George Szirtes
The Burning of the Books
3. She opened the book and read
Once she had passed over the kid gloves
And the book appeared with its antiquary bloom
Its insect words pinned into place with light
It was clear there was expense involved.
Expense and respect, and a question of property.
I don’t deal with property. I am a scholar.
I don’t do housekeeping. I don’t do money.
I do the rounds of the bookshops, interrogating
Dealers with rare editions in long-lost languages.
I have circumnavigated the alleys of Berlin
More often than I can remember, but I recall
Perfectly the place of each book on each shelf
And have marked its neighbours and condition.
Money is air. I breathe it in and out.
I blow my nose clear of it. I piss it in the morning
And last thing at night. Money is the slight breeze
Playing round my temples as I enter the shop,
The slight draught at my back as I leave it.
It is a whisper of fallen leaves in the gutter
The rustle half-dry and half-damp of a system in decay.
Pass me the kid gloves. I am handling a book.
The words of the dead are settling over me.
I drift among them, weightless, like a balloon
Floating on helium, looking down on gutters
Overflowing with leaves and paper money.
I don’t see the difference.
And the book appeared with its antiquary bloom
Its insect words pinned into place with light
It was clear there was expense involved.
Expense and respect, and a question of property.
I don’t deal with property. I am a scholar.
I don’t do housekeeping. I don’t do money.
I do the rounds of the bookshops, interrogating
Dealers with rare editions in long-lost languages.
I have circumnavigated the alleys of Berlin
More often than I can remember, but I recall
Perfectly the place of each book on each shelf
And have marked its neighbours and condition.
Money is air. I breathe it in and out.
I blow my nose clear of it. I piss it in the morning
And last thing at night. Money is the slight breeze
Playing round my temples as I enter the shop,
The slight draught at my back as I leave it.
It is a whisper of fallen leaves in the gutter
The rustle half-dry and half-damp of a system in decay.
Pass me the kid gloves. I am handling a book.
The words of the dead are settling over me.
I drift among them, weightless, like a balloon
Floating on helium, looking down on gutters
Overflowing with leaves and paper money.
I don’t see the difference.
Taken from the title sequence of George Szirtzes’ new collection
The Burning of the Books (Bloodaxe, 2009).
The Burning of the Books (Bloodaxe, 2009).
Page(s) 68
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The