When the Book Ends - Faded Paper Figures

These days

the letter’s like a freeze frame

All the old ways

get cluttered in the bric brac bones of the day

Now the book lights

They flicker like the fireflies

In the long night

The xerox of our sheets bound back for the day

Will we sit like old friends

when the day of the book ends?

Will we sit like old friends

when the day of the book ends?

Feel the spine bend

the scanners light the loose ends.

When the letter sends,

Our voices become flash, like matches to flame

At your bedside

You’re reaching for the outside

In the long night

Will we sit like old friends

when the day of the book ends?

Will we sit like old friends

when the day of the book ends?

nstead of going out and buying a packaged book of which there have been five

thousand copies printed, you will go to the telephone, describe your interests,

your needs, your problems, and they at once xerox, with the help of computers

from the libraries of the world, all the latest material just for you

personally, not as something to be put out on a bookshelf.

They send you the

package as a direct personal service.

This is where weÕre heading under

electronic information conditions.