They ask, and they exclaim. Nothing else.

Battered and bruised books,
it’s what the cool kids nowadays look for,
in their flee markets, in their yard sales,
because an aging patina,
is so much more ‘beautiful’.
At least in things.

It is a story on top of the story, I suppose.
And you girl with your fake horn-rimmed classes,
are so sensitive for other people’s stories, right?
As long as they are dead.

How often have we been told about that man,
who kept a little red book full of poems, wisdoms,
close to his heart at all times, seeking for enlightenment,
in his mind’s eye scribbling the pages like mad,
in great stupor, because it is pouring, pouring out of every pore.

I wanna read that book, but it’s not around.

I wanna meet that man, pale cloud of dust and smoke,
you do not live among us any more,
we read books like it is a chore.
We finish one to start another,
so many out there, countless hours wasted,
to make sense of a life, that is like noone elses.
And looking for wisdom in the written word,
of someone, who has never known us.

You are keen to see what is old and bruised?
Go to a library, where they silently sit and wait,
like in a tomb. They are battered and abused,
they got more than one story to tell,
inscribed by scores of people looking for their way,
it rest in the marks between their rows.

One is question, the other exclamation.