one day there will no longer be
books,
not because they've been burned
nor that the internet made them redundant.
People will no longer be able to
read,
gradually convinced they no longer need to
by those who patent information as
"intellectual property"
so that those without it
would more easily follow their lead
like the Church in the Middle Ages
or the scribes of Ancient Egypt.
Those still with the skill,
though illegally,
may "become" books as in Fahrenheit 451,
reciting novels, dictionaries
encyclopedias and poems
for anyone with an interest in them.
Once history was a story,
told over and over out loud,
chanted like poetry
before it was written down
as Gilgamesh,
the Iliad
and the Odyssey.
Now, since rhythm and rhyme
make a home for themselves
more readily than prose in the human mind,
poetry that portrays history as it actually happens
instead of "news", which is nothing but propaganda,
will help people to keep from repeating history,
because history doesn't repeat itself
people do.
"History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." - Mark Twain
