Times Have Changed - British Museum Reading Room, London (30/10/16)

A world within a world,

Past brushing shoulder with present,

Beneath a powder-blue Pantheon dome.

Wilde lounges tragically against his desk,

Looking more each day

Like the picture he hides.

Orwell and Wells

Discuss the room’s circular aspect,

Akin to an Apocalyptic craft,

While Lenin simply glares and tsks

As I enter without a ticket.

“Times have changed,” he says

Into his copy of War and Peace.

Wilde’s nose falls off.

“You can say that again.”

City Escape - Maughan Library, King's College, London (20/10/16)

It feels like the walls are rotating,

Like you’re falling down

The rabbit hole,

Like the Martians are hovering

To take you away.

When you’re surrounded by shelves

On every side

Is the door your escape

Or the book?

Krishna Condensed - The King's Library, British Library, London (12/10/16)

There once was a man down whose throat

The whole universe could fit (no joke),

But King George the Third

Said he rather preferred

A universe not down a throat.

Thus he ordered his agents to find

Books and volumes of every kind,

So that young or old,

In a glass tower, may behold

The universe neatly confined.