Old Books
Look back
The old rack
May have in its nooks
Dusty books
That was for you made
But you never read
Like you never noticed eyes
With loving look
Never heard sighs
Things you mistook
And lost for good
Like the unread book!
There maybe something
For long waiting
Unknown to you
Silent but precious
Like dropping dew
Life’s must
Withering away in dust!
poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay
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Related quotes
From the dust of time
Hidden in the pages of a dusty book
I found a note- ‘waiting for you'
Who wrote it? How did she look?
We never met, it's long overdue.
Beneath dust of time, my mind was a mess
I couldn't remember her or recollect the face
Is she still waiting or sailed elsewhere
She was waiting for me, why didn't I care?
Why didn't she call again, send a reminder?
She was waiting, I didn't go to her.
In life's passage, an event mundane
The note in the dusty book became heart's burden.
poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay
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My Garden
My garden aboundeth in pleasant nooks
And fragrance is over it all;
For sweet is the smell of my old, old books
In their places against the wall.
Here is a folio that's grim with age
And yellow and green with mould;
There's the breath of the sea on every page
And the hint of a stanch ship's hold.
And here is a treasure from France la belle
Exhaleth a faint perfume
Of wedded lily and asphodel
In a garden of song abloom.
And this wee little book of Puritan mien
And rude, conspicuous print
Hath the Yankee flavor of wintergreen,
Or, may be, of peppermint.
In Walton the brooks a-babbling tell
Where the cheery daisy grows,
And where in meadow or woodland dwell
The buttercup and the rose.
But best beloved of books, I ween,
Are those which one perceives
Are hallowed by ashes dropped between
The yellow, well-thumbed leaves.
For it's here a laugh and it's there a tear,
Till the treasured book is read;
And the ashes betwixt the pages here
Tell us of one long dead.
But the gracious presence reappears
As we read the book again,
And the fragrance of precious, distant years
Filleth the hearts of men.
Come, pluck with me in my garden nooks
The posies that bloom for all;
Oh, sweet is the smell of my old, old books
In their places against the wall!
poem by Eugene Field
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Supervision
The teacher prayed to God above for wisdom day-by-day,
For only He had perfect love and insights to relay.
The teacher saw the vision come and looked at it amazed,
For it was meant for all not some, yet not a word was phrased.
From clouds on high, the book birds flew about the teacher's head
And some of these the teacher knew, for they were fondly read.
Then other book birds circled round with titles yet unknown,
With treasure chests as yet unfound, with cherished truths unshown.
Imagine books left on the shelves, unread, unshared for years...
Deprived of these to help ourselves, no thoughts between our ears.
What use would Mankind ever gain if great books were not read?
The teacher thanked God for the brain that chose not to be dead.
And so it was, the teacher smiled! The course ahead made sense.
From now on, books for every child, for families and friends.
In every language known to Man, God's Word can preach Good News,
If we but do the best we can to help each student choose.
The teacher's heart was filled with hope with all God had revealed,
For books would help the students cope, as if each were a shield.
Both fact and fiction serve us well, if willing we would be
To learn the lessons that they tell, for truth shall set us free!
poem by Denis Martindale
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Notes To An Amnesiac
memories are made of these
Your keys
Odd socks left on the washing line
names on a list in a book
You cannot find
That lost glove
Pushed under the carpet
Or the note you wrote about your lover
Before you ever met or even touched
And the television is turned to neutral
As you listen
And unlisten
To the radio in your head
Your dinner is left congealed
Your books dusty and unread
The puzzle
Full of words you no longer understand
The alien has landed in a foreign land
Memories are made of these
The keys you lost
The odd socks
The lists full of lists left behind
And you feel like you 're losing your mind
Forgetting it all as you go to the door
Leaving the keys on the side
Dropping a glove in the floor
Losing the name of the street where you live
Forgetting what you're living for!
poem by Yvette Smith
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Lost In A Book
SHHH!
don't bother me
I'm lost in a book
mixed up with
the complicated plots
and outrageous characters
when i'm lost in a book
I don't have to think
about my life
I'll get stuck in
a fantasy world
and never
have to come back
home again
one book
after another
I read, read, read
different places
different people
a new world
I start fresh
each time
I open up a new book
when i'm lost in a book
I am safe
no one can hurt me
I'm happy
when I'm lost
in a book
poem by Annie Janine
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Books
books after being read
become nothing
but things
books unread
are treasures of gold
undiscovered
beneath your feet
books unshared
are thoughts unspoken.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Dust Collector
Not as close to center.
And away from the spotlight,
On life's stage.
This becomes evident and noticed,
By the one who becomes of age.
And having it one's way...
Is given.
Without swaying any one's opinion.
'Hey why not?
They are not going to be around here,
That long! '
~They who?
I'm aging too and so are you!
IF you're 'lucky'.~
A withering in appearance,
Is experienced as this 'blessing' occurs.
And the one who goes through the process adapts.
Since encouraging words seem to overflow as heard!
Coming from those still in their youth.
'You seem to be lost!
Do you need help crossing the street? '
~I need no help.
I happen to be thinking of a new recipe,
Thank you! ~
Reminding those who are aging...
How brave it is to have that much nerve,
To allow it to show and be done.
Leaving those in their youth,
Stunned by someone over the age of '31'...
Loving the act of aging!
'Mister, I heard you.
And you are well over '31'.
You are old enough to be my grandfather.'
~And I am willing to bet,
Your 'grandfather' never suggested...
Kids like yourself,
Need to learn how to mind your own business.
I could care less about you being in the spotlight.
I can shine just as bright and with more lustre without it.~
'Listen up...dust collector!
I don't have to pay you any attention at all,
Old man!
Wrap that around those aching bones and wrinkles.'
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Book Lover
I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself."
And so I take my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.
And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"some day," I say, "I will."
So book by book they plead and sigh;
I pick and dip and scan;
Then put them back, distrest that I
Am such a busy man.
Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne,
my Gibbon and Defoe;
To savour Swift I'll never learn,
Montaigne I may not know.
On Bacon I will never sup,
For Shakespeare I've no time;
Because I'm busy making up
These jingly bits of rhyme.
Chekov is caviare to me,
While Stendhal makes me snore;
Poor Proust is not my cup of tea,
And Balzac is a bore.
I have their books, I love their names,
And yet alas! they head,
With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James,
My Roster of Unread.
I think it would be very well
If I commit a crime,
And get put in a prison cell
And not allowed to rhyme;
Yet given all these worthy books
According to my need,
I now caress with loving looks,
But never, never read.
poem by Robert William Service
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My poems are stored
My poems are stored
In a funeral box
Kept beside the bed
They go unread
Similar objects are kept
Locked in my heart and head
They go unread
The habitation of my poems
Is bonded red
They go unread
All poems are offerings
To the god that can not read
For poems are only human
Made things
The bees do not care for them
Neither does the birds
Or the trees with better
Things to do then
Take note of them.
poem by David E. Patton
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0027 In Honour of Honour and WHAuden
You asked me which of Auden’s poems
were my favourite, and I sighed
for memory’s fade, then walked to the dusty shelf
where next to those volumes of Eliot
with their brown-paper covers for those
precious wartime books allowed
a ration of Canadian paper for
fighting men to read in those
few moments of leisure for the open heart and
the vision of a peacetime world, was
‘Collected Shorter Poems 1930-1944 W.H.Auden’
which fell open at page 54,
‘In Memory of W.B.Yeats (d.January 1939) ’
‘Earth, receive an honoured guest…’;
those pages yellowed more than
the others around them as if
read often late at night
under what was still gaslight
with respectful but unwashed hands
after cocoa and biscuits with a scrape of butter
and it all came back: 1953, that was the year
when there was only one poet Yeats..
and poetry and music were the same;
I turned the pages – they fell open once again,
‘Time will say nothing but I told you so’…
So many poems there, unread, or unremembered,
how could it be that I abandoned Auden,
not hearing his music, while
other interests began to pull?
Then I sat silent at the thought
that a great poet of great mind, great heart,
was writing, writing, most of my lifetime
while I was wrapt in other things;
sat silent, honouring
what is to be honoured
as best we can;
what is to be honoured.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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You Are Unto Dust
You are made from the dust of the earth,
And the Wailing-Wall will be there for you;
For you are unto dust and you shall return unto dust,
And this is just the journey of the spirit.
To the realm of the unknown and to the things we do for love,
And until death put us apart on this side of the planet;
For the flesh goes back to where it belongs to!
Yes, back to the earth.
Death is part of us and we need to learn from others,
For we have to be prepared as well;
For he flesh goes back to where it belongs to;
And out of the dust we were made.
The dust became flesh and today we are human beings,
And from the knowledge of the things to come;
But naked we came and naked we shall return.
Shed no tears on this love,
For death comes for all of us on this earth;
And we need to learn from the facts around us as well,
For it is better to be very righteous than to be buried with evil deeds.
Life is a long road full of sand and,
All that is acquired on this earth is vanity!
Yes, vanity upon vanity! !
For you and i are unto dust and,
Unto dust we shall return at the end of of all things.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Uneaten Fruit
From the unread book
I look back at three generations, with
whom I was fighting
for a staircase, which did not
take me anywhere.
It was an edge over the wisdom
for footfalls in space
for an apology for an unknown warrior
waiting of a midnight sun
for a foretaste of time.
I do not want you to come
as a pawnbroker,
I have nothing to offer for exchange.
From my grandfather I got his shoes,
my father gave me his eyes.
Still I am groping in dark
to justify the everlasting sky
full of needles.
poem by Satish Verma
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I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can't really put a book on the Internet. Three companies have offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, 'If you can make something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then we'll talk.' All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don't want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good. They look good. You can press them to your bosom. You can carry them in your pocket.
quote by Ray Bradbury
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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A Reader’s Daydream
In books written by scholars
With an element enforced on words
You read with your subconscious
And digest all you’ve heard
Your mind suggest a vision of what immortal life could be
As you wish is silent whisper that your life this way could lead
Then back to reality you frown
As you stumble over words the author has written down.
(date written unknown)
poem by David Harris
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Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever
I remember yet before we met
When every night and day
I had to live the life of a lonely one.
And I remember meeting you,
Discovering love could be so true
When shared by two, 'stead of only one.
When you said you loved me
We could not be parted.
Said, I built my world around you
And I'm truly glad I found you
Because loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
I never felt so good before.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Yes it has, you know it has.
Each night I pray we'll never part
Because the love within my heart
Grows stronger from day to day.
Best I try, hard I try
To reassure and satisfy.
You know I'd be lost if you went away.
Because loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Yes it has, I know it has.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Because loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
I never felt so good before.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Yes it has, you know it has.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Don't you know my baby there.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
song performed by by Michael Mcdonald
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The mistaken beliefs
I mistook them to have got cured
From their not turning for check up.
I mistook them to have read mine
In the journals that they have read.
I mistook them as my lovers
As they valued my company.
Such like beliefs, still disproved,
Had nourished my ego through out..
24.01.2009
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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In Hell
You live by the book of wonders,
The book has hell on it when opened.
The inferno carries pits too grilling,
The grills are offered by devils,
Contagious diseases are handed over
To the body and bones, full of hatred.
A hell of books is opened by the librarian,
You choose a simple verb to read,
Then this verb is read, the verb that signals death.
Your death must never come by reading books,
Long scrolls so wonderful,
Of books the world is made
And the reason for books is reading,
Not living in Hell.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Psalm 102 part 2
v.13-21
C. M.
Prayer heard, and Zion restored.
Let Zion and her sons rejoice,
Behold the promised hour;
Her God hath heard her mourning voice,
And comes t' exalt his power.
Her dust and ruins that remain
Are precious in our eyes;
Those ruins shall be built again,
And all that dust shall rise.
The Lord will raise Jerusalem
And stand in glory there;
Nations shall bow before his name,
And kings attend with fear.
He sits a sovereign on his throne,
With pity in his eyes;
He hears the dying pris'ners' groan,
And sees their sighs arise.
He frees the souls condemned to death,
And when his saints complain,
It shan't be said, "That praying breath
Was ever spent in vain."
This shall be known when we are dead,
And left on long record;
That ages yet unborn may read,
And trust, and praise the Lord.
poem by Isaac Watts
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Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever
by Stevie Wonder and Ivy Jo Hunter
I remember yet before we met
When every night and day
I had to live the life of a lonely one.
And I remember meeting you,
Discovering love could be so true
When shared by two, 'stead of only one.
When you said you loved me
We could not be parted.
Said, I built my world around you
And I'm truly glad I found you
Because loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
I never felt so good before.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Yes it has, you know it has.
Each night I pray we'll never part
Because the love within my heart
Grows stronger from day to day.
Best I try, hard I try
To reassure and satisfy.
You know I'd be lost if you went away.
Chorus
Because loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Yes it has, I know it has.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Chorus
Because loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
I never felt so good before.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Yes it has, you know it has.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
Don't you know my baby there.
Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever.
song performed by by Eric Clapton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Belong To The Past/ My Mind Is An Old Mind
I BELONG TO THE PAST/ MY MIND IS AN OLD MIND
I belong to the past-
My mind is an old mind-
Books not tweets,
Songs which sing
Not rages which talk.
My mind is an old mind-
I live in the long readings of distance days-
When lost in books
I dreamed life
Greater than any I had yet known-
I belong to the past
My mind is an old mind-
I have lived many many years
And the book of my own life
So much less than what I read of others
And dreamed for myself once-
I belong to the past
My mind is an old man
Yet like a fool
I still believe
Some day somehow once
There will be
The book of my life
Others will read.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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