Tag: Marika Rose

Papa Don’t Shoot

“Papa rushed into the room”
Rola El-Halabi
told the newspaper. “He threatened us with
a gun in his hand and shouted
‘Everyone out!’ And then he shot me
in the hand from three meters.
I cried and screamed.”

Bild reported that El-Halabi split
from her stepfather as a manager
in January. “When I had problems
I could talk with him about anything,
except when it was about boys,”
El-Halabi said.
“That was taboo.”

Taken from a news story on April 3, 2011 about a female boxer in Germany, shot in the hand by her stepfather before a bout. By Marika Rose.

Insects In General

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failures unless it comes through your own fault

Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Taken from a letter by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his 12-year-old daughter Scottie, away at summer camp. By Marika Rose.

Beneath Us

For it is brought home to you, at least
while you are watching, that it is only
because miners sweat their guts out that
superior persons can remain superior.
You and I and the editor of the Times
Literary Sup., and the Nancy poets
and the Archbishop of Canterbury
and Comerade X, author of Marxism
for Infants–all of us really owe the
comparative decency of our lives
to poor drudges underground, blackened
to the eyes, with their throats full
of coal dust, driving their shovels forward
with arms and belly muscles of steel.

From George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ (1937) as cited on Fors Clavigera. By Marika Rose.

Mine Host

No thieves, fakirs, rogues or tinkers
No skulking loafers or flea-bitten tramps
No slap an’ tickle o’ the wenches
No banging o’ tankards on the tables
No dogs allowed in the kitchen
No cockfighting

Fintlocks, cudgels, daggers and swords
to be handed to
the innkeeper for safe-keeping.

A poster in a pub in Berwick upon Tweed, 25 August 2011. By Marika Rose.

Model Code

Flick yer bean
For Agyness Deyn
Give us a blow
Daisy Lowe

Wham bam
Thank you Stam
My flies are undone
Lily Donaldson

I’m a tosser
For Coco Rocha
Fancy a screw
Behati Prinsloo

Do me daily
Christoper Bailey
Cause me pain
Hedi Slimane

Uhu
Gareth Pugh
My legs are crossed
Georgia Frost

Grab my weiner
Iekeliene
Give us a backhander
Rachel Alexander

Let’s play naked Twister
Linda Evangelista
You would if you could
Cindy Crawford

I’ll show you who’s boss
Kate Moss
I’ve got more than a handful
For Naomi Campbell

Who needs a husband?
I’ve got House of Holland

T-shirt slogans from House of Holland’s AW07 collection (Catwalk>AW07). By Marika Rose.

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, 20 August 2011. By Marika Rose.