it is a rocket into space
taking you to amazing places
beyond your wildest imagination
where you can watch
the golden clouds of Telure
wafting up its emerald climbs
high over its warm cerulean seas
where you can hear
the shrill haunting calls
of fast coral-winged Lellurts
racing into Droon’s violet skies
or see the copper hues
of rustling Parmus fronds
fire the indigo ground mists
beneath Gemin’s crystal trees
or maybe a genie’s lamp
carrying you off to Xanadu
to Kubla Khan’s pleasure-dome
where the sacred river Alph runs
or perhaps an enchantment
that introduces you to Bastian
and you two adventure to Fantasia
to save the kingdom from The Nothing
no, this is not a book
it’s a time travel vehicle
a portal to parallel worlds
it’s a key to unlock wonders
it’s imagination’s magic carpet
it is anything you dream it to be
but it’s definitely not — just a book
rob kistner © 2021
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Bang on, brother. Like you I started 12 hours late, but struggled through regardless. You’ve returned to Sci-Fi mode. I love it when you do that. You had me at “Coral-winged Lellurts–clouds of Telure–Droon’s violet skies–rustling Parmus fronds–and like that. This truth is self-evident–“it” isn’t just a book, and “this” is not just a poem!
Thank you Glenn… 🙂 …love traversing SciFi! I guess better late than never?
The absolute wonder of diving headfirst into a book that literally takes the reader on a wondrous journey ~~~ a good book.
Magical Helen!
Like LeVar Burton says, “Take a look, it’s in a book, a reading rainbow.” I like the magical places you’ve been to within your portal. My kids and I watched “The Neverending Story” many times.
An unending number of adventures in books Lisa. As I’ve gotten older I read more and more. Now that artritis is claiming my fingers, I can’t create my mixed-medium art very effectively — so my reading is on an ever increasing pace now.
Yessss! LOVE the title! And all so true.
I have a favorite author, Esme Raji Codell, who describes her first year of teaching, and included a “time machine/space ship” in her classroom. When kids crawled in, there were shelves of books. Oh, how I ached for her to be my own kids’ teacher.
🙂
Fantastic title! And all so true.
I have a favorite author, Esme Raji Codell, who describes her first year of teaching, and included a “time machine/space ship” in her classroom. When kids crawled in, there were shelves of books. Oh, how I ached for her to be my own kids’ teacher.
Thanks! Sounds like a damned cool teacher De.
What in the world would we do without books! I thing we would be writing our poems on Cave walls! You are right it is much more than a book and transports and changes you as you read and digest it! Well done Rob.
Thank you Dwight… 🙂
Dwight stole my comments. Cool poem…
Thank you Judy… 🙂
I couldn’t relate with the sci-fi references (had to google them hehe) but I loved this beautiful ode to Book, “it’s a time travel vehicle
a portal to parallel worlds..” it really is all those things!
The SciFi sections were imagined work of my own M Jay.
I love the visual impact of this.
I’m pleased Xan. 🙂
This sounds like a magical ‘not a book’ – I have many favourites myself. So many new worlds to be discovered, and old ones to revisit!
Books hold humanity between their pages Ingrid.
A wonderful tribute to a necessary part of life.
Thank you Kerfe. Reading has become one of my guilty pleasures, though my failing eyesight means I keep having to make the font larger and larger while eReading on my iPad — but I have gotten pretty good at swiping to electronically turn pages quickly.
This is so true, Rob! From one bookworm to another:
‘no, this is not a book
it’s a time travel vehicle
a portal to parallel worlds
it’s a key to unlock wonders
it’s imagination’s magic carpet’.
I love books Kim! Partly because, while I can read and write effectively, and got great grades all the way into college — I have NEVER been able to read printed books very well, it was a real struggle. In a traditional printed book the lines of print are close enough together that l would stumble and get lost moving down the page to find the beginning of the next line. It would happen 5 to 6 times a page that I would be reading and realize what I was reading made no sense — because moving across the page I had skipped down one line, and had to go back and reread, then sort the meaning out again. I could do it, but it was so damned mentally exhausting. I got excellent grades because I used my ADD ability to hyper-focus when listening to the teacher teaching — constantly asking questions to the exasperation of many of my teachers. I was essentially manipulating the situation to study in class. It was not until I got my first Nook eReader, where I could put more spacing between lines, and use a bit lager, sanserif fonts, that I began to read ferociously. Now I use my iPad as my eReader, and constantly have 2-3 books going at once, usually reading around 100 books a year.
Definitely not just a book, not with those powers. Your love and appreciation of books shines through in this piece and I like the addition of sounds….”the shrill haunting calls
of fast coral-winged Lellurts” and “rustling Parmus fronds”.
Thank you Mish, I am pleased this resonated with you.
I love how much a book can be… we just have to dive in between the pages and we can reach other galaxies.
Magic in pulp and ink Bjorn.
Every book is a journey. This one was joyous!
Thank you Sara… 🙂