Death By Unread Books

You nod to the existence of the consecrated
thought of others by acquiring books: though
damned if you do more than look through several

pages here and there before you put one down
and swear (in vain) you’ll pick it up again. This may
well be fine with them: while your piles of unread

volumes lose their shine and gather dust, and quite
despite your having relegated each from must-read
to perhaps- (or never-), privately, you can be sure,

they will endeavor to prevail – a secret burgeoning
tornado of the grand accumulating whale-cloud
of their shunned, repressed expostulations one day

will explode and crowd your skull-meat out of its
composure: force-fed by all those un-read souls
you’ll fill up like a bloated belly-sack with rolls

and rolls of fat to chew – that’s what will then
become of you. So stack your unexamined books
up to he sky: and wait for them to swallow up your

sighs and best intentions, spit them high and out
like bits of unbaked dough. Given numerous
alternatives, it’s not the worst way one could go.


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