Books & Nooks

The books that I’ve collected over

More than fifty years,

Are neatly shelved and catalogued,

Dog-eared, and some in verse,

I spend a day repairing those

Each week, that come unglued,

When pages come away from those

I’ve more than often viewed.

 

I never lend them out, I learned

My lesson, doing that,

For all their protestations friends

Will never bring them back,

When months go by and I espy

My book up on their shelf,

They say, ‘Oh no, I bought that one,

You lent to someone else!’

 

I have a reputation now

As somewhat of a Scrooge,

I tell them, ‘You can look, not touch,

Your fingerprints are huge!’

I always wear my cotton gloves

To handle any book,

And use a reading table when

I need to take a look.

 

And so it was that lately I

Had thought it a disgrace,

When pondering the bookshelves that

Some books were out of place,

I called the wife and asked her why

She’d shifted ‘The Plague Dogs’,

To nestle next to ‘Lost in Space’

And screwed my catalogue?

 

She said, ‘I never touch your books,

You know that all too well,

I wouldn’t dare, each time I do

You go round, raising hell!’

‘It didn’t move itself,’ I said,

Unless it sprouted wings!’

She threw a turnip at my head

And sundry other things.

 

And that was just the start of it

The books were moving round,

I found ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’

Flat out, on the ground,

Then ‘Lady Chatterley’ I saw

Wedged in between ‘Tom Jones’,

And right behind her, far too close

‘A Morbid Taste for Bones.’

 

‘This has to stop,’ I ranted,

But it didn’t stop, of course,

My books would rearrange themselves

In some strange intercourse,

I noticed ‘Little Women’ seemed

To flit from shelf to shelf,

‘What Katy Did’ I dare not say,

I’d not do it myself!

 

But worse was yet to come, I found

Some books were getting fat,

They turned into compendiums

Of tales of this and that,

And ‘Little Women’ grew so big

They justified my fears,

‘I know now who the culprits are,

Those bloody Musketeers!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Yellow Butterfly]

I love my books too and your so true about lending them out and NOT getting them back..

David, I like the way you tell your poems... this one had me chuckling from start to finish especially the finish.... those horny Musketeers... :o)

A great read David... Thank you

[Simphonia Hale]

reminds me of how most of my books get dusty because I get too busy with school and that I won't let a stranger (even my sister) touch them. *sigh I miss reading them all. Thanks for this David! Very creative as always! :)

[redflutterby]

Lmao.... I love my books. Once a month our local library has a book sale. I think I've died and gone to heaven. I also shop thrift and second hand stores. I've bought so many hardcover copies there. Little Women and The Three Musketeers are two of my favorites. ;-)

[spiritwind]

I shall never view my bookcases in quite the same way again. In fact, I have this unconquerable itch to go rearrange the books. I bet they are tired of their alphabetic neighbors... I think I will try some risque pairings so I can giggle as I go to sleep imagining the little rascals and the ruckus they're involved in...Thank you for this charming piece. Your imagination is priceless! As well as boundless!

[Clayton Bardwell]

This was great David. I should have learned this lesson myself too many times over. Now I can't remember who I loaned the books to! "Those bloody Musketeers!"