# Bookshelves

A poem by Brian Bilston ( @brian_bilston on Twitter)

A-Z by author and put in order carefully curated and genres all categories I'd created in the sections spines aligned and check that every Friday I'd dust them used to be tidy my bookshelves

Achebe to Zola went my fiction and half a shelf for my diction- aries and other reference books not to mention the special nook for first editions (most of these in poor condition) a shelf to gaze at poems & plays

then rows of lives dusty histories of people & places real-life mysteries and the section of learned titles from economics to geo-biology to make me look quite knowledgy then there's travel but it's all begun to unravel

as things fall apart and it breaks my librarian heart because it seems my bookcase crowded has finally stuffed in wedged run out of space its dimensions crammed unplanned remain fixed so books now just get mixed I suppose rammed jammed I could stop buying books but I would much rather packed stacked put up with how it looks