Marginalia

Bob, , , 
The graffiti outside the concert hall
Is shabby, but beautiful, like the footwork of downspouts.

The grammatically correct lightbulbs, but for the fingerprints
Of new moons.

Like the notations in a dream, unevenly underlined, then
Soon forgotten.

The calligraphy of the video game Asteroids 
Is a favorite study of Aristotle. 

Aristotle loves marginalia. 
What if you could add up all the circumferences in the galaxy? 

As for that total, though I don’t know outright, I hum the tune. 
We are all spacewalking.

16 thoughts on “Marginalia”

  3. I’m a big fan of creasing the corners of book pages to be revisited when i need them most, not exactly marginalia, but seems to serve the same function – to see what we’re reading, to know words as magic, as alchemy, in changing things. There’s so much movements in this poem which hammers home that thinking is an action verb – “graffiti” and “footwork of downspouts” and “fingerprints” and “unevenly underlined” and “calligraphy” and then leaving us the reader of “spacewalking.” Great job on this Bob.

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    1. Thanks Steve. It’s always interesting to go back and see what you’ve underlined in a book, especially if it’s an old book. I have a few I’ve had since I was in my 20’s. I’ve tried to pay attention to the “marginalia” around me from graffiti to water crashing at bottom of down spouts. And maybe us clinging to this rock.

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      1. I’ve been told by early addition book collectors to not crease the corners of pages or mark up books, but like you, I enjoy going back to see what I’ve marked and often times i have no idea why. I guess my head was in a different place back then. “Clinging to this rock” …..I like your phrase and then lifting up that rock as much as possible and oh my, what we sometimes find there – amazing similarities between two people or things we never could have imagined.

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      2. I think book collectors would hate me. For example, I don’t like dust jackets, they make reading more difficult, seems like the book is always slipping our of your hands. So I generally throw them away. But finding that old book you marked up years and years ago, is like finding an old journal entry.

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      3. Like an old journal entry. Definitely. Sometimes I create a word document and write notes with page numbers. You know how sometimes you remember a passage, but not completely? That’s when my OCD kicks in and I have to freaking reread the whole book again, but it’s worth it.

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