Hedgehogs foreknowledge of the wind

Trees buried in Winter;
World a Looking-Glass and Book.
Desire of gathering Riches has no Limits –
Life, many Ways to get rid of it.

Pleasures wheedle and caress
only to strangle us –
Kings and Coblers Souls
cast in the same Mold.

Books, immortal Children –
Counsel’s Strength consists in Time.
Word of Men, their only Tye on one another,
Dying for Fear of Death.

Entries in the index of Charles Cotton’s translation of Montaigne’s essays, 1685.

Outlined

Toward the Atlantic Ocean, Africa

The front of the human head cut off
at the shoulders and leaning forward to kiss

Europe, Thrace and the Black Sea regions

a young girl in a long dress

Britain, Scandinavia

who stretches her hand back
to attract a leaping cat.

Earth, the two oceans, the American continent

In the other half of Volva the brightness
is more widely diffused;

South America, Nicaragua, Yucatán, Popayán

you might call it the outline of a bell
hanging from a rope and swinging westward.

What lies above and below
can’t be likened to anything.

Somnium by Johannes Kepler, 1608.

Close enough to greatness

On floated a buzzed Garbo,
a browned-out Garland.
Elvises of every era
groped for their towels.

Here walked a plausible Oprah.
In came an ayatollah. And there,
lanky in her tankini—a Cher.
If the whole idea is to go

out of the world as late
and as happy as possible,
you could do worse
than die on a megaliner.

You would have left knowing
how a crowd surrenders
when a man stands before
them as Frank Sinatra.

From Wish You Were Her, n+1.

How we decided we were machines ourselves

Stephen Hawking was in trouble. Another
man wasn’t sure that the world existed.
Every day he heard loud, terrifying
screams inside his head. His bodyguard said

he spent evenings staring at the wall.
Apparently impossible things were
happening all the time: The President
of Turkmenistan was determined to give

his horse to Britain; Leila the elephant
visiting a psychiatric community’s
Christmas party, inflating a giraffe.
He locked his wife in a cupboard and watched

Citizen Kane again and again.
Human beings will always betray you.
Now there was nothing for the dolphins
to do, he would be their creature.

From No Context Adam Curtis Intertitles.

When we are asleep

The moon is shining, though heavy clouds cover her.
One can see the row of small ships silhouetted
in front and behind us against the grey sea.
And so we sail on towards Caen. You, my angel,

sleep gently in the nursery. A long line
of flares hangs over Cherbourg. Funny to imagine
that there Germans run around their guns.
The engine of our boat rocks and rattles.

With me sleep three officers; how childlike
and natural we look when we are asleep.
The air is free of aeroplanes. The best
we can do now is listen to the wireless.

I hope that Andrew’s golden head
rests gently upon his small pillow.
My eyes become wet when I think of you;
I can imagine how you listen to the news.

From Captain Alastair Bannerman’s diary entry on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

Donated

A five-hundred-pound US Navy practice bomb.
A stolen Frederic Remington sculpture.
Customized Air Jordans made for Spike Lee.
The first stamp issued in the US.
More than 5000 used blood vials.
Three pounds of marijuana.
Live Japanese grenades.
A mas­todon tooth.
A live puppy.

People.

Items found in donation bins, according to The Death of a Superman.

A wildness remains

The herd has gathered loosely around
an adult roe deer on the ground.
The black mare does not want it there.
She bites at its neck, pinning it down
and sending tufts of pale fur flying up.

The mare pummels it with both front hooves.
The other horses circle, tension
rising. Every time they approach, the mare
chases them off, ears back, teeth bared.
The brutal scene unfolds until –

what palpable relief – the deer is dead.
Outside, too, has seemed peculiar:
three oystercatchers on the cut grass
of the Norfolk Showground, their orange beaks
flashing neon as they probe for earthworms.

From Even in tame horses, a wildness remains.