When a Library Closes
Antony Owen

In my city of peace born of fire and grey 
a phoenix rises on emblems, letterheads
and library books where Kuldip reads How to Kill a Mockingbird.

I only know how common birds are killed,
when a library closes- a blackbird caws from blossom then dies, 
and books become bridges for those who lay the dreadful weave.

In my city of 2tone I hear city of culture,
I hear the twelve bar blues from a busker's rain scarred guitar. 
I hear the door of a library moaning as it closes in Earlsdon.

I see a dead poet smiling exhumed for a city of culture bid 
and wonder if those bidding know poetry at all
where black and white make grey our symbol.

In my city of culture a man washes dreadlocks in a library sink, 
looks into the mirror and reads me, educates me,
places of books where poems are made and read.

In my city of culture a care home waits for the library bus, 
women wear their best clothes for shabby books made new, 
it brings them the road of real and make believe.

I only know that when books breathe they resuscitate a city, 
dead dreamers breathing from spines that hold it together,
If you kill a library you make a cage from the ribs of a phoenix.
This is our city where musicians and poets sing for a tuppence
and those who decide what art ismuzzle mouths of artists and woodwind.
Leave our libraries be, let our city sing, let our city be Malala's song.