A slight detour on the way home
to find my maybe-Quaker silence,
there, behind the shelved volumes,
in the near-silent reading room,
under zero gravity conditions –
just an old man’s licked turn
of an immaculate newspaper,
upon which he then comments,
so entering an amplified communion
with his just-arrived lady friend:
‘Shall we abandon this place?’
is his loud enquiry, almost to all.
And with his launch our vacuum
of unspoken words returns.

Today some librarians
were summarily shot,
others had their licked-fingers
lopped:

No fresh cash to buy,
no more books to improve –
libraries to re-define
‘desuetude’:

Once places to search
word-oddities,
where we pulled from the shelves
fat dictionaries,

but without re-filling
the reference sections,
truth will be left
to Google’s introjections.

NEWS STORY HERE

Library hours will reduce
their lending overdue
Google will then charge us all
for e-book content view

Our library is all knowledge –
day-long care and borrowed reads –
our vast bookmark will be lost
if all we do is cede

Loved tomes will not open –
nor the library’s oft locked-doors –
no free church for free readers
we have to fight for more

Less bookworm-work for staff –
all that knowledge will be sacked –
they may find jobs in Tesco’s –
where books aren’t freely stacked