Excavations In a Used Bookstore-- Part II

We have moved into the bookstore--
my love and I in our cave
deep in an old building.
The window shows us the street;
exhaust fumes and popular music
seep in the front door

but in back it is almost silent.
Fluorescent lights and the soft
whuzzing of the air-conditioning fan...
We are entirely surrounded by books--
in Captain Nemo's library
or a space ship's long voyage
to unknown stars.

There is a march and entertainment
in the part, the anniversary
of the bombing of Hiroshima
but I don't want to go;
I never cared that much
for holidays.

Someday we will march;
the all of us together
who want no more of war
will know it is time to come
again to be counted, and know
this time they may shoot.

I am surrounded by history,
psychology, religion, and
a smattering of science
but most of all by stories,
even more, the cheapest
fantasies of love and violence;
I live among funhouse mirrors.

Psychology books proclaim
the cure for original sin
is offered by The One True Shrink.
(Accept no substitutes.)

"Little creature, born of joy and mirth
come love without the help of anything on Earth"
says William Blake. And the shrinks
draw conclusions from the unknown common knowledge...