New November poetry--let me (constructively) have it

The Musty Back Shelves
As I lose myself
in the yellowing pages
of an old text

Its words connect
to the eye and synapses
enriching brain cells

Its rhythms like
some dinosaur step portents
of a prog rock band

Its textures between
fragile and brittle
fighting against time

Its illumination
making paths straight
in a cluttered mind

One day I will bask
in the light
of my electronic device
and muse if
I’ve ceded discernment
to the machine

Gordon Stamper, Jr.
November 4, 2017

Hagiography

If someone were to write of me
a memoir of some note
no help would the subject be
fame would come from the writer

With the rings of a tree
nature’s tablet wrote
beaver is fait accompli
now it’s work of the biter

Concrete minds would likely flee
and fall into a moat
but deconstructionists can see
with deduction for a lighter

A reader gives a stirring plea
what line can one quote
from faulty rhyme scheme debris
joined by an awkward miter

Such would my memoir be
a challenge of some note
a mediocre jamboree
art made by supercollider

Gordon Stamper, Jr.
November 11, 2017