On Paper

The sad, sorry, one star fate of books

Poor slaughtered trees.
You were sacrificed to the
printing press gods
to be made into flat sheets
onto which letter were tattooed.

Poor raped indigo.
You were sacrificed to the
printing press gods
to be mashed to a pulp,
rendered a tattooing ink for those flat sheets.

Bound together were these
sacrificial lambs, so that the
ignorant could be taught, but
that was a mission in vain.

For now the termites and other buggies
have come to play in the martyred corpses,
and without much other food in the house,
I'm forced to be the vulture...

and eat these wasted books.