On Emily

There was an increasing divide
Between people she wished to know
And those she did not.

Her clarity could not endure
Social talk instead of truth;
Piety instead of “The Soul’s Superior instants”.

Her directness would have been disconcerting
If she did not “simulate” conventionality, 
And this was “stinging work”.  

But a more threatening challenge,
Deeper below the surface,
Fired the volcanoes and earthquakes in her poems –

An event,
As she put it,
That “Struck – my ticking – through -“.

Taken from a Guardian article about Emily Dickinson, 13th February 2012. ‘Didn’t’ has been changed to ‘did not’ in the first stanza. Submitted by Susan.

Purge the entire board

Testosterone-fuelled silverbacks
eat what they kill
in under-supervised dealing rooms,
skimming fortunes
from everyone else’s endeavour.
So far the remedies are
cough drops for cancer.

Taken from Polly Toynbee’s Guardian column, Fri 6 July 2012. Submitted by Rishi Dastidar.

The Beauty Secrets of the Empress Cixi

She kept the habit of having sliced ginseng in her mouth
ate pearl powder, eight-treasure ointment and flower food
Peanuts, soybeans and red dates…
‘We are not preparing for cooking porridge
but for making a delicate imperial pastry
a secret breast-enlarging recipe of Empress Dowager Cixi.’

Taken from an article on the Cultural China website. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

Simon and Ruth

At first, Ruth was a bit put off
by the fact that Simon turned up in a car
with every imaginable gadget:
I wasn’t used to flash cars, she says.

Then, on a day out to the beach,
Simon messed up Ruth’s kite.
He got all the lines tangled
so I didn’t use it again, says Ruth,

who had, however, noticed
that Simon was very polite.

Taken from the Announcements, Marriages and Engagements section of The Times on 18 February 2012 (Simon and Ruth are to be married on 22 June 2012). Submitted by Thom.

Miserere

I confess:

I have become  
a runner.

I go  
running.

I  
run.

Like a  
runner.

Which is what  
I have become.

A running  
runner.

Forgive me.

Oh Christ.

Forgive me.

(From I have been murdered and replaced with a suspicious facsimile. In running shoes. Submitted by Ailsa Holland)

Never go to a horse race

Who loves a horse race?
Are not too many fond of it?
Does it not lead to many evils,
and to frequent ruin?
Never go to a horse race.

Mr. Mix had one child,
whom he called Irene;
he had also a good farm,
and some money.

He went to the races with his child,
dressed in black crape for the loss of her mother.
Here Mr. Mix drank freely,
and bet largely,
and lost all he was worth.

At night he went home a beggar;
took a dose of brandy,
and died before morning,
leaving his child a pennyless orphan.
Never go to a horse race.

From The Clinton Primer, 1830, via Futility Closet. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Brooklyn, Brooklyn

You live very self-consciously, in Brooklyn.
Do you drink juice or coffee or eat vegetables?
How do you live with yourself
and your bourgeois lifestyle choices?
Have you ever grown a plant?

You monster, you
gentrifying Brooklyn monster.

Your plant is a symbol.
Punch that up on your sushi iPhone app
where you get your food from
in your new robot Brooklyn dystopia,
you invasive specie.

Do you like quirky things?

It’s people like you
who are ruining the Brooklyn remembered
by old folks who sit on stoops
and provide readily available sound bites
about the days of old.

From the article Brooklyn is cool until you start reading about it in Gawker. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Ullapool

Here
I am on the seafront in Brighton, in 1994.
I have just told my best friend that
we shouldn’t go out with each other.
‘We were meant to be just friends,’
I am saying.
I have read about love in novels and am sure
I know all about it. This is one of the cleverest things
I have ever done.
I am 18.
I exhale my cigarette, like a grown-up. Here
I am four years later, on the same stretch of seafront
with the same friend.
We are on a bench. My head is in his lap.
We are talking about what to call
our baby in my belly. My wedding dress is in a bag at
our feet.
We get married in three days. Since
we were last here,
I have learnt that
I knew nothing at the age of 18.
I know now that love can be a quiet, sure thing
– like the first April sun on
your arms – and not the pyroclastic blast
I was waiting for. In 19 hours,
we will find out that the baby
is dead. The grief that is coming for
us has five blades on each hand: it will fall on
us like a blizzard, and leave
us on the floor.
We will weep on
our honeymoon in Ullapool – so lost
I could not tell you if it did rain at all,
that time. At the time,
I thought the deep-sea pressure of sorrow was
so great, it would crush
my heart smaller, for ever.
I was sure I knew everything about it.

Taken from Caitlin Moran‘s column for the Saturday Times on 20th August, 2011. Submitted by Marika Rose.

The devil in its sights

It is, frankly, an amazing story.
The indomitable patriarch who will shortly
be forced to plead age and infirmity;

his headstrong son whose eagerness
to do what his father would have done
will shortly doom him;

the loyalists who will unquestionably fall
on their swords; an upending of the moral
landscape in which the miscreants once

happily functioned; and the virtuous newspaper,
perhaps the last great newspaper,
with a last great editor, who, long waiting

for and never believing it would get
such an opportunity, now has
the devil in its sights.

From Will the Guardian Bring Down Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff in Adweek. Submitted by Rishi Dastidar.

Apologia Ignis

We incorrectly stated
that Julian Brooker, twenty three, of Brighton,
was blown fifteen feet into the air
after accidentally touching
a live railway line.

His parents have asked us to make clear
he was not turned into a fireball,
was not obsessed with the number twenty-three
and didn’t go drinking on that date every month.

Julian’s mother did not say,
during or after the inquest,
her son often got on all fours
creeping around their house
pretending to be Gollum.

From an apology in The Sun, 29 April 2005. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.