Bibliophobia In The Morning
This library gives me the fantods that creep
so suddenly I want to shout about conspiracies
locksmiths couldn’t fathom. It smells, too–
of sassafras, cod, and butternut. I can’t
smoke, sneeze, or sniff, and sometimes I cry
and choke like a strangler’s victim. I guess
I could bend a little to cheer when the bus
gathers us up like a promenading
whirlpool of traitors released from prison.
Besides, I’ve wanted to investigate
the geography and skullduggery of my
girlhood’s cliffs. Or penetrate the circus
of scurvy in ancient Greece, not to mention
the affairs of a dandy rake named Ned in Pierre,
South Dakota, who was knifed in the Bijou
after he feasted on Baby Ruths and snored
too much at the premiere of Double Indemnity.
Yes, I suppose I could devour every cookbook,
tongue a kiss from Ned’s great nephew in a remote
nook, and love him so hard I’d rue the morning
I boarded the bus and climbed up the stairs
of this mausoleum of self-punishment.
David Spicer has had poems in Mad Swirl, Reed Magazine, Slim Volume, The Laughing Dog, In Between Hangovers, The American Poetry Review, Easy Street, Ploughshares, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Dead Snakes, and in A Galaxy of Starfish: An Anthology of Modern Surrealism (Salo Press, 2016). He has been nominated for a Pushcart, is the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, and is the former editor of Raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
