Who borrows this book
From Mistress Kate
Had better return it
Or meet thy Fate!
A pox on thee
Who steals this prose
May bears eat thee
From Head to Toes!
I doubt this book will be stolen,
After all, it’s 2013,
But if it should happen to be taken,
…Well, go ahead and keep it, I can just get another copy.
We had to push our meeting out to Monday. I am really looking forward to incorporating these into the book plates.
…as minionkat starts a booming bookplate-selling business…
OK, someone needs to work ‘cunt punt’ in to one of these.
Is there a need to complete this dire task
Dear reader, Minion Kate?
And here is the reason for which I ask:
What the fuck is a book plate?
This is my book
And this is its plate.
If you should find them
Return them to Kate.
One of these pages contains ricin
Your guess as to which one it’s in
Tiny droplets of
Blood from the severed hand of
He who steals my book
#haiku
This book belongs to Mistress Kate
A woman stern and deadly.
If this book comes back too late
Then that is what you’ll be.
Wow, that’s pretty rude. Better use a Limerick, then…
A theft of this book is an affront, runt.
'Twill lead to a rough and a grunt hunt
but when it is found
I’ll shout “a touchdown!”
For you’ll be the goal of cunt punt.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Unless you consider your possession of this book as anything more than a temporary loan from a dedicated bibliophile.
Something like this (Terry Pratchett signed bookplate).
I told my designer friend about the great response rate this thread was getting and she asked me “do you have enough books for all these bookplates?”
I just looked at her. She started to laugh as she realized what a silly question that was.
Keep a book of Mistress Kate’s?
Others have, and met their fates!
Took a book off Miss Kate’s Shelf?
What great taste!
Now if one care’s much for your health
One would return it with great haste.
Yay! I made one, awful though it may be.
Unless solace can be found in hate
I’d return this book to Kate
Nice lil kitty and giraffe-cum-hat
One should nicely bring them back.
Grr. Why is this so difficult?
I can’t edit post-submission? This is news.
Substitute: Now if one care’s much for one’s health
Not exactly verse-shattering, especially for so awful a writing, but at least the POV is consistent now.
“I bless the man who borrows this, and lovingly returns it,
the right to come again is his, for by this act he earns it.
But CURSE the soul who keeps this book, for him too good is eyestrain,
and deep remorse, and vertigo, and nausea and migraine.”
Haven’t lost a book since I started using this bit of doggerel on my bookplates, over 30yrs ago.
In the Father Brown story “The Blast of the Book” by G.K. Chesterton, the story revolves around a book with the inscription
And of course everyone who does look disappears mysteriously and horrifically…
…or do they?