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Ken Pepiton Aug 30
re reading readily past and present read
read real as a word for what we do
so steadily balancing known on known,
thinking some things at the same instance,
we knew the will to tell, and knew as well
the will to listen, to learn while thinking,

to me
this means that

losing my breath, reaching your reason,
tuning our times to the musical mathematics

all matter is dust, all thought is spirit,
all memory has a price prepaid, the flaw
we may imagine,
maya, Kabir suggests to Rumi, and I ask
might justice mean what Karma does?

The nameless suggester, be it muse, or
some detail in a day so long ago it seems

forever, onward, outward, inward fretting,
lack of knowledge, sublime serpentine bending,

folding, creasing, not snapping in rigged tension,
compliantly bending the knee, image-visualize,
meandering streams of everything,
realize our link to thinking marked taboo.

Discover why secrets are so typical of life,
in bubbles where our sapien relatives live.

All men, wombed or un, catch phrase, me
included, learn in sequence, literally faster
whosoever
than at any time in ever before, we know more,
truth, conscious use of useful knowings shared,

to our advantage, supposing us capable of leading,
while braying mindlessly like a
sotted piper, blues on a fancy Hohner, here we go

asking reception signaling the surfing analogy,
lift us as might those children we see ourselves, once,
imagine turning at the first star on the left, using
Peter Pan, then Peter Principle, from Canada,
Laurence J. Peter, appears in color,
dressed in polyester 70's gear,
as would have looked cool on TV
while McLuhan was doing his thing.

Fit the mind into the hard problem,
let it seem the spiritual force, why

imagine satisfaction while satisfied?
What a man hath, why doth he hope for?

As when Lobsters stack for social duty,
forming hierarchies, certainly,

Delphic precepts urge recalling 1, 2,  3,

know how empty you are, know how small
your little lamp, asking measure mete,

nothing spilled remains thine own, surplus
is for general consumption, evolution taxes

the comprehension of the universal conversation,

we find old rules used to form governable clusters
of us, tabula rosa versions of each of us,
mirroring imaginable completed visions,

like Google Earth, eh,
imagine, we live there, and where we see from
is this imagined plateau in nowhere, really, just
imagine, spell binding,

how newly known is all we know, each time,
the economy collapses and we are left wondering,

was the pile wrong at the bottom, first test of load
bearing Lobster pride for being most useful, calling all

come climb on my back and become the memory,
of original reasons used to do truly childish things.

Roof high stilts was one we succeeded at,
having seen it done, doing it was nothing,
couple of old two by fours, common
artifacts in growing towns out west… nailgun
misfires come to the magnet rescued
from the uncoiled motor
on the old concrete mixer. Grandpa had hammers.

Life with electricity, safe bet, you never had no choice
but to live in a world without power… industrial strength,

but the stacking order adaptations from King of the Hill,
does evolve a kind of specific survival set of reasons,
make do, make things change, to become ladders,
and then stilts, to walk along the Al Can Highway
waving at the tourists on their way to Vegas,
as society evolved around us, hiding wrecking yards,

all the weights in the bag, when balance is primary,
all the weights prove their worth, be it true to fair.

We can think we know less than we must to finish,
but that is maya talking, the cloud of unknowable's
tyrannical kind of order,
attempting to dam the flow…

first king reason, ready to speak up and say, I know.
I know, yes, just
what you mean by too much,
too much
water in your cistern, let it flow down gutters
intelligently placed to slow erosion,
leaving
first pure, mere thought bought by breathing
consistently for seventy five years, attended to
by books that my grandma read as a child,

and my grandchildren read this summer.

Presently passing on the purpose of first and last.
Godin's Practice, a lesson, learned or spurned, whose to judge...
daily musing using magic tools unthinkable except in books, since ever ago,
a good book is one you enjoyed experiencing in your youthful mind.
I recommended Stranger in a Strange Land, got a fair response.
Gauri Aug 29
Oh to drown in the scent of books
And to vividly imagine details in every corner and crook
The musky smell and creaky wooden floor
The cobwebs on bookshelves and the sliding doors
Fingers grazing the hard bookcase
Dust on my fingers from the rims I trace
Echoed footsteps through the room
The letters and dried flowers and the ***** broom
The attic window and ascending stairs
Feather quills on sill and decor pairs
Texts and symbols drafted on vellum pages
As my mind drifted to the little cages
The cages that bore Canary too yellow
That with me gazed at the colors and along grew mellow
D Aug 29
our story ended before it began
so i turn to books
carrying our memories along
i flip the pages
word by word
line by line
eagerly searching for answers
for a way, a solution
anything i'm desperate!

i engulf myself in the characters
a depiction of you and i
you and i
if we were honest
you and i
if we tried and didn't hide
you and i
brought back alive

and when its all over
i am lost again
lonely innocent desperate
waiting...

Oh, how foolish of me

maybe one day
we'll meet again

Oh, how i dread that day

wishing it'll come sooner
until then I'll hold a place
for you in my heart

cos it's you and i

forever in my mind.
MetaVerse Aug 26
Antique
paper
& ink
& glue,
a fragrance
I drink
in through
my nose,
fragrant
like a dead rose.
I fan my face,
& fall into
an antique book aroma coma.
Jill Aug 16
Now plenty of books. Redundant the quill
Queries well-sated; papyrus well-served
Journalist, poet, and dramatist still
Recumbent and smug, securely preserved
Smirk for the camera illustrious friends
Expressions freeze-frame, the genteel applause
Locutions abed, your industry ends
Settled profession contently withdraws
Troublesome confound? Don’t answer yourselves
All is deciphered, on parallel shelves

What innovation now possible here?
Planet post-poet not artist-constrained
Transmitting thinker nor analyst peer
Unburdened truth-sleuths repose addle-brained
Yet further books, birth ideas that birth more
Science yields questions more often than fixes
New voices surface as wave serves the shore
Shapes settled sandbars, produces admixes
Now plenty of books? The only rebuff
Plenty will never be plenty enough
©2024
Bardo Aug 5
Asia was a word that came one Summer as a child
While looking at a huge map of the World spread out in all these amazing colours
And then
Then someone said ...someone said the word Asia... Asia
Was like an enchantment, a magic spell...Asia !

And there was a book of flags
Again so many wonderful colours  
And all these magical sounding names
Arabia, Morocco, Syria, Egypt.....
You'd go off to sleep with lovely turquoise blues and crescent moons dancing around in your head
And the smell of the lilacs in the vase in the window
The world it was so magical, it was so enchanting.

And in our books there were stories of Japan and Genghis Khan... of the Picts in Scotland... and the Romans
And the Great Wall of China...

                        2

Asia was a girl that came smiling one Summer long ago
Out of a book with pictures
A Persian princess, she came in a caravan from the East
Smiling and giggling to herself
Like a mischievous little kitten
In the mirror of her face I saw my own
"My world is fun", she seemed to be saying, "and I want you to come, come and be my Prince, my Prince Charming"
She seemed to be reaching out to me as if for to dance
And with her lovely rosy lips that wanted to kiss mine.

                              3

Asia was a light wind that blew through empty Summer rooms
With the sunbeams coming in through the white lace curtains
And a lonely kid just wandering there
A small boy perplexed.... not knowing
In a world that said it knew
Told to be quiet, that you were small...that you were stupid
Struggling between the beauty and the ugliness of it all.
Asia to a little child. Trying to capture an old feeling from childhood.
Sunset

A Chess Set

Books to Read

Cups of Tea

Music

And a Sea View

For  WHO and ME?

On Mondays!

Ha!

Then WHO will plan the rest of  the Week?

I know!

Take it as it Flows!

Sweet!

(c) Debra Lea Ryan
27/06/2024
☀♥ƸӜƷ✿♬
Communicating to my Sense of Self! Ha!
Why do books smell so good?
I know, I know the chemical truth
But ever wonder if its because the planet approves?
what if mother earth agrees with the use
cut my child down but write wonderful prose
dream a million things and use the pages to be verbose
explain something carefully, like mother nature would
if she could speak, and now she does, through books
I love the smell of books, new and old. What about you?
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               We Can’t Take Our Books with Us When We Die


               Ecce nova facio omnia. Et dixit mihi: Scribe
               quia hic verba fidelissima sunt, et vera.

                                       -Apocalypsis XXI:V


We can’t take our books with us when we die
That reality shouldn’t bother me, but it does:
The copy of The Brothers Karamazov
I carried in Viet-Nam – off to a re-sale shop?

But God is the Word from Whom all blessings flow
And since He is the Word, all our books are His
How foolish of us if we fear that God
Has made no proper arrangements for them

Books are eternal:

Great blessings in paper and ink and page and leaf
For learning and leisure and wisdom and belief
Carlo C Gomez Mar 29
~
Who can circumnavigate Avalon's depository and the palpable swoop down toward earthier terrain?

Yet, here I am.

Where is your gravity taking me, Kahn?

This building is an invitation, and I am humbled in this sense of arrival. The books are stored away from the light. So a man with a book goes to the light, the serenity of light.

And therein lies the hidden meaning.

But you won't let it become just a building; you want it to remain much a ruin; it's all somehow sinister in its celebration.

Occasional distraction is as important in reading as concentration.

And I'm reading between the lines in a corner carrel, looking out at academic crop circles; I grapple with each texture: it's this combination of imposing austerity and weathered familiarity that you seize upon to make your current landscape hospitable.

This building is an instrument, creates a sound in my head akin to music; and this music remains a glowing source of solitude, all driven by a desire to be hidden but sought after—a celebration of all things lost and unnamed.

Here I find closure by opening a book.
~
An ode to architect Louis Kahn's Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire. It is the largest secondary school library in the world.
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