Top left, acutely American
Going On the Road
But finding only the Grapes of Wrath
Pressed and fermented in my flask
As I tolerated the bickering
Between the beatnik Kerouac
And his predecessor Steinbeck

My eyes glaze over the haphazard Hemingways
And the out-of-place and untamed Wilde
Whitman’s piercing eyes see that picture,
Of the boy and the artist and almost ask
What’re the Irishmen doing here?
But by God who’s dead the better question
What is this drawl tale Beyond Good and Evil doing here?

I bring it down past the books that taught me there is, in fact, evil,
Buzzy flies and sons so native
And I put the bearded nonbeliever next to the clean-shaven optimist,
Both burrowed in the shelf of philosophers I’d never bother to read
Some books are like neighbors I’ll never know

The chaos of it all.
Burges looks pleased.
The overwhelming and over packed stacks.
I remember when I liked you Fitzgerald,
But now you keep warm in your winter dreams,
nestled on top of Othello.
You two may get along quite well, actually.
Tragedies and all.

To be honest,
There was a time when things were dark.
And there was a time when I was young.
And in a shelf of big words and lost meaning,
those two little white books with so much voice,
Salinger and Silverstein, have comforted me
Through it all
And through it all again.