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The cracked spine of a forgotten atlas
welcomed me first—places I'll never walk.
Someone left coffee rings on a physics text,
equations dissolving into brown nebulae.
A child's sticky fingerprints smudged
a dragon's eye in a picture book. Evidence
of other seekers. On page 47 of a war memoir,
a dried violet pressed thin as regret.
The scent of glue and foxed paper rose
like an old friend's embrace. Shelves whispered:
Here lives every sorrow ever survived.
I carried that truth home in my empty hands.
I’m that white rabbit from the book where happily I lived
One day I fell asleep to woke up as a man
It was a room I’ve never seen, then memory retrieved
But was it mine entirely? I couldn’t understand
But anyway, I had to adapt to this refashion
I’m on the move as always, my aim they want to know
Their stupid questions might reveal my well-concealed depression
I loathe this micro-managing who’s who and where we go
They need to know my data, I never needed theirs
Let’s face it nothing in this world depends on poor me
It’s pointless to involve me in political affairs
I’m not a player for those games, nor do I wish to be
This topsy-turvy world could have been less eventful
Less absurdly aggressive, more positive and kind
I’m just a harmless rabbit, and you are flat resentful
You are police, aren’t you, my dearest mankind?
browsing through emails,
and searching for an address,
just by accident
I come across an old friend's
poignant obituary
I was browsing in a book shop today
And a book on the bargain table took my eye straight away
It had lost thirty dollars off the price overnight
You see it had become out of date what a delight
The title made me laugh out aloud
About Australian prime ministers looking back so proud
You see I would think to stay out ahead
This book would have to be published monthly instead!
© Paul Warren Poetry
In a store that sells antiques,
The past is much alive,
Including parts that we’d prefer
Did somehow not survive.
Some creepy dolls and ugly clothes
And jewelry I’d not wear
Forlornly grace the shelves without
Their one-time savoir faire.
But other items bring a smile
Or memory to bear –
A Popeye pin, some Beatles cards
And much Fiestaware.
Three typewriters with all their keys
Sit Royally encased
And lots of kitchen tools I wish
I never had replaced.
I troll the aisles quite aimlessly
For if you want the truth,
The only things I hope to find
Are traces of my youth.
There’s no way I’ll buy another book...
I’ve enough to fill every nook…
But this one looks exciting…
The plot seems riveting…
It has free shipping…
Just stop buying…
Just one more…
No more…
Click!
Women can watch the surf roll in
For hours at a time it seems
Their gaze is locked so far afield
Are they looking inside their dreams?
Or do they feel ancestral tugs
Pulling them into the sea
Like seamen hear the Lorelei
Choir of Catastrophe?
Could it be a lunar cycle
Linked to astrology
Which helps them feel as one with earth
And no need at all for me?
On that laden shelf, perhaps a scratch or two
Yet strong and boasting of times gone by
A piece of yesterday that we can touch
A past gone,but with the present a visible tie
I find a certain longing as I putter about
To know the stories, secrets that they hold
Of men and women whose lives they touched
If these pieces had a voice, what stories told
Remembering the past a musing for a rainy day
As I touch and examine through the afternoon
Perhaps to take an old treasure home with me
And from time to time with the past commune
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