I sit between two books -- two tomes:
Les Miserables to my right
And, to my left, Infinite Jest,
Wondering how I got here.
Not a metaphor. Not my chair.
Books as ends in themselves.
Never read the Wallace.
Read Les Mis a million years ago.
Infinite misery. Unrepentant cruelty.
Mirrors back on the world of monsters
are really black swirls of anti-matter.
Books meant democracy, freedom
from autocrats and preachers of worlds ends;
Books valued experience brought to life
in the performance of pages staged in the mind.
Books gave us the smashmouth double-bind,
especially if the writer was unreliable and intended
to get you lost, confounded, and free. Books
are like God. Useful and fey, until you put them down,
and you toss them out with the gramophones
one spring day, when butterflies are flitting
in glass jars anxious to get the f*ck out
of the discarded Jiffy peanut butter tomb
and be free.
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