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.

*****

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.

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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