Category: Uncategorized
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Evening I.
Cultural Studies exam tomorrow. Reading about the partition. 2007. World history. Read about the holocaust and wept. Grandmother looked concerned but Ma asked her to not disturb me. 2013. Was it easier to live before the partition? It must be. It must have been easier to live before the holocaust. Less history. Less guilt. History grows…
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True Love / Wislawa Szymborska
True love. Is it normal is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own? Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason, drawn randomly from millions but convinced it had to happen this way – in reward for what? For nothing.…
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Today I.
“She sent me such a formal text message, you won’t believe. She wrote: Mother passed away yesterday. Please come for the requiem ceremony today at — church. Thanks.” “The language. I couldn’t read it. Mother passed away yesterday.” Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I…
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Tainted Margins II.
I lit a cigarette and looked at the newspaper. I never read the newspaper. Newspapers only bring bad news and Brecht had taught me years ago that I will laugh only until I receive the bad news. “Jaipur is the first city in India where I witnessed Indian poverty”, he said to me. “Old men…
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Scenes from last week.
“I spoke to him. He was still a man. Suddenly, beneath my very eyes, I saw his skin get hard and thicken in a terrifying way. His gloves, his shoes, became hoofs; his hands became paws, a horn began to grow out of his forehead, he became ferocious, he attacked furiously. He was no…
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Candide: or, Optimism
–What’s optimism? said Cacambo. –Alas, said Candide, it is a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell. From Voltaire’s Candide.
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Acacias/ Nicanor Parra
Strolling many years ago Down a street taken over by acacias in bloom I found out from a friend who knows everything That you had just gotten married. I told him that I really Had nothing to do with it. I never loved you — You know that better than I do — Yet each…
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Wislawa Szymborska / Writing a Resume
I sat down to write a CV and then I remembered. In the end, poetry will save me. -S. What needs to be done? Fill out the application and enclose the resume. Regardless of the length of life, a resume is best kept short. Concise, well-chosen facts are de rigueur. Landscapes are replaced…
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Elbow-Starlings (song)
How dare the Premier ignore my invitations? He’ll have to go So, to the bunch he luncheons with It’s second on my list of things to do At the top I’m stopping by Your place of work and acting like I haven’t dreamed of you and I And marriage in an orange grove You…
Beyond Six Rivers 