Skint

Emma
I want better for Tai
I want just a normal life
Just where I can get up in the morning
Get Tai off to school or whatever
Get about my housework
Do you know what I mean?

Do things with Tai at the weekend
Save up for holidays
Do you know what I mean?

I want it to be where eventually
I’m off the methadone and everything
Maybe even go back to college
Do a counsellors course
I’ll get a little office job or summat

Just normal
Do you know what I mean?

Gail
My partner died
He was thirty-seven years old when he died
To see him come off heroin
get his life sorted out
and then to go on drink
and then to die
through drink
it’s hard
It’s really hard

Life throws some things at you sometimes,
don’t it?
And you’ve just got to get on with it
You’ve got to be strong
And if you’re not strong,
and you’re weak
you fall apart,
don’t you?

Skye
Yeah, but it’s because I can
because I can do it
and I wanna do it
I can
so I don’t give a fuck
Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what, yeah?
that’s sticking up for your mates that
She’d booted her in the stomach
and winded her
so I just went over
I was just like
Boom

Dropped her
Banged her
Fucked her up
Stamped on her head
and everything

Tracey
Since I’ve lost me kids
I don’t care anymore
What else have I go to lose
apart from my head?
I regret the prostitution
and not fighting a bit harder
for me kids
but you can’t turn the clock back,
can you?
If you could,
we’d all have perfect lives,
wouldn’t we?

Taken from episode 4 of the Channel 4 series Skint. Submitted by Lisa Oliver.

All Correct

We anthropologists
have to be
as gender neutral
in our language
as possible.

That’s why I say critters a lot.

From a college classroom lecture, overhead in the hallway. Submitted by J.R Solonche.

Skidegate

House to which the high tide comes
House unknown
Fort house
Grizzly bear house
Grizzly bear’s mouth’s house
House making a noise
House of dishes
Box house
House unknown
House of contentment
House unknown
House of the stormy sea
Grizzly bear house (again)
House unknown
House unknown
Thunder and lightning house
Shining house
Dugout house – Chief Skidegate’s house
House in which people must shout to be heard
Eldjiwus’s house
Chief’s house
Raven’s house
House chiefs peep at from a distance
Mountain house
House on which storm clouds make a noise
Killer-whale house
Always wanting more house
Mosquito hawk house
House people are ashamed to look at – it is so great
Fin house

From a diorama in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, noted around 2000. Translations of house names from the original native American dialect of the Haida people. Submitted by Simon Williams.

The Shape of a Dead Man

I have the shape of a dead man
on the wall of my cell.
It was left behind by the last occupant.
He stood against the wall
and traced around himself with a pencil,
then shaded it in.

It looks like a very faint shadow,
it’s barely noticeable until you see it.
It took me nearly a week to notice it for the first time,
But once you see it you can’t un-see it.

I find myself lying on my bunk
and looking at it several times a day.
It just seems to draw the eyes like a magnet.
God only know what possessed him to do such a thing
but I can’t bring myself to wash it off.

Since they executed him,
it’s the only trace of him left.
He’s been in his grave almost five years now,
yet his shadow still lingers.

He was no-one and nothing.
All that remains of him is a handful of old rape charges
and a man-shaped pencil sketch.

(From How to Survive Death Row. Submitted by Lisa Oliver)

Hello for people

Hello for people
who play music
because it feels
so good
and is very fun,
but also
want to share it
live a lot
and get free french fries
places.
Let’s play your
neighbors
front yard.

From a Craigslist ad for musicians, 4 April 2013. Submitted by Cathy Barber.

It will soon be dark

Writing is
excessive drudgery. It
crooks your back,
it dims your sight,
it twists your stomach
and your sides.

As the harbour is welcome
to the sailor, so is
the last line
to the scribe.

Marginalia from medieval manuscripts, posted on Wesley Hill’s tumblr, 13th April 2012. Submitted by Marika.

Autoverse 2

More than iron, more than lead,
more than gold I need electricity.
I need it more than I need lamb
or pork or lettuce or cucumber.
I need it for my dreams.

(The output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write prose at random)

Autoverse 1

Bill sings to Sarah.
Sarah sings to Bill.
Perhaps they will do
other dangerous things together.
They may eat lamb
or stroke each other.
They may chant of their difficulties
and their happiness.
They have love
but they also have typewriters.

(The output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write prose at random)

Autoverse 2

Cry me a rainbow

Down by the Fairway waterfront
where all of those artist
studios are the surge
broke into the first floor studios
drawing out paint and chalk across
the whole walkway, splashing
it back up against
the side of the building,
wave by wave,
making this insane rainbow
colored splatter paint all
across the Red Hook
shore. There must have been
mostly red paint
because the ocean in that
little alcove has turned a deep maroon.

Taken from a letter describing the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Submitted by Marika.

The Wisdom of the East

The face
of nature

reflects
all of

life’s ups
and downs.

Carve your
name on

your heart,
not in

marble.
You are

the center
of attention

wherever
you go.

Three slips of paper inside fortune cookies from a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, New York City. Submitted by J.R. Solonche.