Bookstores

i always worked in bookstores

but in each the owners were pretentious pricks

who took no joy in peddling pages

angry their own were never published

or dumb as bricks businessmen and women

who didn’t give a damn for a book

but when it made them cash

to them it was a game of sales

and a bookstore an easy target 

to practice on

and there never was a better word than chains

for the corporate bookstores

where the clerks are paid pennies per hour

pushing promotions and memberships
for the rich to get richer

but at least there the corruption is bare

and the books themselves

just sit on the shelves

fall into hands or get dusted

words are not dead just encrusted and still

cocooned in the shops

lying in wait to hatch in a mind

and fly