Packing Up My Library

Condemned by books I haven’t read
To read forever. Life is fear
Of never having enough time
To grasp it, hold it, keep it near.

The books I’ve read I’ve stashed away
In storage boxes in my mind;
I’ll save them for a rainy day
When I am old, infirm and blind.

The continents I’ve mapped today
You will not find on any map;
I am their king and sovereign lord,
The starving infant in their lap.

The box lies open on the floor,
My nostrils swollen from the dust
Of a lifetime bound and glued, compact
Yet boundless as my wanderlust.

Marc Alan Di Martino

3 Responses to “Packing Up My Library”


  1. 1 myversion November 28, 2007 at 9:09 am

    ….and books still cry in the boxes!!!
    Good Luck
    Martha http://myversion.wordpress.com

  2. 2 Lenore November 28, 2007 at 5:53 pm

    Each unread book is a promise; every read on is part of the molecules of your mind, however deeply embedded.

    Like it. Arrange them according to color, why not?

  3. 3 uspoetsabroad November 29, 2007 at 7:02 am

    Arranged according to color? Did you read this soemwhere in the poem? Bad idea! You’d never find a thing that way…Thanks Lenore!

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Contrasting Views

"Literalism is a feature of boorish translators." Cicero "The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase." Nabokov

Introspectivist Manifesto, 1920

"In an introspective manner means that the poet must really listen to his inner voice, observe his internal panorama--kaleidescopic, contradictory, unclear or confused as it may be."

Sigmund Freud

"Everywhere I go, I find a poet has been there before me."

 

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