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I collect unwanted library books,
the unread and withdrawn.

Volumes never admitted
to a boudoir on winter evenings.

Never a companion to anyone
on long country walks.

Never a subject for meditation.
No recitation of favorite lines.

No social life.
The party invitation bungled.

Drab, no circulation.
Scorned books, the forgotten.

The useless and overlooked.
Passed over, passed by.

Discarded bundles.
Are you forsaken, like me?



*Edward Bulwer-Lytton:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

I like how the books become the metaphor for us workshoppers and such, 'the unread and withdrawn'...

No social life.
The party invitation bungled.

The humor is terrific.

The books are foresaken and forgotten.

The useless and overlooked.
Passed over, passed by.

Discarded bundles.
Are you forsaken, like me?

These lines speak volumes.

Enjoyed the humour and the regret.

Meena

Clever.

Love the metaphor in this one, Bernie. A humorous piece - I enjoyed.

Eira

Too much humor to admit to sad or distraught - really an amusing extended mataphor on reader, written, and writer.
And the humor begins by borrowing - keying off Bulwer-Lytton.

Volumes never admitted
to a boudoir on winter evenings.

Drab, no circulation.
Scorned books, the forgotten.

Discarded bundles.
Are you forsaken, like me?

My favorite couplets - enjoyed - RC

I am around your age Bernie, so I could have written this,
but I didn't.

The books and what happens to them and what
doesn't happen to them a metaphor for the man's (N's) life.

A sad man, a forsaken man.

Oh dear how often we feel discarded and forsaken
but then someone comes into our life and everything
changes for the better.

Like a poet recently posted that a change of place changed
her life from darkness into light.

I hope this forum is going to be be like that
a place where poets freshen up and get writing again.

Loved the epigraph.

Very well done.

Frank Dire

 
Hi Bernie,

I believe 2 American literary legends - Edgar & Emily - are admiring your subject, metaphor & wry humor (See below)
 

I also heard these phrases - maybe there is a home for them in the poem (not necessarily)

never checked out

wallflower reads

shelved

a wallflower : a shelf-flower

never opened-up - waiting to be opened and plunged

unbury the book - open it up - like desecrating a forgotten or forbidden grave - opening old wounds
^^ censoring comes to mind with that metaphor

let dead dogs lie, but books aren't dead dogs - howl howl at the discarding of a book


btw, as I understand it, books that don't get checked out, don't circulate, get sold at the library bookstore/book sale.


I found most resonant the play on "no circulation" - b/c I believe books are alive via reading & discussing
they need human intervention - reading a book is like messaging it to life.



the poem also gets me to wonder:

if a tree falls in the wood and no one is there, is it heard
if a book is never opened & read, is it heard


resuscitating the classics
like Lazarus come forth



Michael (MV)

 
"Alone"   by Edgar Allan Poe   written in 1929, but not published - and probably not much read - until 1875
(the ever-ironic Poe, an icon among icons - anything but alone)
 
 From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common spring —
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone —
Then — in my childhood — in the dawn
Of a most stormy life — was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still —
From the torrent, or the fountain —
From the red cliff of the mountain —
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold —
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by —
From the thunder, and the storm —
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view —
 
&&&
 
according to Emily Dickinson - the domesticated literary lion

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears a Human soul.

 
 ^^ Amen
 
 
 
  

 
 
  
 
 
 
 

Thanks guys---

Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!


bernie