck squash
Delicious yellow cornbread and glasses
Of cold milk from the fridge
Where all the leftovers hung out in
Emptied butter and cool whip containers
Summer meant sunshine and laughter
Music that lasted through the night
And happiness floating
On the voices of kindness and hugs
That came from hearts
Who were so alive they actually
Breathed love from their blue veins
Summer meant ideas that were new
Fresh and moist as the dewdrop morning
Clinging to the dreams that smiled
Through thoughts of paperbacks and words
That gripped my young mind
Winding their way through my thoughts
Until I knew that all I wanted to hear
Were the miracles and fantasies
That came alive for me
Beneath the pen of some author
I knew must have hung the moon
With their brilliance and imagination
Summer bee stings and daydreams
Lifted my heart to new heights
And taught me about believing in the love
That grew surer and wiser
With the passage of each summer sun
A Meaningful poem poetry contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France
March 24, 2021
14th of February a day dedicated to love for centuries
A day shared across nations and countries
For so long this day held no significance
For what seemed like forever until you came along and made a difference
You became the roses I wished I would receive
You became the Chocolate kisses I would move mountains to retrieve
You became every love letter I hoped would be for me
You became the message in a bottle while I was lost at sea
I believe it was for love like ours that a man gave up his life
If we lived in the 1970’s I would plead the mater for love to pronounce you my wife
A love so rare and ravishing it should be written in the paperbacks of Ballantine
14th of February a day I devote to you, be my forever Valentine