Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. This is vintage Marquez.… Read More »Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Opening to One Hundred Years of solitude
One by one they appear inthe darkness: a few friends, anda few with historical names. How late they start to shine!but before they fade they standperfectly embodied, all the past… Read More »Thom Gunn: My Sad Captains
The snail pushes through a green night, for the grass is heavy with water and meets over the bright path he makes, where rain has darkened the earth’s dark. He… Read More »Thom Gunn: Considering the Snail
As you beganYou’ll end the year with me.We’ll hug each other while we can.Work or stray while we must.Nothing is, or will ever be,Mine, I suppose. No one can hold… Read More »Thom Gunn: In Trust, The Dump
Where I lived – winter and hard earth.I sat in my cold stone roomchoosing tough words, granite, flint, to break the ice. My broken heart – I tried that, but… Read More »Demeter
Seasons were now irrelevant. His saucepans were too heavy. His coats impossible for him to put on. He would hold out his arms like a child when he wanted to… Read More »Hands
I wake up cold, I whoProspered through dreams of heat Wake to their residue, Sweat, and a clinging sheet. My flesh was its own shield: Where it was gashed, it… Read More »Thom Gunn: The Man with the Night Sweats
so much dependsupon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the whitechickens.
The Hug It was your birthday, we had drunk and dinedHalf of the night with our old friendWho’d showed us in the endTo a bed I reached in one… Read More »Thom Gunn: The Hug
It was as if his Aunt had been preserved in honey. Her voice sounded nearly as he wanted her to sound and she looked almost like the face at the front of… Read More »landings
Alice saw her first. The hands were as long as before and held some gardening device that looked familiar. Everything was in shadow so Alice guessed at the mouth and… Read More »habanera in a shed
George watched the dancing hands play with each moment, sending time forwards then backwards even side-ways …Could time move side-ways? George looked into the steadying blue eyes and realised he… Read More »hibiscus
Alice had stopped tying her laces one Tuesday morning in June. There seemed something irredeemably arrogant about tying one’s shoes tightly with little bits of cord when so much of life… Read More »Alice
George smelt his father’s wrist as he stood under his outstretched hand. He smelt of paperclips somehow. His father always carried his office with him. They both remained close enough… Read More »Alice meets George
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDsmS98zH0k&mode=related&search= You’re just too good to be true.Can’t take my eyes off you.You’d be like heaven to touch. I wannahold you so much. At long last love hasarrived. And I… Read More »Lauryn Hill: Cant take my eyes off of you
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NcIunSkns0s (Not anywhere near the best version…but) This magnificent song of the mellifluous Nina makes me tingle…pulls at the sinews of the soul, wets them with hot tears… Read More »Nina Simone – Porgy (I Love You, Porgy) by Moira
George had once stood inside his aunt’s wardrobe for several hours whilst his parents pretended to look for him. He held his aunt’s tired dresses across his face and wept.… Read More »Not Narnia
October. George stood in a green kitchen with grey and orange lino watching his Aunt iron. His special vest scratched at his thin chest and the windows reflected back to him an intense,… Read More »George
Witches here too. Going to bed when the chickens are in.
My desert island book would have to be A Suitable Boy. From the pistachio ice cream in the opening chapter to the orange peel on the train in the final… Read More »Vikram Seth: A Suitable Boy by Carmel Riley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xsj66S6Xuw Everybody all around the world, stand up all my brothersJoining our hands, united we’re strongerFighting for peace, caring about our loved onesTrusting ourselves, sharing our feeling, believe… Read More »Sydney Youngblood: If Only I could
Wow, tough question! I’ll choose, The Female Man by Joanna Russ. An exciting, subversive and very witty Feminist Sci-fi novel. It had a massive impact on me when I… Read More »The Female Man by Joanna Truss : Carmel Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j52uTt82WM When I first saw the album cover in Will Parker’s ‘cave’attic record shop in Ormskirk it blew my mind(man)! After my dad took the decision to abandon his tangerine… Read More »Pink Floyd: Great Gig in the sky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7exBrCiUI A friend reminded me last night of this truly exceptional musical. Claire said that the music is inspirational enough to even create faith. Listening to Yvonne Elliman again this morning… Read More »Yvonne Elliman: I don't know how to love him
Oh no. Here’s the latest lazy speak word that follows on from ‘passionate’ as the most over-used word by the can’t be ar**ed to truly engage their brains copywriters. In… Read More »Iconic
Swampy, sexy and very off-centre. Made me go to Savannah just to see the house where a lover turned killer was ‘murdered’ by his dead victim eight years later… Love… Read More »John Berendt: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
She walked towards the fountain so that her skin caught at the mist before she could dip her head beneath the water and hold her breath. How light it was… Read More »immersion
