Category: articles

Jamdani Weavers

A bead of sweat rolls down my face;
I am struck by the silence. The air
is hushed and filled with concentration.

On the banks of the Lakshya
master weavers sit in pairs, barely breaking
sweat at their bamboo looms.
The men are shirtless. The women rest
their arms on cheap white cotton,
protecting the delicate muslin.

Hands interlace silky gold thread
into sheer cloth the colour of oxblood.

Around us turquoise, yellow and white billows
in the breeze that – like a cool blessing –
comes off the river through latticed bamboo walls.

Motifs – jasmine, marigolds, peacock feathers –
neither embroidered nor printed,
are painstakingly sewn by hand.

Children of the loom, taught by their fathers:
strong backs and magic fingers. Dedication.

(From The delicate material that takes months to weave by hand. Submitted by Angi Holden)

Annoyance

Just when we thought some
of the old annoyances
of the 20th century
had died out, they come
roaring back
new,
improved,
upgraded,
and intensified like the government

dug up their corpses
and stuffed them with hydraulics
and, like, RAM sticks
and shit, and turned
them into deadly cybernetic warriors.
They didn’t die.
They were waiting.
They were adapting.
They. Were. Evolving.

They’ve returned,
fortified by modern technology,
designed to annoy us anywhere,
everywhere,
and at the convenience of
the person who wants to annoy us.

(From 4 Obnoxious Behaviors The Modern World Made Worse. Submitted by Kenn Merchant)

Absent Father

I find myself here with a baby with delicate bones,
fine features and blue eyes, who – especially asleep,
when she’s at her most beautiful – looks exactly like you.
The fine movements of the lips, the almond-shaped eyes,
the one dimple on her right cheek.
I still find this resemblance strangely, unsettlingly painful.

I imagine you waking up beside that other woman,
whoever she might be; she will never find out
about this one aspect of your life.
I find it hard to picture you; I don’t know your apartment,
but I imagine you waking up in it, flat on your back,
elbow tucked beneath your head, thinking of your baby,
somewhere, with someone else, hundreds of miles away.

For a few minutes every once in a while,
more rarely each year,
and too briefly.

Taken from A letter to…my baby’s absent father in The Guardian, 7th June 2014. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Spring Drawings

I had had a very minor stroke
and the first drawing afterwards
took me two days to do
(the days are a lot shorter in November).

The stroke only manifested itself in my speech.
I found I couldn’t finish sentences, and although
it came back after about a month
I find now I talk a lot less.

But it did not affect my drawing.
I think it even made me concentrate more.
I thought, well I’m OK so long as I can draw,
I don’t really need to say much any more;

I thought,
I’ve said enough already.

From David Hockney’s Yorkshire spring drawings, The Guardian, 18 April 2014. By Angi Holden.

The Dilemma

Picture this.
A man spends a
long bus journey
groaning over a very full bladder.
The bus finally pulls into a station
for a brief stop
and the guy rushes out,
leaving his bag on board.

But there’s a problem:
all the toilets are closed.
He runs around,
one muscle-twitch
away from humiliation,
looking for someone to open them.

Then, out of the corner of his eye,
he sees the bus pulling away,
with his possessions.

It’s a dilemma worthy
(well, almost)
of Hamlet:
to pee or not to pee?

From Stage Struck: Frankly, my dear, you gotta make ’em give a damn, The Irish Times, 3 April 2014. By Taidgh Lynch.

A City on the Edge

St. John’s is
gnawing on my bones.
You can’t take it in
with tiny sips; you have
to choke it back, you have
to swig it down. You have
to wheeze about and stagger.

In St. John’s,
the houses tumble uphill
if such a thing is possible
and the entire place-
the streets, the squares, the alleyways-
seems to have been laid out
without the aid of a ruler
(and possibly while
under the influence of screech).
From Hill O’Chips to Mile Zero,
from Water Street to the colourful homes
lined up on Jellybean Row:
the city is full of angles that
don’t
quite
add
up.

St. John’s is, as the Irish say,
“a great place to get lost in.”
Wander around long enough,
though, and you will
eventually end up
at the harbour
as surely as water flows downhill.

Great ships lie tethered, bleeding
rust into the bay,
and rising and falling
on s l o w exhalations
of water. From the pier,
the bay looks like a landlocked lake,
the Narrows sealed off by
perspective and distance.
The very air
tastes of
salt.

I am homesick for St. John’s,
and it isn’t even my home.
I miss the city and I think of it often,
the way one wonders about
a boozy uncle who comes crashing
into your life every couple of years
and then charges off,
leaving a trail of tall tales
and laughter in his wake.

It is a good city, this fishing village
on the eastern edge of
North America.

It gnaws on you.

From The City on a Rock, Will Ferguson, Macleans.ca, 21 July 2003. By Megan.

Melody of the soul

Across a nation long captivated
By Western classical music,
People reacted with remorse, outrage
And even the rare threat of a lawsuit
After Mr. Samuragochi’s revelations
That he had hired a ghostwriter since the 1990s
To compose most of his music.

The anger turned to disbelief
When the ghostwriter himself
Came forward to accuse Mr. Samuragochi
Of faking his deafness,
Apparently to win public sympathy
And shape the Beethoven persona.

The scandal has brought
An abrupt fall from grace
For Mr. Samuragochi,
A man who looked the part
Of a modern-day composer
With his long hair,
Stylish dark suits
And ever-present sunglasses.

From In Japan, a Beloved Deaf Composer Appears to Be None of the Above, NYT. By Mark Dzula.

Ha-Ha

The force of laughing can dislocate jaws,
prompt asthma attacks,
cause headaches, make hernias protrude.

It can provoke cardiac arrhythmia, syncope
or even emphysema (this last,
according to a clinical lecturer in 1892).

Laughter can trigger the rare but possibly grievous
Pilgaard-Dahl and Boerhaave’s syndromes.

There are choking hazards,
such as ingesting food during belly laughs.

We don’t know how much laughter is safe.

There’s probably a U-shaped curve:
laughter is good for you,
but enormous amounts are bad, perhaps.

From Who Says Laughter’s the Best Medicine?, NYT, 20 December 2013. By Howie Good.