“All the minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did…” – Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury wrote
of books and smoke,
bonfire stacks,
and fluttering flames—
pages made into
sparking moths—
of the inferno
needed to tame
our oddest thoughts
and wayward wants,
our ficklest hopes
and wilder dreams.
Our blaze
came quite
well-meaning
as words
continued printing-
their destruction was a
gradual loss
of sense,
pondery,
and meaning.
Now, artifice
lines our shelves,
hundreds of pages
stripped down
through the ages—
interrogated by
all sides—
forced to reform
for a new time.
Line after line
after line,
reduced to their
barest forms—
nothing incendiary
can be found
in these tomes—
nothing
worthwhile
to burn.
pm poetry 