I have a higher shelf a pinacle that
seems empty , barren,
one made of mahogany over the ones
holding copies of Shelley, now unbound,
stocked with mementos and keepsakes
made of pine but servicable
upholding my precious things
carefully sturdy ,
to the left , a tad dusty, leaning on the
copy of Michelangelo's David bookend,
is  "In Search of Lost Time" gathering,
well, dust , now,
next to, with my fingerprints
outlining the title ,
on a timeworn cover, leans,
"Tom Sawyer" ; I can see a cane pole
figuratively jutting out from
the shelf. Above on the second shelf from the top
sits a rock, just a plain river worn smooth
everyday rock, that to anyone else would be
nothing, but, to me it is more precious than gold of the same size.
I collect special things.
And the top mahogany shelf
is empty
reserved for only vivid
memories
of
Grandma  
of that girl long ago
of when my children arrived on this earth
of a smile
from all the women I have known
also, although, invisible
only worthy for that shiny shelf are the hearts and souls
of the best people ever.
And when you visit, think again, about an
ordinary smooth rock,
and an empty mahogany
shelf.
A rock or an empty shelf
can be more
than it seems.

I used to be a golfer once
But, now I am a hack
I swing around a waist of jello
I only play the middle tees
I used to play the back
I only use ***** that are yellow

My game is up on the shelf
I don't know why
And I only play golf by myself
It's no lie
I wish I still could play, I wish that I could play
I wish that I could play, someone else

I used to have a short game once
I used be real good
(Where do you think you might have lost it?)
I used to have no fear at all
I knew all that I should
(Is it with your sand wedge, where you tossed it?)

My game is up on the shelf
I don't know why
And I only play golf by myself
It's no lie
I wish I still could play, I wish that I could play
I wish that I could play, someone else

I used to split the fairways boys
I used to sink the putts
(What ever happened to the feeling?)
I can't hit a **** fairway now
I only hit wide cuts
(It's enough to send my mindset reeling)

My game is up on the shelf
I don't know why
And I only play golf by myself
It's no lie
I wish I still could play, I wish that I could play
I wish that I could play, someone else

Now, I am afraid most days
I can't hit it off the ground
I only hit well when I drink some
I know each tree out on our course
I know the ball hits tree bark sound
I only play good when I've got ***

My game is up on the shelf
I don't know why
And I only play golf by myself
It's no lie
I wish I still could play, I wish that I could play
I wish that I could play, someone else

I used to be a golfer once
I wish I still could play
I wish so hard for that sweet feeling
I once was good
But not today
If I could find Diablo, I'd be dealing

But, my game is up on the shelf
And it's funny
How, I play only by myself
No money
I wish that I could play
I wish that I could play
I wish that I could play like myself

Most of the time I fear I'm just a fool for you
And that you are my favorite
And maybe I'm just your favorite doll
You can play with me whenever you want, then put me on the shelf to collect dust because you know I'll be right here when you want me again
Sometimes it's hours
Sometimes it's weeks
But on the shelf I sit, eagerly waiting for you return
Nothing brightens me up more then when you come back
Even when you make me angry I want you around
I want you around even when you make me sad
And the only sense of that I can make is that I am more miserable without you
And there are times that you never put me back on the shelf
You make me feel so needed
You play with my hair and ask me about my day
You let me be myself
Even when I'm not so pretty
And it's all so overwhelming, how could I ever walk away?
How could the restless moments waiting for you overrule all those moments of happiness?
All your words can't be lies
All your feelings can't be fake
So why do you always leave?
Why do you always have to find another doll?
And why does she seem to get the better parts of you, when I accept all the worst parts of you?
Even on the days I sit lifeless, tears silently falling down my cheeks
Why am I not enough?
What more could I give to be enough?
The only doll you want around?
I know when you go, you're always going to come back
But, it's getting harder to always bare a smile when there's so much hurt inside
I can't walk away
I've tried
I don't want to be the one who always sits on this shelf
I want to mean more
I want you to feel a pang from my absence
I want what I want to matter
I want this shelf to burn down into the ground
So when the smoke clears you realize you don't have anywhere to just leave me
That maybe I never belonged on the shelf in the first place
I want you to see, I'm the doll worth keeping
I want to see I'm not just your fool
Playing a part that'll never just be mine
Or I need you to just say what I dread
That I am just your favorite fool
And a place on your shelf is all I'm ever going to have

it’s not everyday you get to end a 7 year psychosis
when redecorating your room to it’s “original” crimson,
having had such a simple symptom as
brain cell membranes breaking and oozing blood out,
to be misdiagnosed as mentally insane,
and when in need of help from the haemorrhage
not driven to the hospital due to the lack of *******
of having proceeded with the deed but forgetting the onslaught of law
in favour of the hurt party... well...what can you do?
move on, as i’m trying, had it been naturally based
on genetic chronology / genealogy i would have suffered in vain...
but i’m brimming with a hate for islam, and there’s nothing
to do but calm the quasi-communist protestors
in the western lands... ******* calm down... you’ll get
your freedom of speech... once you stop trying to censor vocabulary...
there’s no point learning a language if it becomes
politicised and you tell me to block vowels or consonants
in a non-kabbalistic way (which i’ll come to):
so yeah, a 7 year psychosis over a needle in a haystack...
gives me the shivers...
the many times i thought about killing someone
and feeding the emotions with not doing the act...
so many times i was almost skeletally biased to churn the
marrow haemoglobin into tendon stressor action of taking
the knife and doing halal or kosher with someone...
many a times...as many a times i saw crucifixions in edinburgh
not knowing it was going to happen in syria,
and that night when a muslim tried to mug me
in brick lane breaking down in the street of revellers
kneeling in tears screaming a prayer with tears in my eyes
of only one word: allah.
so i started redecorating my room, crimson is back from
hospital white... my bookshelf is rearranged...
on the left on the top shelf fictional books i either read
or didn’t bother to read because of the movies...
to the right on the shelf psychiatric and philosophical books...
the next shelf is a poetry “corner,” well it elongates beyond the corner...
and it’s split by a dictionary with the right bit of the shelf filled
with english poetry and some literature that’s poetic, and french,
the dictionary is planted to segregate the poetry books,
to the left of the dictionary is a book of greek myths
(did you know all greek theology is derived from the new testament
and not from the testament of orpheus or hercules or Perseus?),
then a book on meditative kabblah... then polish books of poetry.
so i rearranged the room, but i also lodged
an essayist’s book on melancholia, a book on depression
a book on an intro. to jung and a book on
schizophrenia lodged between these massive collections:
to the left all the art books... to the right all the books concerning chemistry...
so the books in between can’t really be seen.
as of today i woke with a p.s. from dreams, or a p.s. in dreams,
i woke and imagined myself talking to my mother
about the identity of al-dajjal... the false messiah,
within the conscious realm i just said the words out of the window:
fool you fool me, when mecca / medina become west of paris / london,
i’ll accept riyadh to be east of tehran / new delhi...
then we'll marginalise plateau east with copernican east
via the stars, and wander aimlessly trying to copper-fill
the sun at sunset...
he (muhammad) said the man would be of his nation,
and he said so with a warning...
but ibn saud got away weighing in at 160kg, diabetic and a brawler
with the stomach, the decadent of all that choose either sugary decadence
or some other form of mental instability in the chosen trade of stolen organs.
me? i keep my sanity with the tetragrammaton, cipher this:
this numerology *******, and it is ******* will not do...
enter platonic forms:
y is so so much more than just 25...
what will you see through y with the number 25?
what? nothing, dry brute that i am...
Y represent 3 dimensional space...
the first h is not important given the second h... which is deja vu,
which is less than what malachi insisted with the fractioned god of
the fractioned “elijah” reincarnated...
deja vu can be explained with science as one of the brain’s tricks
to sense this familiarity of seeing an elephant and acknowledging
the five blind men touching it up for comparative jokes,
the W... well... at least it’s not M... given that the trigonometric cosine continuum
begins at 1.... god is one... ring a bell? well better that than
beginning with the trigonometric sine continuum, which begins with 0...
forget numerology... numbers and letters aren’t related...
forget the dogmatism of rabbis - it makes no sense to say a = 1, b = 2 etc.
and then take a word like ape, and say: ‘ah, a = 1, p = 16 and e = 5; by god!
that’s a kabbalistic synonymity of the word... pea!’
where’s the jolly green giant when you need him, eh?
just look at what a phonetic symbol represents...
like secondary darwinism of a primate hissing to alert the presence
of a snake... past darwinism... past drawing antelopes
in french caves... in the realm of abstract phoneticism that
gave us the cognitive genesis... and made as... dare i say... a bit myopic
in a solipsistic sense.
p.s. ah... what are the newspapers saying?
slapstick humour is one of the prime causes of dementia? huh?!
yes, prime minister... is satire comedy?
how the hell can yes, prime minister be categorised as satire
if it uses canned laughter?
see that bloke over there... doing the omnivore pelican dance?
he joked so readily and active that he created authentic laughter...
don’t know where your satire is going... but it certainly left me gagging
for a springroll.
now now... absurdist comedy is too oxbridge for me...
kings and gentlemen get educated in either st. andrew’s or edinburgh...
we laugh at ourselves.
alt. to canned laughter, given that "canned laughter"
is reserved for the authentic laughter of the crowd
at a live show? what's the antonym of canned laughter
in televised satire? picky laughter... i.e. only one person
in an schoolroom of 30 gets the joke, apart from the comedian...
that lonely everest ha ha... ooh chills, frozen prawns in gravy.

Oh, pull me from the shelf
And riffle through my pages
Read my words
Caress my spine
I haven't been touched in ages

Oh, pull me from the shelf
And take me out for tea
Sip your cup
Forget the world
It'll be cozy, just you and me

Oh, pull me from the shelf
And let's go to the beach
Set me down
Bask in the sun
Just keep me in arm's reach

Oh, pull me from the shelf
And take me up to bed
Close your eyes
I'll tell a tale
And let dreams dance through your head

I feel like a child's favorite toy.
The one thrown against a wall pretending it can fly.
The one whose button is pushed over and over to hear it's sound,
Until it can't talk anymore, hardly able to make a sound.
The toy cuddled and smashed under their small body every night.
"Protecting" them from the monsters under the bed.
The favorite toy they hold by the arm,
They drag it behind them wearing it out until the arm may fall off.
The one that is *****, but you can tell it was loved.
The toy that sits alone on a shelf for years on end.
Who collects dust untouched because the child has grown.
The one who has no purpose but to make people smile.
The toy that is so used and abused they say it has "character".
The toy no new child wants because it to worn.
They don't want it for it can't last much longer.
It needs new batteries, and a trip through the wash.
It needs to be stitched up in more places than one.
The toy that no longer has a purpose,
But that only makes it need more love.
Someone to love itself.
But who could love something so worn and mangled.
So it sits alone on that shelf.
Collecting dust, unseen, unrecognized.
I am that toy.
The one with no purpose.
The one on the shelf.
Unseen, unrecognized, unloved.

the shelf in the corner
of my room
comes to life and starts to loom
it slides the halls...and scratches the walls
it looks for life....and breaks my *****
it lives it breathes..it talks to itself
it killed my cat...and nearly my wife
my shelf at night it comes to life
i want to end this terrible sight
it goes back to sleep at the first daylight
this shelf of mine...that looms at night
it makes the noises...it gives me fright
i want to live...i want to fight
this shelf of mine is now for sale
i hope it leaves
i can not fail
please someone buy this beautiful gem
before it takes my mind again.......

My uncle lived in a big old house
At the end of Mayfair Drive,
With thirteen rooms and a library,
Whilst he was still alive.
But he jumped one day from the second floor
And he hit the ground so hard
That his blood spread out like a pair of horns,
There in his own front yard.

We didn’t know why he had to jump,
It wasn’t a lack of cash,
His health was good, but before he jumped
He’d broken out in a rash,
The maid had brought him his morning tea
Had watched him put back a book,
Up on the topmost shelf it went
And he’d said to her, ‘Don’t look!’

The rash spread quickly under his arms
With pustules down in the groin,
The doctor said at the autopsy
That one was shaped like a coin.
‘You’d swear that there was a devil’s head
Imprinted there in his blood,
I’ve never seen anything like it since
And I hope that I never should.’

But my father moved us into the house
Now, with his brother gone,
He locked us out of the library
But went in there on his own.
There were shelves and shelves of books in there
And one on the topmost shelf,
The maid had whispered, ‘You’d best beware!’
But he took it down himself.

I noticed he wore his patent gloves
Whenever he went in there,
I peeped in through a crack in the door
And saw him stand on a chair,
The book was old, had a mouldy look
For the leather was turning green,
It looked like a fungus, taken root,
And the whole thing looked unclean.

As days went by I began to hear
Some babble behind the door,
And incense came in a steady stream
Out from a crack by the floor,
My father didn’t come out for meals
His voice was becoming hoarse,
He’d take a tray at about midday
But never a second course.

The maid resigned on the first of June
She said that she saw his face,
Was shivering uncontrollably
And muttering, ‘Loss of grace!’
The cook took both of us under her wing
And swore that she’d see us fed,
But wouldn’t come out of her tiny room
At dusk, she’d ‘rather be dead!’

The fire broke out in the library
On a Sunday, after Mass,
I caught a glimpse of my father then,
His face was as green as grass,
The shelves and the books had grown a mould
And it spread all over the floor,
I knew I had to get out of there
And ran right out of the door.

My father leapt from the window then
Came crashing down in the drive,
I knew before I got close to him
He couldn’t have been alive.
Two horns spread out from the place his head
Had crumpled into the ground,
But these were horns of a green fungi
Like the book on the shelf he’d found.

They quarantined us around that house
And came with chemical sprays,
‘This fungus seems to be hard to ****,
It’s going to take us days!’
They checked the wreck of the library,
I even went in myself,
With everything burnt to a crisp, still lay
A book on the topmost shelf!

David Lewis Paget