Reluctant Reader

My attic, garage, and rooms housing beds,

Are stuffed to the rafters with colourful books:

Impressive and ancient, hard-backed, sublime,

In pristine condition but mostly unread.

I sneak past them all, with furtive looks,

Avoiding their bitter, silent resentment.

Tonight, I will go straight to sleep, instead.

 

These Classic works of English fiction,

These Masterpieces of the writer’s craft,

These Paragons of form and diction,

Lie stacked upon the shelves, unread.

Their words, unsaid.

Unopened, abandoned, all forlorn.

Seeded, conceived, and gone full term,

But lying there, alas, still born.

 

A mis-used phrase, a far-fetched plot,

Simulating truth, from what is not,

Turns me away, a disgruntled lover,

Searching around, to find another,

To seek perfection under their cover.

Until a message from my mobile phone,

Sees me scrolling down, happily,

 All on my own!