Storybooks
Linda A. Copp

Storybooks and lives
near do-gooders and their wives.
Fairy tales and fabled men
the truths of now and then.

From hunchbacks to fullbacks
from ghoulies to the undead.
And it's all printed matter
and it's all in the head.

And we sit and down it silently,
a world unto itself.
We feel for fiction's fantasies
and often lose our self.

For whether it's a novel,
a biography, untruth.
In exactitudes or solid fact,
fairy tales or truth.

The manner is the same, my friend.
it takes us all away.
To some other space in time,
some other place to play.

Storybooks and literature.
Men both dumb and wise.
Sainted, tainted, painted folks,
open up your eyes.

Dismiss the things to be dismissed.
Keep the things to keep.
And go onward with a fresher view,
a deeper sense of deep.

Awareness yes, and escape,
knowledge and your pleasure.
Promote them like the thrust of life-
Creations mighty measure.

And open up your eyes and read
Before the readings gone.
Enrich your minds,
they're all we have,
my friend,
to rely upon.

Linda A. Copp
©June 3, 1971