My Books
by Bill Yarrow
My books wound you. They wound me
too. They are those undullable knives
they sell on TV, shards of glass you can
pick up only with gloves to which are glued
shards of glass. They are a rain of pins,
a bed short sheeted and stuffed with nettles,
a nylon backpack of burrs. All the pinches
Prospero inflicted on soft Caliban. All the false
promises he made to resilient Ariel. In the
middle of the night, I hear them groan. They
are torturing each other. They use their spines
as swords. What do they want? What does
torture ever want? Screaming information.
Quick, toss your books. The milk has turned.
too. They are those undullable knives
they sell on TV, shards of glass you can
pick up only with gloves to which are glued
shards of glass. They are a rain of pins,
a bed short sheeted and stuffed with nettles,
a nylon backpack of burrs. All the pinches
Prospero inflicted on soft Caliban. All the false
promises he made to resilient Ariel. In the
middle of the night, I hear them groan. They
are torturing each other. They use their spines
as swords. What do they want? What does
torture ever want? Screaming information.
Quick, toss your books. The milk has turned.
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Author's Note
This poem appeared in the January 2012 edition of Thrush.
Thanks, Helen Vitoria!
It also appears in POINTED SENTENCES (BlazeVOX, 2012).
Other stories by Bill Yarrow
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Wonderful, Bill. Welcome back.*
Good poem, Bill. *
Well-written.
* Excellent.
A tempest in a looking glass. *
"Quick, toss your books. The milk has turned."
Hits hard.
nice.
Good!
I love your wordplay and narrative, fine sounds abound.
*
Dangerous things, books.
*Love it.
Beyond comment (maybe my brain is on vacation after a long night with my own books). *
I will never enter a library unarmed again! *
I wonder what the world was like when there were only three books. I suppose it was much easier to have read everything there was to read.
As someone who lives in a house where every wall is covered in books, I can relate. Now no new books are allowed without a sacrifice of an old. It's painful. But the torturer wants Screaming Information. A fave*.