Eulogy to Mr. Paperback

A Psalm to Reading

I don't want to hear the empty numbers,
To tell me literacy is in decline.
For the mind is dead that slumbers,
And to that death I would not resign.

Here is the decree: Information is free!
Though genocide is not the mission;
Casualties seem to come inevitably-
One cannot unmake that decision.

Not moving pictures, and not the glowing page
Is the book's predestined end.
But to be read through another age
So that each new generation can comprehend.

Creations live beyond those who created,
And our wits though quick and clever
Without exercizing become outdated,
As they cannot be sharpened with the pull of a lever.

In eddification's field of war,
I fear we've lost another battle,
But today's is not the final score-
And the end is not coming with a silent death rattle.

By rushing blindly to the aid of the meme
They failed to predict the obvious consequence.
They must now mourn the passing of a dream-
And observe the result of action with proper cognizance.

Memories of places now gone remind us,
We cannot turn back an unleashed tide.
But we can hold their nostaliga thus,
And going forth take their glory's side-

So that with them their dream fails to end.
Those to come will know reading's pleasure
And though this all ills does not mend;
It's better than such leisure disappearing forever.

Let us then go forth and read.
And though the bookstore now is dead
Let us in our children plant literacy's seed
So they have the wit to forge the road ahead.

Eulogy is in the style of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 'Psalm of Life'.




Mr. Paperback, a bookstore chain that was in operation for over fifty years is closing it's doors for good in the coming months. Unlike Borders Mr. Paperback wasn't driven out of business by poor business practices or bankruptcy but rather the decision to get out of what is turning into a failing business. It's become clear that the bookstore may be a obsolete model but the book itself it still alive and well.

The Death of a Friend

Two years I have known you


And at the news of your death I know not what to do

You told me yourself of death’s imminent arrival

From which you and I know there will be no revival

For longer than I have known you your life has been leeching away

Though it was not known as terminal until this day



I cannot say that beauty has always marked your face

Nor can I say that you were completely filled with grace

But you were the perfect representation of creation

And a glorious bastion to the imagination

While you did not go to college-

You were filled with a depth of knowledge

We never held a warm embrace

But I know each line of your face

I know nostalgia will always take me with a wiff of your smell-

Or whatever else reminds me of you as well



We’ve been walking together but now it is the path of uncertainty

You know what to do with you but what of me?

You have advised me to spare myself the grief

And make our future together even more brief

As soon as I can I will take the branching path-

For me there could be infinite steps but for you it is only a matter of math

In one hundred days exactly you will be no more

And never again will I pass through your door

The intervening pages in the story of your life are not yet all filled, my friend,

But already I can see just a little ahead the indelible writ of ‘THE END’