Chapbook Messiah

Every time I find a chapbook

In a used bookstore

I get a burning desire to

Rescue it.

They are always laden with

The memories and the dreams of

Ink pen warriors.

Someone out in the world

Bold enough to share their most

Intimate secrets with

Complete strangers.

The Underdogs.

I imagine a wordsmith

Losing sleep over the perfect

Placement of syllables.

I wonder how many hands

Have passed the little Chaps around

Like fifty page harlots.

The bookstore looks more like

A brothel, going under since the

Industrial Revolution.

You can almost see the

Steam billowing from the pages.

And you can sense the desperate

Author trying to eat poetry.

I wonder how Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Felt in 1958, selling his book for one dollar.

As if his words weren’t worth more.

I want to liberate the Russian literature

From the oppressive binds of the

Fifty-cent shelf.

To give back to those from whom

My fathers took so much.

I owe it to them,

The poor little Chaps.

Sent off to die in the

Scholastic Army.