Tag Archives: burn

Day 10 – very serious book crimes + a very silly book heist

Pretty sure that’s not how it looked when I gave it to you

Two poems about very real crimes involving books today. One involving a book of my own (& generic crimes against books) & a Poetic Factoid about a very bungled book heist.

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rhyme & punishment (worse than death)

it’s a bit of a hot topic for me but
i’m not a big lender of books
most people (let’s be blunt) 
don’t know how to treat a book right
how to show it a good time
or at least  respect it in the morning 
if i really love a book & want others to too
where possible i’ll buy a second copy
designated purely for lending.

dog-earing  underlining   highlighting
note making in the margins
creasing (or cracking) the spines 
to the point pages are falling out
dropping it in the bath  or the sea 
getting so much sand in it we could build a castle
pages torn out  a bacon bookmark 
discovered greasy in chapter 33  all things 
that would cancel your gareth library card.

i don’t buy the kaka that a dog-eared
battered  beaten up  creased book 
is like the wrinkled face of someone 
who’s lived a full-on life & keeps on smiling
BS  it’s tomestic violence pure & simple.

all of which is reported purely to say this —
don’t think i’ve forgotten Anon Miti
(if indeed that is your real name)
how i leant you a copy of A Trip to the Stars
that you kept for ages  forever saying you’d 
return it  yet always conveniently “forgetting”
& when you did the book was so beaten up 
had green tea poured over half of it
& been used to put out a small brush fire
without technically burning it as some
of the less pleasant folks in history have done

— & yet this was still only the second 
worst thing you ever did to me.

*****

Day 10 Factoid – a pretty slapstick book crime

Special Collections: A Plan to Fail

four freshman friends while on orientation 
of Transylvania University, Kentucky
conclude rare books worth millions 
of dollars are resting in the college
library virtually unsecured
                                             a whacky 
heist  is plotted involving fake beards
& gray wigs  & step by step instructions
involving code names as if from a movie
Mr Green on lookout. Mr Yellow & Mr Pink 
proceed to the Rare Book Room where Mr Yellow 
“brings the elderly librarian down hard & fast” 
with a stun gun. Mr Pink then lets Mr Black
in to help grab the loot before escaping 
via the back exit
                          the plan almost immediately
goes very wrong  causing them to abandon 
many books (the 7 rare Audubons are 
“too heavy to carry”)  
                                   yet they still manage 
to flee the bungled scene  with several books 
total value: three quarters of a million bucks 

they contact Christie’s (using the same fake
email address they set up to contact the library
— & one of their actual cell phone numbers!)
for an appraisal rationalising  “they won’t 
suspect anything cos no one would bring 
in stolen books”
                            Christie’s did in fact 
suspect something
                                & they all spent 7 years in gaol

Day 03 – libraries: Alexandria + Congress

Poem about one of my very favourite things to daydream about…

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the Great Library

there’s a meme I love
you know you’re a book geek 
when you still get upset thinking about
the Library of Alexandria
& many are the times i’ve considered 
buying a t-shirt stating similar sentiments

there was another viral trend
first flagged a year or so ago
about how often men allegedly
thought about The Roman Empire 
(several times a week apparently)
but while i definitely enjoy daydreaming 
about both Ancient Rome & Athens
Alexandria remains my go-to contemplatory place

the Great Library of Alexandria 
shrouded in mystery, from its founding 
to its destruction a thousand years later
some say the massive, ancient library was
the single greatest accumulation 
perhaps 400,000 papyrus scrolls 
of human knowledge in history
up until that point

it burnt three times rather than 
one single conflagration
i) Caesar accidentally set fire to part of it
during his tête-à-tête with Pompey 
ii) several hundred years later a Christian 
Patriarch turned the Temple of Serapis 
into a church & repeated skirmishes
destroyed parts piecemeal   iii) & finally
Caliph Omar asserted the contents 
“either contradict the Koran, so they’re heresy, 
or they agree, so are superfluous” 
& thus the scrolls were used as tinder 
in the city’s bathhouses — supposedly taking 
six months for everything to burn away

it is this religious arrogance / ignorance
which most angers my bookdragon
for we’ll never know now what wisdom
we lost … what science was undone …
what stories forgotten … simply because 
zealots were too insecure in their own words
to allow contradictory ones to exist

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Factoid 3 – biggest modern library 

juxtaposition of red & blue

the Library of Congress 
in Washington, D.C.
is the world’s largest library

there are numerous interesting 
facts one could share about
this iconic institution 

— yet the thing I’m entertained by 
is the current irony involved in 
the juxtaposition of the words 

Library — & — Congress 

Day 28 — hard to take it seriously + sand

Working on poems about each of the IPCC Assessment Reports as well as the various Protocols that have been signed. This shows how unserious some of these conversations really are. There was much discussion over a single sentence. The balance of evidence suggests human influence on global climate. The debate over this sentence lasted well over several hours & various alternatives were proposed. This poem is non-factual fly-on-the-wall dialogue of that event.

*****

IPCC Madrid 1995 — the Saudis take the piss

Saudi Arabia : I’m sorry, “balance of evidence” is far too strong.

Suggestion : “appreciable” 
Saudi Arabia : No.

Suggestion : “detectable” 
Saudi Arabia : No.

Suggestion : “measurable” 
Saudi Arabia : No.

Suggestion : “noticeable perceptible observable” 
Saudi Arabia : No. No. No. 

Suggestion : You sure you’re not just being difficult because your vast oil reserves are threatened by action on Climate Change. 
Saudi Arabia :

Suggestion : “quantifiable” 
Saudi Arabia : No.

pause

Suggestion : “unmistakable” 
Saudi Arabia : Now, you’re just mocking us.

UK delegate : “discernible”

spontaneous applause

Saudi Arabia : That will be acceptable.

“The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” 

FFS. Discernible has connotations of barely perceptible. Appreciable on the other hand is large or important enough to be noticed. 

And, this was for the summary. The bit the politicians & journalists read. Not the detailed stuff the scientists engaged in. 

And so, by relentless tiny paper cuts, the world burns.

*****

Day 28 — TIL about sand

a sandalous praxis

despite boasting the world’s largest driest sand desert
Saudi Arabia imports Aussie sand to fuel its construction craze 

— perhaps we should’ve sanctioned our sand sales
till the Saudi spokesman saw sense (by the sea shore)

Day 16 – fire (& stone)

flames.jpg

Spent a large chunk of my writing time today trying to craft a pome comparing & contrasting the fire at Notre Dame with the fire in our climate. While many parts worked, a few did not & I realised longer would be needed to resolve the kinks.

However, while researching the idea I came across another, far less known story, which led to this …

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holy houses

in less widely covered news, the revered
al-asqa mosque in east jerusalem
was also struck by (a far less dramatic)
blaze at the same time as notre dame’s
inferno in france — damaging solomon’s
stables beneath a corner of temple mount

here’s a thought:
perhaps god is trying to tell us something

.

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BONUS POEM: April 16, 2018

The theme persists.

*****

immemorial

stone is worn
moss softens
lichen gathers
chiselled lines
flatten
it rains hard
the sun shines
& pretty soon
everything
is forgotten

14b cornish grave