The Upstairs Library

The small room upstairs is a cluttered mess.
Disheveled once more is the second-floor library.
The hallway sconces, once bright and luminous,
No longer shed enough light
On the dim, musky old hall.

The reading room itself
Seems more like a safe haven
For a miscellany of spiders
Deceased or otherwise.

A plethora of paperbacks, periodicals, publications
An abundance of almanacs, albums, atlases
An overabundance of old records, offprints, omnibus
A superfluity of scripts, scrolls, softcover editions
An embarrassment of encyclopedias in multiple editions
And a veritable convention of uncomfortable chairs.

Everything blanketed by a layer of dust,
Probably no less than
An inch and a half thick.
Even the book jackets, the dust covers
Were a futile defense
When the room was visited by
Whatever sand column or dust devil
Came hurtling through.

The area weather forecast isn’t promising.
Expectations of fog, drizzle and haze.
Who knows? Maybe it’ll be sunny and clear.
On the other hand,
Who’s kidding whom?

Time to clean up the upstairs library.
Expel all the spiders, every last species.
From the trapdoor spider to the black widow.
All the small bugs
Get served with their eviction notice.

All the grime, the refuse, the ash, the cinders
Swept away, tossed to the trash bags, sent packing.
When all’s said and done, the room’s clean and organized.
Away with the muddle, upheaval and disorder.

Of course, it won’t stay that way.
This mind just doesn’t work like that.
Never closed or closed-minded,
Always open,
This library has odd hours.
And its only patron
Doesn’t return things when they’re due.

The person working the reference desk
Is a bit scatterbrained.
There’s a method to the madness.
I’ll explain it to you sometime
Once I’ve figured it out myself.

On writing Poem 2

The assignment was to write a poem beginning with a metaphor. I took the entire poem and made it an extended metaphor that built secondary/smaller metaphors within. The poem is about my own perception of my mind, hence the references to “upstairs.” I tend to be a bit of a disorganized thinker and even a scatterbrain at times.

Different parts of the poem refer to different topics, which include but are not limited to: knowledge (the books), brainstorming (the weather references), an event or idea that throws everything off and creates confusion or clutter (the sandstorms), thinking through things (the cleaning up), and trying to understand the “internal workings” and “organized chaos” of one’s own mind (the “method to the madness” that even I don’t understand).