***
armed gleeful with bag of books to sell
but oh so coyly, gingerly they decline
to buy, (say hushed like evening streets):
they are too marked, soiled not by
anxious reaping pen, (slashing here a jot of joy and
loop of oh so blissful
opening eyes there)
but less altruistic
are these markings, olfactory
remnants of
a jealous cat
impossible to remove
the scent
from pages untouched unread unused
(sad that another
will not get the chance
to see their trues and falses
to rake and pile up their olden golden leaves)
for paper only dissolves
in washing water
***
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Cats are evil. (not only evil like some Calvinist observer of felines might assert, but nevertheless stained in the Fall somehow)
And soiled books are a true tragedy to be sure.
This is a good poem. At first seems to be a farce but when you really reflect on it there is the stuff of real pathos in this subject.
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Thank you. When i first set out it was intended to be simply black humor, cathartic sarcasm, and this poem began as a haiku. But the thought of simply throwing books in the garbage made me feel somehow fascist, and merited more tribute than a sardonic quip. It made me feel genuinely sad, in fact. So the poem developed along with my own understanding of my sentiment. i am truly glad that, if nothing else, it was honest.
P.S. i would not be in the least surprised to find that cats were secretly watching us all, and were the true rulers of the planet, much as the Niblonians were in Futurama. That does not absolve them, however, of being evil.
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Additionally, i remember now expressly attempting to use the soiled books as symbolism for broken cisterns. In other words: to convey the sadness i feel when i think i am too broken or soiled to be of use to anyone. Perhaps i belabor the obvious here, but that was my intent. i am still a young poet, so i do not know when i have succeeded.
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