He is library

· by · in free verse, poetry, the aged librarian. ·

His library is ripe with voices;
within each book
there are calls for action; calls to wait;
commands for war and pleas for peace.
Never silent (resilient)
books are pain and pleasure;
books are tinnitus and songs.
They are euphony and cacophony; they are him:
the aged librarian
believer of the dust;
keeper of the soil and paper;
ink; he’s a sentinel of dreams;
and when the floodgates open and sense of voices
turns illiterate
torn to fragments, books are screams.
Cause when Atlantis crumble
the library is him, and he is library forlorn.

Storm Seam Boat Off A Harbour's Mouth Making Signals In Shallow Water, And Going By The Lead by William Turner


Storm Seam Boat Off A Harbour’s Mouth Making Signals In Shallow Water, And Going By The Lead by William Turner

Brendan is asking us to let our voices free at toads. As my voice has become that of the aged librarian I tried to find his voice as he is waiting for Atlantis to crumble. I will also link this to Poetry Pantry tomorrow.
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January 21, 2017

36 responses to “He is library”

  1. Atlantis to crumble, Alexandria to burn … The aged librarian here is the perfect gardener of book-voices, tending, pruning, harvesting. And whatever is killing the garden sickens so its husband. You do a fine job of stretching out the voices to their full range: those which resound and those which only ring (that tinnitus)… thanks for responding to the challenge.

  4. Your poems has brought to mind feelings I associate with Borges’ “The Circular Ruins”, my favorite story. Your librarian is his books and his books are him, and I wouldn’t have it any other way… I love the idea of books–and their guardians–as eternally reading and keeping each other.

  12. A wonderful addition to your works on the librarian.. a keeper of books has a profound duty both of preservation and dissemination of wisdom.

  14. We have a tweeting president in the United States who is helping Atlantis to crumble…

  15. You character ever deepens, Bjorn–here the wisdom and the magnitude of all our enscribed houghts is his to caretake. Perhaps he will swim away with it to new shores before the waves submerge us completely.

  16. I have grown really fond of your librarian, Björn – I feel as if I know him well! I prefer his ancient library, ‘ripe with voices’, to the modern, sterile libraries in which I volunteer. Don’t get me wrong, I still love them, but they lack the proper scent of books and dust. The librarians don’t have the knowledge and wisdom of your librarian. Don’t let him go yet, Björn, he still has much to tell us, your ‘sentinel of dreams’..

  17. This is so true: “Never silent (resilient) / books are pain and pleasure”

    I also really like this: “torn to fragments, books are screams.”

  22. Hi Bjorn, this a nice episode in the travels of your Librarian. He will need new books for the next. We will take that for granted that he did.
    ..

  24. All who embrace and cling to knowledge (truth?) and wait for the analogous Atlantis to crumble, carry the burden of holding on to the last vestiges of ‘the library’. “books are screams”: brilliant … powerful!

  29. books are pain and pleasure;
    books are tinnitus and songs.

    Come to think of it. Can there be life or a future without books despite being a pain in the neck?

    Hank

  30. Beautifully written, Bjorn. Books are so many things to so many people and what would we do without them? So full of voices! What would we do without our libraries?

  32. We need librarians and the voices of books; the voices of his soul. We need libraries where the voices echo and recall all human knowledge.
    You have created a voice for the ages — even ours.

  33. There are wonderful things about libraries and also presses (printing presses) in Terry Pratchett, where the keepers of such are so tied they feel any destruction–that’s such a cool conceit here. Thanks. k .

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