The Book of Impotence

Is this a book exhausted from too much reading?
Or too little reading?
From the hairs on the head to the
end of the toe-nails - the pages are marked with the stains of use.
Or miss-use,
Better that the words had been read
off the page.
Do the words still signify?
Is there still a space between chapters
or have all matters blurred?
In this book the index of entries
is longer than the book itself.
This life has so many footnotes
it ought to be all flatfeet,
its soul layered deep
in calloused blisters and corns.
The major sweep of this book's living
is too often marred by qualifying.
It is hedged about with ifs and buts
and if onlys
and howevers,
excuses for a life that is about to shut
its covers for the last time
and then crumple into dust
in an unseen
and never-to-be-remembered library.

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