Rifling through carpenter’s pencils, screws,

Surplus washers, for enough shrapnel

To rent three meters or so of Glebe point road,

A stone throw from “The Bread Barn”

Their coffee dazzles my clay tongue.

Large metal birds turn up their noses above me  

Casting shadows like clouds

Over a sequence of diminishing terraced roofs.

Soaking in the arrogance of an unsweetened frontage

A small weather beaten sign “The cornstalk.”

Drugged by a nostalgic smell of straw

Expounding from pre- satellite leather bound paper

A bookstore with its own microclimate

Of sun, shade wood and plaster

Every flat surface except an over sized goat track

Pressed pin drop silent against books and boxes

Up the back in the blue room, all you can hear

Is the sound of a dog barking softly from the inside of a tin can.

I raise my ears into the anonymity of a brown woolen beanie

Then perch my steel cap boots on the third run of a small wooden ladder

To get a crow’s nest view of all the poetry.

 

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I love this...the imagery is so vivid...and I can smell the books :)

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