swollen eye was still the black and purple color of an overripe avocado, she had rearranged them after she polished them.

etagere

At night, on the edge of sleep, I can see the shore of Dublin Bay. Its rocky sweep and its granite pier

dissembles

madrigals

debased

War in the east, War in the west, War up north, War down south – War – war –

Me say war.That until there no longer First class and second class citizens of any nation Until the colour of a man’s skin Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes –

“Your old earth,” they say, “is very dreary;”    “Our young feet,” they say, “are very weak

The Cry of the Children

People emerge from winter to hear them ring,

People emerge from winter to hear them ring, children glitter with mischief and the blind man hears bells in the town alight with spring.

Brute

antagonisms

epochs

All  the  powers  of  old  Europe  have  entered  into  a  holy  alliance  to  exorcise  this  spectre:  Pope  and  Tsar,  Metternich  and  Guizot,  French Radicals and German police-spies

In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

martyrdom

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

visage

A man with funny shape Head and body all mixed up?

And Modern Art

let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours

When my rooms have been decked out and the flutes sound and the laughter there is loud, let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house

As my days pass in the crowded market of this world and my hands grow full with the daily profits, let me ever feel that I have gained nothing

Step-Dad spits liquor back into glass, Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place, maybe she keeps the baby.

The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room. He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life;

However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversations?’

Laura awoke as from a dream, Laugh’d in the innocent old way, Hugg’d Lizzie but not twice or thrice; Her gleaming locks show’d not one thread of grey,

“Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted For my sake the fruit forbidden? Must your light like mine be hidden, Your young life like mine be wasted, Undone in mine undoing, And ruin’d in my ruin,

Though the goblins cuff’d and caught her, Coax’d and fought her, Bullied and besought her, Scratch’d her, pinch’d her black as ink, Kick’d and knock’d her, Maul’d and mock’d her, Lizzie utter’d not a word; Would not open lip from lip

“We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed

When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Sow seed—but let no tyrant reap: Find wealth—let no imposter heap: Weave robes—let not the idle wear: Forge arms—in your defence to bear.

Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,

But leechlike to their fainting country cling

virtuous

Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel

How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.”

I expected this reception,” said the dæmon. “All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.

I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open

but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.

Confined then in cages, like the feathered race, they have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and stalk with mock-majesty from perch to perch.

Ah! why do women, I write with affectionate solicitude, condescend to receive a degree of attention and respect from strangers, different from that reciprocation of civility which the dictates of humanity, and the politeness of civilization authorise between man and man? And why do they not discover, when “in the noon of beauty’s power,” that they are treated like queens only to be deluded by hollow respect, till they are led to resign, or not assume, their natural prerogatives? Confined then in cages, like the feathered race, they have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and stalk with mock-majesty from perch to perch.

Pleasure is the business of a woman’s life

That woman is naturally weak, or degraded by a concurrence of circumstances is, I think, clear. But this position I shall simply contrast with a conclusion, which I have frequently heard fall from sensible men in favour of an aristocracy: that the mass of mankind cannot be any thing, or the obsequious slaves, who patiently allow themselves to be penned up, would feel their own consequence, and spurn their chains. Men, they further observe, submit every where to oppression, when they have only to lift up their heads to throw off the yoke; yet, instead of asserting their birthright, they quietly lick the dust, and say, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Women, I argue from analogy, are degraded by the same propensity to enjoy the present moment; and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain.

the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father & never want joy. And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

 Little Lamb

He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name.

ittle Lamb who made thee           Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o’er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice!

This single story of Africa ultimately comes, I think, from Western literature. Now, here is a quote from the writing of a London merchant called John Lok, who sailed to west Africa in 1561 and kept a fascinating account of his voyage. After referring to the black Africans as “beasts who have no houses,”he writes, “They are also people without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts.”

And so, I began to realize that my American roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different versions of this single story, as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not “authentically African.” Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity. In fact, I did not know what African authenticity was.The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man.My characters drove cars. They were not starving. Therefore they were not authentically African.

I had bought into the single story of Mexicans and I could not have been more ashamed of myself.