Ayup

You know you liked it.

Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), and Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk).

BOOK REVIEWS. Sort of.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice - Laurie King    

For some reason, as I read this, Sherlock Holmes was Johnny Depp in my mind.

Laurie King captures the flavor of Conan Doyle's England without being held hostage on the paths he blazed. Holmes is the supporting actor in this series (yes this is the first of a series) and he has mellowed ever so slightly with age. She pokes fun at and challenges some of the original material as only a true fan could. 

All this might rankle some Holmes purists, but I enjoyed it and am now on to the next in the series, A Monstrous Regiment of Women.

You Begin

by Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only 
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

from: Selected Poems II: 1976-1986.

Anne

by Gerður Kristný
Translation: Victoria Cribb

By day there’s not a peep
from Anne who lives
in widowhood overhead
– except when she dozes off
over her diary
drops it on the floor

Otherwise not a peep

It’s another matter at night
then there’s all hell of a hubbub
Anne’s friends pound up the stairs
hollering their hellos
and crack open a feast
Some with a bottle of buttermilk
others nursing eggs

Towards dawn the neighbours are fed up
of fiddles and folksongs
The guests depart in haste
melting into the walls

When the police force the door
Anne sits at the kitchen table
writing



from: Höggstaður. Copyright 2007.

Meet Chelsea Fairclough . . . Please

PaintAbility.org is the web site dedicated to Chelsea Fairclough and her very first art exhibition and fundraising event, entitled Paintability.

All of the paintings are produced by Chelsea using the wheels of her electric wheelchair, and the funds raised at the exhibition will support the Make a Wish Foundation in Singapore, and Chelsea’s immediate medical expenses and considerable on going care costs.

14 year old Chelsea is scheduled to have spinal fusion surgery to control the pronounced curvature of her spine and make it easier for her to sit in her wheelchair and have pain free days. The surgery is scheduled to take place during the summer 2012.

Where: ReDot Fine Art Gallery at Tanjong Pagar, Singapore (more)
When:  Thursday 10 May 2012 from 6pm
Ticket Cost:   S$25 per person or S$50 per family of four

If you are unable to attend, you can still make a donation.
(Information and link are on the site)

Long Distance II

   by Tony Harrison

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in.  You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

from: Selected Poems. Copyright 1984.

A Little Help for the Heat

Hey You

   by Adrian Blevins

Back when my head like an egg in a nest  
was vowel-keen and dawdling, I shed my slick beautiful 
and put it in a basket and laid it barefaced at the river 
among the taxing rocks. My beautiful was all hush 
and glitter. It was too moist to grasp. My beautiful 
had no tongue with which to lick—no discernable 
wallowing gnaw. It was really a breed of destruction 
like a nick in a knife. It was a notch in the works 
or a wound like a bell in a fat iron mess. My beautiful 
was a drink too sopping to haul up and swig!
Therefore with the trees watching and the beavers abiding 
I tossed my beautiful down at the waterway against 
the screwball rocks. Even then there was no hum.  
My beautiful was never ill-bred enough, no matter what 
you say. If you want my blue yes everlasting, try my 
she, instead. Try the why not of my low down, 
Sugar, my windswept and wrecked.

from: Live from the Homesick Jamboree. Copyright 2010.