Sad to see so many books
for want of being read
dying on the library shelf
some look as tho' they're already dead
and to think I could devour them all is fiction
I would be fooling myself instead
I've consumed all the classics Shakespeare complete
but science and mathematics have me completely beat
with all the thought authors put in hate to see it go to waste
can't put a good book down once I've had a taste
the silence of the written word
drink in the view something on which to chew
speaks volumes there's so much to tell
literacy is as the Trojan Horse inside my heart the citadel
don't want to see them fall by the wayside
thrown in the weeds on the seedy side of town
not wanted around
dropped in the dump out of sight out of mind
take a look there's so many books check them out
and oh so little time
I keep my memories on a shelf
Each one a book, a spine, a name
A library of all I've lived
Of all I've felt and seen
Some volumes end too early
Some, stretched across my years
And I pull them out when the night feels empty
Open to a chapter I thought I forgot
Some, I've tried to burn away
They still echo in my ears
Each one, a piece of the plot
Each one, writing me, even now
For every memory, bound in time,
Shapes the soul I know
And the shelf I keep within myself
Lines the spine of each tomorrow
Blood falling
Down
Down
Down
Onto the little glass shard
of my dads broken
shot glass
I don’t know
why I do it.
I never have real answer
when people ask..
“To forget”
“To punish”
“To feel better..”
Those are the most common answers..
But I had a reason that night..
Everything was failing..
My friends
My relationship
My grades
My room was a mess
I kept getting grounded..
That night my uncle was in town
He was my dads friend but him and
my dad were so close they
were blood brothers.
I don’t remember how he found out..
If I told him
If he saw the glass shard
from the shot glass
I can’t remember.
All I remember is him taking it from my hands
And telling me that I was gonna be ok..
“This will go on my shelf”
“It has my blood on it.”
“That’s alright sugar”
“Why on your shelf?”
“To show how far you’ve come from this moment”
“Don’t tell my parents..”
“I won’t.”
That was the first time
I’ve seen him cry.
And when he isn’t here on earth anymore..
Well..
I don’t want to think about that.
To my Uncle Robert.
The crazy old man
I’m happy to have.
“You’re welcome.”
The words ring through my head.
The words I knew were soon to come.
My eyes fill with dread.
I knew he would see through my lies.
I knew that he would talk to my father.
After countless cries,
I seemed to not be bothered.
Nothing can stop me.
The sting makes me feel alive,
It brings me back to reality.
I’ll talk to him,
but it won’t make it better.
The light in my eyes is dim,
I want to beat my head with a hammer.
But alas the night is here,
and I can sit in my room.
It’s so very clear,
it’s so very gloom..
I’ll sit in my ocean of tears,
My silence wonder.
I only want to hear the cheers,
when I’m 6ft under.
“You’re welcome.”
Dusty shelf
still I look up
to where they sit
on a shelf high
collecting dust
once it seems
so long ago
I carried them
everywhere with me
and I did show them
and I was so proud
and in time I learned
no one did care
so there they sit
dreams and ideals
from when I was young
so long ago
still I love them
and them I keep
but now tucked away
collecting dust
Doohickey thought she should wear the crown
Gizmo huffed off in her greenish gown
Dofunny Dingus laughed and got crazy sick
Steam on the What-not-shelf was truly thick.
Dusty Shelf
Dedicated to my Sponsor
In this world are many souls,
Some chase peace and some chase gold.
Some are hurting, some seem fine,
Some break slowly over time.
But we would never get like those,
We frowned upon the life they chose.
Of course we knew they needed help,
Yet left them on a dusty shelf.
We walked past them, ignored their cries,
No one mourned as many died.
There was no hope for these men,
But God would bring it back again.
Those who judged would lose their mind,
For after human, follows kind.
Now they were sat on the shelf,
Far too proud to ask for help.
Yet some of them would soon be well,
They came to terms with how they fell.
And though they could not change the past,
With Gods help, they may just last.
Only those who gave up self,
Made it off that dusty shelf.
Some ran off, but you looked back,
You helped me see the things I lack.
With your patience and your grace,
I have God now, I have faith.
But most of all, to save myself,
I must help others off that shelf.
- KK
1950’s walnut what-knot-shelf
small compartments with tiny doodads
crystal doohickeys and miniature thimbles
variety of teensy ceramic trinkets
displayed in woman’s living room
every mother I knew had one back in the day
1950’s go-to accessory for the modern woman
There once was a bear
Who was loved for his shoes
To a girl he was gifted
Just her cuddly muse
On a once rainy day
With a shelter required
The brolly was shaken
To it's cover retired
Then a browse through the store
With her eyes shining bright
The gloss of his footwear
Caught a beam of the light
A flash and a sparkle
Was all that it took
So a friendship was forged
That no force could unhook
As they travelled together
Through the sun and the rain
Their companionship moulded
By life's tough terrain
So the girl became woman
Then a grandma and such..
The bear became gifted
And was loved, not so much
Then one day, for some reason
His world became dark
In the silence he longed
For the girl and her spark
After years it seemed, waiting
One day it occurred
There was light and a voice
Of encouraging word
"I love him", she said
And he knew it was true
Despite fur slightly flattened
Or less sparkly shoe
He remembered way back
To the dusty old shop
Once that love lives inside you
It's a heart that won't stop
Today was the first day I held
a sledgehammer with intention
Callouses connect palms to fingers
tiny fleshy boa constrictors.
There is no catharsis
I know this to be a hollow act
With a face smithed of iron,
a body lathed with linseed wood,
and a head full of nothing.
No I am not thinking, I am
in fact refusing to do so.
This is an act of refusal
I am choosing childish behavior.
The empty parking lot
execution spot greets
the glass bodied shelf
Which will no longer take
the space of memories it held.
What should be cold and angular
Void of anything aside reflection
is a monument of mourning
a future I shall never know.
Light refracts upon my cones,
my tunneled vision only to show
a mangled miscarriage of the man
I can never grow into with you.
on Tuesday the candy canes danced off the shelf
I almost got run over by a screaming running elf.
Where is the head baker? He asked without apology.
Watch where you are going! I yelped to that arrogant he.
Then I saw something horrific for myself.
Those striped candy canes had all danced off the shelf.
They were doing the tango, and macarena too.
I almost crunched two of them with my left shoe.
Where is Santa? I yelled as I left Candy Cane hall.
Candy canes are going wild, their personalities so tall!
Some of them followed me out the door which I forgot to shut.
Santa chastised me for this, when I finally reached his hut.
Now, I suspect the economics teacher
But he suspects me and
The case goes on into the term
As we gently move
From one story to another
But I've got all the other plays, so they look good
Break time and lunch time
Offer time for time to call witnesses
Or suspects one by one
They file in looking confused and disconcerted
Like ordering a sandwich in a trench coat
Tripping out and seeing floating cheese
I'm trying to engage in a conversation
I'm trying to teach with a blocked ear
Zedonks and why IKEA has no windows
That play's rubbish anyway.
A lot I could say about my bookshelf:
In a way like my half-understood self.
A first-time user should seek my half help
Against a blind book search and its yelp!
Supports the cruel weight of three thousand books:
Fat ones except Camus’ that it brooks,
Golding’s moderate-sized up to ten
And Hemingway’s made to stand like brave men!
Wood that clearly woos the works of laureates,
Notwithstanding, kept spaces for Harriet’s,
Able to secure them from clinched finesse;
Never much in shelf owner’s non meanness…
Shelf that says ‘Yes’ too to Science Fiction
The Best-Sellers for their winsome diction;
War novels that claimed a whole compartment
Some headache to Romance Apartment…
Then, Travels and Autobiographies:
Fine ones picturing Great Lives like trophies;
Frame that made sure it quartered the classic
For to have not done so the Quite Sick…
The flawless apt I want to often lick
And side-talks suppress in South Africa’s click;
The brownish shelf as tall as Hulk Hogan
Had my body organs joined as organ.
It hurts to note one's congrat has been ignored.
He later wakes up, who has long snored.
Fresh call for fresh congrat fingers are bored;
The pain from previous neglect had hit cord!
My Apology: Admiring Reader.
Don't quit your labour of being my feeder,
I love you only less than my late mum,
Last child still dealing with the toughest gum
And guess: Your guy is ever The Restless:
Gemini! To whom long rest is tasteless
For every hour, it's been Blue Biro;
Getting to a year I last used mirror.
Yep! All the days hardly I see myself:
Ten weeks now I last cleaned dusty shelf;
Much of a busy man, health not a help
And, trust me, staff delayed pay means a yelp.
Sandlewood oils weirded the the room
a curtain rubbed with the oils
would be used during the concert to
fill the room with the scents as the
Bassoons of moring played with
the Strings of Night.
The Brass of evening glared as
as the electric band grooved
to make each sound bounce
and move together.
I heard one guy decribe the sound as
six bassoons tied together
with chello strings with a snare
in the middle, and three gitars
over head, a bass, blues and metal.
with electric drums and , the snare,
and kettles.
enough sung.
enough sound.
enough said!
During the show, she'd open the window
and let the curtains blow in the wind
sending in
the saddlewood oil scent across the room.
She Made interest in my land, we married months
after. Folk had interest in whether I was the father
of the child that we so dilagently married to make ours.
Eithyer she was to tired of being afraid,
or being mean to make others tire of her. But he loves her,
might someone else be willing to meddle. That those who
make pretend they love him
might want to see them part!
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