Popular Poems About Books

I’m losing all interest in the internet
offers plenty of other poetry sites
but they all seem so po faced with all that
I’ll stay at home with my books  

where’s the next george orwell, you ask.
but there won’t be,
nor the next samuel johnson, nor swift,
come to that.

but there might be
someone else entirely
fit for the role of the boy who laughed
at the emperor’s new clothes

as a child I’d sit in the library
next door to the park reading Wodehouse,
when I should have been at school
scared me frankly they asked too much

of me, what was this divided by that,
cross country running, swimming,
do you want a fight, why, what’s the point out
trafalgar upon a map

Librarian

I borrowed something, perhaps a book, which is always just a book,
or a fork which is never wholly a fork,
an apple torch, actually a beacon light,
the entire colour yellow,
not like late nights whispering secrets,
or the scent of vanilla on pine,
not like a garden, or a documentary
or a song,
not like the taste of salt,
sand beneath feet,
not on a mound under small trees,
or above a river, under others,
not like others, the presumption and nervousness of others,
not like words, or sounds,
that are not...