I hate those cardboard boxes
that you have to build yourself.
Taping them together
is just another form of
bureaucratic Purgatory.
-The Books Slave, canto XI.
He filled the cart with
books, and rolled it
to the edge of the slight ramp
that traversed the narrow hallway
in the damp and partially flooded basement
of the supposedly remodeled library, the carpet
was all the same, didn't match the drapes, had a glow
to it, labyrinths more intricate than Minos in those floors
readying himself, steeling to run, chase, pursue, track, hunt,
the cart as it rolled towards the large iron door marked EXIT
in large red letters, knowing that the alarm on that door never worked
but that the noise would draw unwanted attention to his activities, decidedly
not related to his job, whatever that was, he wasn't sure, thought nobody really
knew, acknowledged his existence, a ghost in the machine, a broken machine at that,
fitting place to haunt, letting go, the cart sped away from his fingers and down, down, down
down, legs moving, lurching after this book-laden cart, this chariot of words, they crash together.
-the second one needs work. Then again, everything does.
No comments:
Post a Comment