Author’s Note: We all yearn for a haven, a niche, or a Shangri-La amid wrestling with the existential challenges that life presents to us. To dismiss such a yearning as a peevish repertory of a wastrel or an incompetent is a churlish disregard of the humanity and a supercilious judgment of individuality. William Butler Yeats saw the heart of the weary, and this is my tribute to his vision of the imagination in which I want to willingly waste my time.
Author’s Note: I remember reading about Plato’s Chariot Allegory that illustrates our journey to the end of enlightenment with its vividly dynamic images of the aerial chariot race too compelling to reserve for a silent appreciation in my mind’s reservoir. I wonder what my chariot race has been like thus far…
Keep a single book of the Bard with the imprimatur Of literary workaday Johannes Factotum On the seventh floor of the Library of Babel Girding the constellation of stars studded over Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb.@artemis1291https://t.co/93EneogcX5 via @wordpressdotcom
Byron said he woke up and found himself famous one morning, and I dare to say I woke up and found myself properly surprised this morning.
The cause of such pleasant surprise that gave a fillip to my otherwise grim and dreary Monday morning was my favorite author Stuart Kells’s tweet containing my previous poem titled “Where is his library?” inspired by his books Shakespeare’s Library and the Library: A Catalogue of wonders and his recent podcast interview with Abe Books about Shakespeare’s authorship. I am truly appreciative of his recognition of my humble writing often streaked with solecism due to English being my second language.
Thanks to this wonderful tweet, I could withstand the cruel cold morning at the barren train station waiting for the train to work this morning- with pleasure. C.K. Chesterton said a great person is great because he or she encourages others however amateurish their works may be. I can no other answer make but thanks and thanks and thanks.
When the Chariot of Apollo started racing at full speed thru the aerial hippodrome in the early morning, she decided to go out and watch the splendor of the golden racing that brightened up the earth after several Sundays’ absence of the spectacle.
So, she first sauntered at the park where K-9 school students were taking classes. Then she went to an arts and craft store to buy stuff to decorate her next year’s traveler’s notebooks in which she will write her reading notes and all sundry things. Thereafter, her ceremony of beautiful Sunday was served with delicious refreshments at a donut shop that she didn’t expect to find in the Wild West.
Apollo’s racing has long been finished with his twin sister Artemis taking over the celestial domain with stars and the Moon. She looks out the windows and realizes that this Sunday is fast approaching Monday tomorrow like a fashionable host. “Live a little, comfort a little, cheer thyself a little,” said the Bard. She thinks that life shouldn’t be complicated indeed.
Library of the Bard is in a fairy hide beneath the visiting moon
Beyond an evanescent slice of the seacoast between tides in rhythm,
Down below the deepening foliage between field and forest,
High above the sloping land between plain and mountain yonder
Where Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits are librarians of wonder
Among the unknown writs of mortals of the universe
Beyond the boundary of time and space and race,
Keep a single book of the Bard with the imprimatur
Of literary workaday Johannes Factotum
On the seventh floor of the Library of Babel
Girding the constellation of stars studded over
Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb.
Author’s Note: I listened to an excellent podcast interview with Stuart Kells, author of Shakespeare’s library, and agreed with him about a possibility that a single book authored by William Shakespeare will someday materialize from an unknown arcane volume of various writings of others in an unexpected place. Things can happen. Hence this poem from my mind’s view on Shakespeare’s Library.
Author’s Note: This poem is based on my reading of an article about “The Devil’s Bible” that survived the infernal fire in a Swedish castle. It’s arguably the largest medieval manuscript in the world originated in 13th century Bohemia. The scribe who penned this formidable book is said to have made a Faustian pact with the devil for completion thereof in just one day. What’s more, the book escaped the inferno by being defenestrated outside the window despite its being of 8.7 inches thick and 75 kilograms (approximately 165 pounds). The story is so remarkable that it has been registered in my mind’s book since I read it. The Devil’s Bible is now preserved at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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