David W. Parsley Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 The Library at Closing Time As he approached the stark gray metal detectors the man who wanted his pharynx mended the man shouldering past the murmurers in the garden entry saying go back and save the only one that you can By the time he strode under flickering fluorescents strobing those of us in the checkout line the folded armed librarian now certain no one was coming to pick up some lost kids of Jean-Paul and Simone efficiently deshelving works not recently received He composed himself like a discovery self-sudden ready to navigate the carnage of dislodged tomes stepping over gold-bound communiqués slender piths and testimonials where Lorca lay bleeding selecting from counters whole cultures at a time When he had gathered himself like Van Gogh’s sheaf shearer like a shifting pile of maps and doubloons tottered past Whitman’s whimsical bust near the exit I say when he bounded the door with some of us following stopped at the spectacle of stars kindling ancient grills all the old rough beasts slouching down from the hills songbirds daring duskfall to perch along the lines of budding When he turned then to our silent questioning allowed our hands to share the casual rite of unburdening we saw how much he wanted to tell us this is how it could be whenever we want it to be That this is the journey too to remember what we came for what we have always known to come for and that nobody is ever saved alone everybody is in the same line of work and we can be previously unpublished © 2017 David W. Parsley Parsley Poetry Collection Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyv Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 It has been decades since I have been to a library, and I always loved the library. There was the public library in the town where I grew up, the college library in that same hometown, to a lesser extent my high school library, and in later years the law library open to the public in the superior courthouse. Then came the internet, and most everything could be accessed conveniently from the comfort of home. But really, metal detectors? Armed librarians? Is this for real? I don't think I could stomach it. The poem is unmistakably Parsley, albeit with a hint of Heaney. The man who reminds us is a relic like Jethro Tull's Aqualung, yet unoffensive. There is the mention of "ancient grills," and I read girls and hills. Am I that relic as I stumble, in a drunken stupor, repeating the last few words I hear like Dougie Jones in David Lynch's Twin Peaks twenty-five years later? Could be ... came for ... Remember what we came for. And I am again reminded that "nobody is ever saved alone," how in this life we don't need money, we need each other. I stand in awe. Tony Quote Here is a link to an index of my works on this site: tonyv's Member Archive topic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted June 9, 2017 Share Posted June 9, 2017 Hi David, I keep coming back to this and find it almost eirry. . i can see the cross armed librarian impatiently waiting for the kids to be picked up,so she can put things in order and close up. Like Tony I've not been inside a library for a long time although I've picked up a grandchild from the library where she went with the pretext of working on a school project with a a friend but in reality as an excuse to just hang out with several. It turned out not much work got accomplished. I hope the kids weren't too disruptive. Too me libraries were always silent vaults and I was afraid I was going make a sound that would echo throughout and angry stares would be directed toward me. Interesting how imagery can bring forth emotions long forgotten. I am sure more will surface as come back again and again. ~~Tink Quote ~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~ For permission to use this work you can write to Tinker1111@icloud.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badger11 Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 Very readable setting and narrative. Perhaps Van Gogh was a tangent, took me away from the written word. The title is a definite hook. enjoyed badge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcmarti1 Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 Oh, I like this part SO much: efficiently deshelving works Brave to have no punctuation, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David W. Parsley Posted July 9, 2017 Author Share Posted July 9, 2017 On 6/5/2017 at 7:17 PM, tonyv said: The poem is unmistakably Parsley, albeit with a hint of Heaney. The man who reminds us is a relic like Jethro Tull's Aqualung, yet unoffensive. There is the mention of "ancient grills," and I read girls and hills. Am I that relic as I stumble, in a drunken stupor, repeating the last few words I hear like Dougie Jones in David Lynch's Twin Peaks twenty-five years later? Could be ... came for ... Remember what we came for. And I am again reminded that "nobody is ever saved alone," how in this life we don't need money, we need each other. I stand in awe. Tony Tony, as usual, I find your insights alternately encouraging and challenging. It did not occur to me to link the poem's theme(s) with those of Aqualung, a highly regarded concept album considered to be a profound statement on the distinction between religion and God. I am impressed and encouraged by your innate grasp of the motif. And I deliberately left room in the poem for each reader to project his/her own perspective into the metanarrative and derive the corresponding value from the experience. My own perspective bends more retro than that of Jethro Tull. A century give or take of existentialist thought and its spin-offs have been so aggressively revisionist and counter culture (yes, that is a play on words in line 14) that we may wish to consider whether we have thrown out baby, God, hammer, chisel, polisher, and kitchen sink with the bathwater of "received systems." The culture of dismissing all heritage masterpieces as the product of DWEMs (dead white European males) has resulted in an impoverishment and potential evisceration of literary legacy that has helped engender our post-literate age. (Harold Bloom's savage The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages gives an insightful, if somewhat over-the-top, rebuttal.) I take a similar view of current attitudes toward religion. Is it okay if we adjust the knobs on our equipment instead of kicking in the front of the chassis and throwing it out? Final note: As you probably guess, there are any number of allusions (gasp!) in the poem, but one of particular importance is an admiring nod to Allen Ginsberg's, "A Supermarket in California," itself a part of the poet's manifesto promoting the beat generation outshoot of the same existentialism toward which I lob a few soft grenades (lines 8-14.) Thanks as always! - Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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