#BLEAK VISTAE

[onlyhurtforaminute]

TYRANNY-PASSING THROUGH THE AGUE

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hii, I was wondering if you had any recs of a writer/author John au. I've found some of author Sherlock, but none of John except his blogging that he does normally. if you don't do recs anymore or don't feel like answering feel free to ignore and have a lovely day! <3

Hi Nonny!

Oh I'm still doing weekly lists, I just don't get many asks for them anymore so I feel like y'all don't like them anymore LOL. BUT!! Your ask is a fantastic excuse to use your ask as a list prompt since I don't have one ready for today!! I actually find the opposite, that there seem to be more "writer John" fics more than the other way around, especially as I've been going through my lists.

That said, I've done a tag search for "writer" and "author" on my offline lists, and here's what I got! Hope you enjoy and as usual, if anyone has any fics that they would like to suggest, please add them below!!

WRITER / AUTHOR JOHN

BOOKMARKS

A Gossamer Dream by CarmillaCarmine (E, 15,985 w., 4 Ch. || Writer/Teacher AU || First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Writer John / Teacher Sherlock, Fluff, London, Holding Hands, Online Friendship / Romance, Phone Sex, Anal Sex, Happy Ending, Alternating POV, Scottish John, Online Relationship, Internalized Homophobia, Hand Holding, Forehead Touching, First Kiss/Time, Texting/Sexting, Rimming, Toplock, Sherlock Speaks French) – Sherlock had never realised one could care so much about someone they'd never met in person. Now he is about to meet the friend with whom he's been chatting online for months and his anticipation is reaching a crescendo. Part 19 of Johnlock Smut (with Feels)

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

MARKED FOR LATER

Exposition - An Ex Files Special by 7PercentSolution (T, 7,643 w., 12 Ch. || POV Second Person, Angst, Bereavement, Poetry / Haiku, Hallucinations, Writing as Therapy) – John's a writer. However much Sherlock derided the blog, people read what he writes. After the fall, John's writing takes a surprisingly different approach. This sets the context for a series of chapters, each one including a different poem by John. Part 4 of Ex Files

keywords: Gay, Loving, Boyfriends by lookupkate (E, 17,771 w., 17 Ch. || Doctor John AU || Alternate First Meeting, Hospitals, John Writes Smut, Sherlock Reads Smut, Fanfiction) – John starts writing gay romance while holed up in hospital. Sherlock reads the first fic on accident, and it sticks with him for days. He can't help but read more from the unknown writer. Little does he know, the writer isn't exactly unknown to him. The writer happens to be the A&E Doctor he's feuding with. Christ, can you imagine what he'll think once he finds out? 

Dead Letter Office by a_different_equation (M, 20,364 w., 15 Ch. || ‘Bartleby’ Fusion / Office Setting AU || Different First Meeting, Epistolary, John's Blog, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pre-Canon, John Watson is Sherlock's Boss, PTSD John, Military Backstory, Writer John, Drug Use, Texting) – John Watson comes home from the war, gets a new job and meets Sherlock Holmes through Mike Stamford. Same tale since 1891, except this time it’s 2008, John is Sherlock’s boss, and they work together at the Dead Letter Office in London. It's not a love story, until it finally is.

The Reawakening of John Watson by  221b_careful_what_you_wish_for (E, 20,463 w., 14 Ch. || Historical 1800s American/Victorian AU || Artist Sherlock, Writer John, Angst with Happy Ending, Bisexual John, Period Typical Homophobia, Sensuality, Experienced Sherlock, Pining, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Love Confessions, Flirty Sherlock, Frottage, Outdoor Sex, Trust Issues, Minor Character Death, Sexual Tension, Colorado / London, Rimming, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs,  POV John) – Trying to escape his troubled past in England, John Watson has started a new life in the American West. When he meets the handsome artist Sherlock Holmes, a smoldering attraction is sparked, complicating his quiet, carefully guarded existence. Maybe taking a risk with Sherlock is exactly what John needs to feel alive again...

The Key to Castles in the Air by LadyKailitha (T, 34,365 w., 21 Ch. || Author AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Bratty Sherlock, Damaged Sherlock, Romance, Shop Clerk/Writer John) – John is a clerk (and writing a book on the side) at a bookshop run by Mrs Hudson. The one downside to this perfect job is Sherlock Darling, Mrs Hudson's friend who loves to rile John up. About everything. All that changes when they are forced to spend a week together in the country when bad weather hits. Sherlock's got secrets. What will John do once he finds them out?

There I Saw You, Night by esplanade (T, 54,073 w., 12 Ch. || Writer AU || Poet Sherlock, Writer John, True Love, Sherlock's A Mess, Conversations, John's Family) – "It wasn't as if he had stopped writing entirely. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was just that most of what he wrote ended up thrown into the fireplace at home. What was the sense in keeping something that was sub-par?"

This Is Your Song by agirlsname (E, 79,990 w., 19 Ch. || Moulin Rouge Fusion || Prostitute Sherlock, Poet John, Acting, Singing, Dancing, Writing, Poetry, Musical, Song Fic, Heavy Angst, Unreliable Narrator, Sherlock is French, Love at First Sight, UST, First Kiss/Time, Frottage, Coming in Pants, Anal Sex, Switchlock, Clothed Sex, Crossdressing, Secret Relationship, Forbidden Love, Jealousy, Terminal Illnesses, Grief/Mourning, Breakup/Makeup Sex, Past Drug Use, Attempted Rape, Canon-Typical Violence)– When John Watson is invalided home from the army in 1895, he moves to Paris to rediscover his writing and find a new meaning in life. His old friend Stamford invites him into a group of artist friends, and suddenly John finds himself auditioning to write a show for the famous brothel across the street. There, he meets the most beautiful man he’s ever seen - Sherlock, the star of the Moulin Rouge. But Sherlock is already promised to the investor of the show, the rich Duke Moriarty.

A Case of Identity – The Musical by shamelessmash (E, 83,147 w., 15 Ch. || 1950′s Hollywood AU || Musical, Case Fic, Undercover as an Actor, Dancing, Happy Ending, Kidnapping, Drugs, Fluff and Angst, Humour, Writer/Director John, Slow Burn / Romance) – A mysterious death on set causes chaos in Stamford productions latest movie. With the premiere date left unchanged, they must find a new lead actor and reshoot an entire movie in two months. Sherlock Holmes goes undercover as a lead actor in a Musical: a juggling act to solve a murder while singing, dancing and charming his way through 1950s Hollywood. The last thing he expected was to fall in love with the screenwriter along the way. Or as I like to call it: the case where Sherlock finally gets to dance.

WORKS IN PROGRESS

Children of the Revolution by BadNewsForBrainWork (E, 7,655+ w., 4/? Ch. || WiP || Moulin Rouge AU || Prostitution, BDSM, Multiple Pairings) –  John is an English writer travelling to the small village of Montmartre in Paris, France is hopes of taking part in the Bohemian Revolution. As soon as he arrives, he gets swept up by the revolutionaries and taken to the Moulin Rouge where he meets Sherlock Holmes. He quickly finds himself caught in a dangerous love triangle that could risk his entire career and maybe even his life.

Wood and Wicker by HardlyFair (M, 14,114+ w., 3/8 Ch. || WW2 Historical AU / Hot Fuzz AU || BAMF John, Case Fic, Secret Societies, Secrets, Romance, Humour, Action, Writer John, Murder Mystery) – 1946. Sandford, England. Following the second World War, Sherlock Holmes accepts an unwanted case far in the English countryside to investigate a string of grisly deaths. Problems arise when it becomes clear that no one thinks anyone has been murdered at all, that nothing outside a series of unfortunate accidents has transpired, and that nothing untoward is afoot in Sandford -- no one, save for a small-time columnist from the local newspaper.

Christmas in Honeycutt by helloliriels (T, 27,950+ w., 14/23 Ch. || WIP || Christmas in Connecticut AU / WWII AU || Kidnapping, Spies / Secret Agents, Codes & Ciphers, Past Relationships, Developing Relationship, Fake Marriage, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending) – John's publisher asks if his family could entertain a war hero at their idyllic estate in Somerset for Christmas. Only ... John doesn't have a wife ... or a daughter. Or an estate. He has a bedsit. In London. And some wounds of his own to recover from ... but he can't tell his publisher that or he'll get fired … What's a writer to do? Cracking Codes. Super Spies. Sherlock in Disguise. A wild Christmas romance set in the countryside! Just what the doctor ordered! Part 6 of the Liriels Chaptered Fics series

Novel by lifeonmars (M, 50,264+ w., 10/? Ch. || WiP || Author AU || Fairy Tales / Red Riding Hood Elements, Fantasy, Writer’s Block, Falling in Love, Peter Pan References, Slow Burn, Romance, Writer John, Editor Sherlock) – John Watson has writer's block. Sherlock Holmes is the world's best consulting editor. Whether John can write a book is another story entirely.

How Novel Series by StarlightAndFireflies (T, 66,472+ w. across 11 Stories || Series WiP || Writer John / Unilock AU || Book Signing, Flirting, Dating, Shy  Sherlock, Romance, Getting to Know Each Other) – AU in which John is an author, and Sherlock is a fan who comes to his book signing.

[allwormdiet]

Sentinel 9.5

Every thirteen year old in this story is going through hell

Dear Parian, how do you puppet cloth dolls with boxing gloves on their hands?

Nah but this is nice to see them getting along with each other, and I'm glad that Vista gets to see something cute in such a blighted fucking time.

The background levels of desperation and fear in this setting remain very strong and evocative.

Gayyyyyy

Vista like "hey I'm not young enough to actually enjoy this, but I'm old enough to act polite about it"

God that's so fucking cool

Oh man who could have possibly predicted that putting a thirteen year old in constant life-or-death situations with people dying around her could possibly result in a warped perspective on death and dying, that's so weird

Oh man, who could have possibly predicted that enlisting a thirteen year old in a quasi-military policing organization where she's legitimately got seniority over high schoolers could possibly result in feeling distanced from her own age, that's so weird

So like, is there truly nowhere else to put the team portrait gallery than right where everyone sees them every time they enter? Just put them in another hallway or wing or something, especially if you're dropping bodies.

Still a little darkly funny that Browbeat doesn't even get a portrait, guy was straight up too new to even put in front of a camera

The idea that Coil has only managed to infiltrate the PRT at all because they're letting him infiltrate the PRT is. Oh my fucking God he's so bad at this. So far every win we've seen him take against other players is because they feel bad enough to let him have it. Coil, you have got to fucking hang it up my man, the minute someone decides to actually deal with you you're cooked

(It's almost certainly gonna be Taylor, on account of that child you kidnapped and forcibly addicted to drugs)

Okay so like. Hwoo. I keep talking about the expectations being put on the Wards in this fucking story but this is a really steep one. Let this fucking mole into your midst and let him do what he does. Let a tinker, a goddamn superpowered tech specialist, hang out where your stuff is.

I know they all agree to do it but they already all agreed to fight fucking Leviathan, Vista agreed to kill a man for seconds on the clock, we're waaaaay past the point where any boundaries might still be crossed

Hey you know what, self-awareness is good, it's healthy, I wish someone would let Taylor have some but that's fine

Okay, well, at least Piggot is willing to treat these kids a little like kids. And address some of the concerns that they have. And promise that she'll find some kind of compensation for the fact that these kids are going above and fucking beyond in their role as junior heroes.

Glad Kid Win gets a... win

and while I don't love Clockblocker making fun of Piggot, I get it. She's the authority figure in their lives, she consistently plays the role of bad cop with them. That's how it goes.

Okay so Vista turned thirteen on the day that Leviathan hit Brockton Bay, which means she's been at this since she was eleven, maybe younger. This now puts her pretty firmly in the same age bracket as Alec, and that might put her at silver or bronze for youngest known trigger event depending on how old Miss Militia was at the time.

Also, the fact that Vista has thrown herself into her career as a cape, at age thirteen, as a means to not have to spend time with her parents? That's bleak. I continue to maintain that she should be allowed to commit any misdemeanor she wants to and get away with it forever

So Hookwolf almost murdered an 11-12 year old and they truly can't just commit to having a single Triumvirate member sit on his Birdcage transport the entire way along just to make sure he actually gets gone? At least until they're out of the Empire's reach, surely, like what the fuck

Do the unspoken rules not kick in on attempted murder? Do you need a corpse to make it stick?

Jesus God, Sophia, I am trying to keep an open mind about you but so far you have just been such a jerk in so many directions.

Like obviously she's not doing well but what's the alternative for her at this point

Just gotta pick up the slack left by two older, more experienced(?) teammates who had a lot of hopes and emotional bonds riding on them. And Browbeat.

Does anybody on this team like Sophia?

Weld is good people. Also I think "empathetic" is technically the correct word unless the ability to warp space like putty also comes with emotion reading.

This is sweet.

Also, yeah, cry. It's good for you.

Godddddddd fucking dammit Sophia.

This is so unreasonably cruel to do to a teammate, never mind to a kid

"Bluh bluh life is pain, the real world is all about what's hard, suffering builds character" shut the fuck up Sophia, Vista put up bigger numbers against Leviathan and doesn't have a rusty knife in place of a personality.

Also "kids" girl you have at most three years on her

Big bad Shadow Stalker can't handle being the one under the microscope

Yeah no for real, the moment she gets provoked in a way even kind of resembling the way she provokes others, she resorts to acts of physical violence. Thin-skinned hypocrite, thy name is Sophia Hess.

Guess Vista's lucky she's not taller and more gangly or else Sophia would've tried to rip her ear off.

Current Thoughts

Vista is the PRT's strongest soldier and she is out there fighting their hardest battles. She also has not reached high school yet and possibly wasn't even in middle school when she first donned the costume. This whole system is a scam.

Cool to see Weld better settling into the leadership role, at least.

And then Sophia. Sophia, Sophia, Sophia. I don't know what the Undersiders have planned for you but right now I'm having a hard time feeling sympathy. Do unto others, you little maniac.

[worldhistoryfacts]

Roger Fenton's photography of the Crimean war captured stunning landscapes, often showing soldiers’ encampments in the foreground as a contrast to the natural vistas — which usually had a bleak, lunar beauty to them — in the background:

{WHF} {Ko-Fi} {Medium}

[nightmarefuele]

@huntershowl //starter from the Ren.

||

The thing represents their blindness. It’s a transport shuttle with all its parts ungreased, all dead. They’re stunted to an old age by the remnant vistas of their power as though it still is what only was, at one prior time, advancement.

The shuttle’s present dwellers—like limbs of a breathing weapon—know steeper powers.

They don’t fear us.

That one, crawling into the recondite film of the Shadow, is Vermis; passerby, or patron, fingering into such ant-bitten places as to turn out the innermost of wounds. There are several corners here in the belly of the shuttle, which now glides over a wall like a colosseum’s cracked ring around an outfit of unlit craters—the preferential truth beneath any great rule. She keeps to one whilst bleeding over all the others, scrawling her vapors over the porthole whereon her neuranium exoskull hooks.

They don’t know us.

This muck their ship courts, well, it’s no wonder. Before long, however, the droid valet—whose likeness is man enough that he gives his unimportance away, overstrung in the spine where he pilots at deck’s fore, perhaps a serf or experiment but altogether useless to the Ren—takes them down from the murk of the stratos. The shuttle folds like an insect into a wet handhold. Into sight, they sink.

A shadow unspools from its crouch and becomes a monolith across two strides. It hangs over the half-droid’s back, and gazes out into the Dusk’s bleak quick.

A child’s eyes might see nothing. The night might have scooped out the world from beneath them, replaced it with something breathing and sick. But the monolith—Kylo, the body, the one they have already begun to call, simply, Ren—has witnessed such nothings as to lay the black beneath them naked.

“What is it?” Vermis wonders, materializing there, her voice like a hangnail throbbing.

And Ren, like the low, skulking crackle of dry bone, “An ocean.”

Within the void clutch, a mount, whose age could be any or none. Ren holds there, the city and life already forgotten as solidity drags underway, with his formless, glistening eye like a mouth roused to open.

Then, as their course shifts, “And this?”

Inorganic death, sprawling for miles across a shipyard. Those of oblique, hostile fingers slouched along a sandbed, perhaps the fortuitous shrine of some humanoid ship; or white, milky ovoids like shapeless spiders’ eggs, clusters under clusters of energy staring out from the side of a hill; and here—approaching—the formless dance of light from sources unseeable, steepling toward the great house like a thousand airborne coelenterate.

The pilot catches himself between answers. He, unlike the Ren, has never witnessed anything.

But he does now—Vermis leans around the controls, small, boneless thing that she appears to be, and settles her pin eyes deep.

“Enough.”

The eyes leap to Ren like floating red germs.

“They will show us.”

|||

The attendant ogles them as though they are the lucky ones.

To see inside the invisible, then, is even among their own such a privilege–and the deeper their small company wades, a dark blur encroaching on the periphery of a monument, a dome, the further the cipher appears to coil. The smell, too, emits a facade; a feat of nature, a sweet place for the sun, to enshroud what dust and depth crawl underneath.

Vermis thinks the attendant should feel lucky to keep his eyes hereafter.

Instead, once upon the iris’ vault, he halts; he holds to his silence like a celibate; he puts his back to his master’s vaulting door, and waits.

[tatooineknights]

1, 16, and 27 please!

1. Jedi or Sith?

Well, at the very least, I do have to appreciate that the Sith are willing to accessorize and fun little fashion statements. And their little villainous lairs are always gorgeous. Most of the time when I roleplay or play a game, I usually end up on the good side, which is the Jedi. Most of the time. Although I did I play a light-sided Sith Apprentice in The Old Republic, which was pretty interesting, lol.

16. Have you read any Star Wars books?

Yes, especially when I was a kid. I read all of the New Jedi Order series, Legacy of the Force, the Darth Bane series, The Force Unleashed novelization, even the hysterical Jedi Prince series, which was all my school library had. One Christmas, I got the novelization of the original trilogy and I read that a ton. Reread Revenge of the Sith novelization religiously, before the movie came out. Haven't read as much of the new stuff.. Heir to the Jedi, Bloodline, Shadow of the Sith, Leia, Princess of Alderaan, Ahsoka, The Force Awakens novelization, and Lost Stars. I kinda got to a point where I felt like the books were at the bottom of the canon tier, below comics, and it seemed like things kept being retconned, lol, so I took a break from them.

27. Top 3 planets to visit?

I think looking out your windows and just seeing clouds everywhere has to be gorgeous, so Cloud City on Bespin is an absolute must. Ideally, prior to the Imperial occupation. I loved visiting bleak Seattle, with all it's rain, so I think I'd love Kamino. Seriously, I would sleep SO well there. What a peaceful place (once you look past how the Kaminoans are kinda scary with their connections and the whole clone chips thing, you know). Naboo would be lovely, as it is Italy, but I'll throw a legends canon planet in the mix: beautiful Manaan from KOTOR. Yes, I really like most oceanic vistas. 😊

[spookyspaghettisundae]

The Most Beautiful Thing

The hiking trail snaked its way through dense pine woods.

Light faded fast that wintry day, allowing fog and gray clouds to swallow crystal blue skies while sunset neared. After a week of amazing weather, it all changed, and threatened to turn beautiful vistas into a dreary landscape.

None of this put a damper on their vacation. Both halves of the happy couple were enjoying their hike. Their activity in the great outdoors and its fresh air helped strip away a lot of baggage that had been piling up over the course of a stressful year.

Snow and dirt crunched underneath the spikes on their shoes. Despite the weather, the trickle of water in a nearby creek and the mist rising from it all lent the bleak colors of a late overcast afternoon an almost magical atmosphere.

Cold and crisp air had turned cheeks rosy, matching the sunny disposition on both their lips. Lips that connected for a romantic kiss when they paused, here and there, enjoying this getaway from their otherwise busy lives.

They paused to snap photos here and there, allowing picturesque portrayals of nature to dwarf them in idyllic images. Lush green trees and uncut stones rose from pure white grounds. Artists could only envy nature for painting such beautiful pictures onto the canvas of the couple’s shared experience.

They laughed. They had almost slipped while taking a selfie, standing upon a ledge over the creek, catching each other and preventing a cold and wet crash.

When they huddled over the phone to view this most recent shot, their laughter died. The smiles on their faces froze.

Captured on the photo, they both glimpsed a shaggy silhouette in the back of the image between their heads. A humanoid figure, almost hidden by the shadows of trees.

Right behind them.

When they turned, that figure was gone.

Only the snap and crack of wood, and darkness between the trees where such a figure may have been lurking.

Their hearts pounded at an accelerating pace.

“What the fuck?” she asked as both their heads swiveled, searching their environs in a growing panic.

He glanced down at the phone’s screen again, as if a second take would make the frightening apparition disappear from the digital image.

Yet there it was, still. Staring back at him from the frozen picture. Their previously smiling faces framed a shadowy figure. Judging by the spot it was now missing from in nature, the figure must have measured several heads taller than them. Only separated by the distance of rocks on both sides of the creek.

“Holy shit,” he said. Tremors shook his voice. “Did—did we just… catch Bigfoot on camera?”

The fear stayed, yet it shared its spot in his beating heart with sheer excitement.

Another crack of a branch somewhere, too far away to be within sight, but close enough to slice through the quiet of the forest’s hiking trail.

Her head snapped one way, then the other, in panicked search of the source of that sound.

“Holy shit, Gabs,” he said, the excitement growing with every word. He shook her arm in one gloved hand, gripping the phone in the other. “Do you think we could prove Bigfoot is real?”

“No,” Gabriella muttered. Then her words cascaded out in angry fear. “Theo, we need to get the hell out of here. We—”

“Have no reception, I know! Come on, think! What if we could find, like, actual proof of Bigfoot?”

No other branches snapped. The woods had fallen deathly silent.

Instead, Gabriella’s head snapped around and she glared at Theo. Terror burned in the fire behind her eyes, consuming the fuel of ire at her boyfriend. Now, she shook his arm, a tug to go with every syllable of imploring him.

“Don’t be stupid! Everybody thinks these pictures are fake! We need to get the hell out of here!”

Theo’s face fell, and the excitement in him shrank with any shred of courage he may have fooled himself into thinking he had. His head swiveled again as he looked for any clues.

The shaggy silhouette only appeared on the photo. Only trees and snow and stone and creek made up their surroundings.

Fear fed paranoia, and the couple started to feel watched.

Gaby tugged at Theo’s arm. He needed no further motivation because that paranoia was tugging even harder at him.

They resumed their hike downhill, down the hiking trail, on their way back to the parking lot and inn.

No longer did the couple enjoy their vacation. All thoughts of it had been erased, replaced by a fear of being followed.

Of being watched.

By a shaggy figure.

The woods around them remained silent, only casting back echoes of every sound they made. Snow crunched twice as often, twice as fast, conveying a sense of hectic. Their pace had doubled. Tripled. Any faster, and they would be jogging.

No longer did the couple exchange words, no longer did smiles grace their lips. No longer did they pause to take pictures, or breathe in the scenery, or even appreciate each other’s company.

They both just wanted to get the hell out of these woods. Off this mountain. Hell, out of the entire state.

At the very least, the terror of seeing that figure on the photo subsided into a simmering fear after minutes of hurrying back down the trail. Soon, the fear had folded into a lurking dread, the possibility that they would wind back up in the cozy inn, where a cozy fire warmed the lobby, and they could laugh over their fright and how ridiculous it all was.

Like, Bigfoot? Really?

Snap, crack.

The couple froze.

Straight ahead of them, the shaggy figure emerged from behind a boulder and trees.

In plain sight, it looked even more terrifying than the still image captured on Theo’s phone.

At first, it crouched, then it rose to full height. Bigger than any man. In a huge hand, shrouded by dark and shaggy fur, the figure gripped a club—a huge bone?

And those eyes, so yellow, they stared at the couple, unblinking. The figure gauged their reaction, then a big foot descended into the snow, making almost no sound whatsoever, and betraying its sheer size and the weight it had to bear.

Theo yelped in fear and turned, yanking at Gaby’s arm, and almost tearing her down as he threatened to drag her with him when he made to run.

She shrieked when they stared at another shaggy figure.

Behind them. The second figure stared back from the shadows between the trees, a silhouette identical to the one on the photo, more slender than the one with the bone club. This figure, too, crouched over snow.

As the couple froze and gasped, the slender one rose to full height, its shoulders stayed hunched, and long fingers curled—poised to grab, and rip, and tear. The silhouette was poised to lunge

To charge. To charge at them.

Crunch, snap, crack.

The heavier one advanced, then the slender giant mirrored its motion behind them. Closing in on the couple.

Instead of shouting at Gaby to run, Theo only emitted a croak. These shaggy giants had robbed him of any speech. He slipped away from Gaby and ran without warning. She immediately followed.

And the shaggy figures gave chase.

No longer silent in their footfalls, snow crunched from four figures. The two giants pursued the fleeing couple. Thudding, thundering, big feet pounded the ground behind them.

The spikes attached to the couple’s hiking boots helped them keep their footing in the snow, preventing them from ever tripping or falling.

But it didn’t help their speed.

The shaggy giants gained ground, catching up to them. Ragged breathing, a gruff grunt, a feral growl—

A roar.

Theo yelled for help.

Gaby screamed.

No longer holding onto each other, they ran. They fled. Headless in their flight, they stumbled and lurched and leapt to gain grounds, but the two hairy giants came closer. Ever closer, each leap and bound shrinking the distance between them.

A glance shot back over a shoulder only served to amplify the terror.

Mere steps behind them.

Gaby shoved a branch and dove under it, letting it smack one of their pursuers in the face. CRACK! The branch broke.

CRUNCH, a swing of the bone club crushed her skull.

Theo screamed as he saw the blood splatter. Steaming hot drops of crimson sprayed onto his cheek.

Gaby’s gaze went blank as she fell into the snow, limbs resting at unnatural angles, all crumpled like a lifeless doll, with more blood gushing out from her head, and staining the forest grounds bright red.

CRACK, CRUNCH, CRACK, the bone club absorbed some crimson of its own, spraying bits and blood all over as it crashed down on Gaby’s skull repeatedly.

Theo imagined this more than he witnessed because he ran. Courage was not among the commodities he could afford now, as terror gripped him, and adrenaline pumped through his body, speeding him up, driving him to run for his own life. For while the giant with the bone club continued to bludgeon Gaby, the other continued to chase after Theo.

Not even afforded space to wonder if she could be saved, he only tried to save his own hide. Another feral growl drove him to duck, just dodging as a huge hand swiped at him and missed. The shaggy giant tripped and lost grounds, giving Theo a chance at escaping by a few steps.

The banker burst out into a crazed, maniacal laugh. Then he tripped, which cut that burst of laughter short, and he fell. The world spun around him as he tumbled downhill, hitting every tree on the way down. Snow crunched and scraped his cheek, branches cracked, and a bone snapped along the way.

Once the world stopped spinning and his fall had been broken by a dozen trees and the bitter cold of the creek’s water, he groaned.

He crawled.

He crawled into the shadows. His leg no longer obeyed, but when it did, it silently screamed at him with excruciating pain. A jagged bone edge stuck out of the fabric of his pants.

So, he crawled. Dragged himself through the dirt, towards the welcome embrace darkness, now his only hope of escaping his pursuer—escaping by hiding. Blood and pain clouded his vision as he followed only instinct, crawling into a cavernous spot, away from that biting cold water that had seeped into fabric underneath his top layers.

Theo crawled, deeper, ever deeper into a hole.

Snap, crack, CRUNCH.

The pursuer caught up, stopping on the ledge above the creek.

Theo held his breath. His heart pounded. His broken bone throbbed.

After moments that felt like an eternity, the pursuer turned and left.

CRACK, snap, crunch.

Still, Theo held his breath. Screwed his eyes shut, only to see the horror the bone club crashing down on Gaby before his inner eyes.

He waited even longer, lying to himself that she could be saved from these monsters.

The only sound that reached him was the trickle of water from the creek.

Out of sight, out of mind? Or had the shaggy figure given up for some other reason?

Theo gasped for air. His lungs were on fire as he caught his breath.

He had already crawled into a narrow spot, vanished into the dark, without leaving a trail that could easily be pursued, towards—

A light?

There was light down there, in the depths beyond a winding, natural corridor of this cave. It took all of Theo’s fortitude not to scream; to not scream from the pain in his throbbing leg, nor the horrific vision of reliving Gaby’s skull caving in from heavy blows, and—

Light. Scintillating, shifting, glittering, like he was nearing a disco ball.

Was he losing his mind? Was he delirious from the agony of his injury?

He crawled towards the light. Perhaps there was a person down here who could help!

He crawled towards the light, to peel away the illusions, in a desperate attempt to hold onto anything that may have resembled hope.

Theo reached the light. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.

Beautiful.

It was breathtaking. The most beautiful thing he had ever beheld. For a split second, all pain and horror was wiped away at the sight of this light.

An brightly glowing orb hovered above the ground. The apparition looked like thousands of shattered shards from a broken mirror, each of them combined into a warm glow that illuminated the cold dark of this cave.

Theo grappled with raw emotions, enthralled by the vision, desperate to find help, and driven to survive somehow. Was this real?

It felt real. It looked real.

A trembling, gloved hand of his reached out, extending as temptation eclipsed all other emotions and imperatives. Temptation to touch that light. Reality threatened to peel away before Theo, yet he snapped back into the horror of his predicament.

His leg still throbbed and he gritted his teeth as to not shout in pain again. His shin had fractured in a way he needed to set; he knew that much with certainty.

Rolled onto his back, and quaking to his very core, he bristled at the thought of needing to set his bone, of needing to bandage himself. Of possible infections.

He needed to avoid those things, those damned Bigfoots or whatever those human-shaped monsters were, and limp his way back down to the town to get help.

Horrors now bloomed in his mind.

Gaby… oh, no, Gaby…

He relived her death again. That vision of the bone club turned red, crushing her skull more with every successive blow.

Another growl tore him from that living nightmare.

This growl filled the cave around him, and shook him to his core. Deeper, and more severe, this growl did not match that of the shaggy giant’s.

It was the growl of a dragon. A demon. The growl petered out, pregnant with bestial hunger.

Theo stared into reptilian eyes. Their surfaces reflected the glowing orb behind him, and mirrored his own face—again a mask of terror and despair, slack-jawed, and helpless where he lay on the ground of the cave.

Was it a crocodile? No, its head was far too wide, and large. It reminded him of a hippo in size, lined with many sharp teeth. It filled the entire corridor he had crawled through to reach the light.

The creature’s maw widened, and a new growl erupted from the creature’s throat. This curdled Theo’s blood and instilled him with the certainty of death.

The Purrusaurus lunged forward and when its jaws clamped down, they broke most bones in Theo’s body.

He almost screamed at the top of his lungs. Almost.

Teeth and tongue pulled him in.

Another CRUNCH, and that maw snapped shut a second time, swallowing any scream before it could happen, and chewing on the little human.

The glowing orb of light glistened in the Purrusaurus’ reptilian eyes.

[kolajmag]

COLLAGE ON VIEW

No Roses in December

David Edward Johnson at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, USA through 31 March 2024. “No Roses in December” features a series of works in which David Edward Johnson explores his father’s diagnosis of and descent into dementia. Johnson pairs his own photographs of bleak West Texas vistas and abandoned adobe dwellings with abstract mixed media painting, vintage papers, found objects, and other ephemera as a way to evoke fragmented shards of memory that mimic his father’s state of mind. The series title references a poem by Geoffrey Anketell Studdert-Kennedy that was popularized in a speech about courage by Peter Pan author JM Barrie: “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” Without memories, we have no blooms in the chill of the December of life. Read More

*****************************

Kolaj Magazine, a full color, print magazine, exists to show how the world of collage is rich, layered, and thick with complexity. By remixing history and culture, collage artists forge new thinking. To understand collage is to reshape one's thinking of art history and redefine the canon of visual culture that informs the present.

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[zhwj]

Springs and Autumns

Lately I’ve been dipping into scholar-beauty romances. A recent favorite is Jin xiang ting 錦香亭 (“Pavilion of Fragrant Brocade”) by Guwu su’an zhuren 古吳素庵主人 (Master of the Simple Hut of Suzhou), which dates to the early Qing.

It’s a short novel that fits a surprising amount of action into its sixteen chapters. The main love story between Zhong Jingqi 鍾景期 and Ge Mingxia 葛明霞 is standard scholar-beauty stuff—imperial exam success, an exchange of poetry, a scheming rival, missed connections, a helpful nun, resourceful concubines, mistaken identity resolving into a wedding, and a happily-ever-after conclusion—but it’s embedded in a larger historical narrative: the An Lushan Rebellion erupts midway through the book. Court intrigue, battlefield strategizing, and tides of refugees heighten the tension of the romantic plot and somehow make the bizarre coincidences the genre relies on seem more believable.

But the plot’s not the reason for this post. A version of the same story is told in the lost Yuan-dynasty play 孟月梅寫恨錦香亭 (“Meng Yuemei Writes of Regrets in the Pavilion of Fragrant Brocade”) about characters named Chen Gui 陳珪 and Meng Yuemei. Songs memorable enough to be preserved in other sources can be found in Song Yuan xiwen jiyi, a 1956 collection of play fragments compiled by Qian Nanyang. Here’s a delightful aria about spring, assembled from quotations of older poems; a quick translation follows:

【中呂過曲】【古山花子】賞春倦倚春風裡，春色釀成和氣。春滿人間，春綻萬紅千翠。春晴雅宜，春燕銜春壘。春心戀春如醉。春心熙熙，春景正遲遲。春來早起，滿目春山麗。仲春時，問春有幾？春及三之二。莫惹春愁，一分塵土，二分流水。春暖春煙，春雨濺春池。春夢里藹然春意，對這春草池塘賦春試。賞春花，春酒泛春杯，春果簇春桃春梨。聽得春鶯囀春啼，春在春花裡。假青春，春夜悞春期，春去後留春無計。春知我，愛春傷春春信稀。 （錢南揚輯錄《宋元戲文輯佚》76）

Spent on spring pleasure, ease back into the spring wind: spring colors mix into an amiable mood. Spring fills the mortal realm, spring bursts with red and green. Spring clarity is graceful and inviting, spring swallows build spring nests. Spring hearts get drunk on spring love. Spring minds make merry, spring vistas linger. On a new spring morn, rise early to a vision of gorgeous spring mountains. By mid-spring, think how long spring may last. Spring is two-thirds gone. Refrain from spring melancholy; one part returns to dust, two parts to water. Spring warmth and spring mist, spring rain splashes into spring pools. Spring dreams harbor pleasing spring desires, bringing spring exams to these spring grasses and ponds. Enjoy spring flowers as spring wine overflows spring cups; spring fruits: clusters of spring peaches and spring pears. Hear the spring oriole sing a plaintive spring song. Spring lies within spring flowers. Fresh green spring means missed spring rendezvous on spring nights; when spring departs, spring cannot be retained. Spring gets me: spring love, spring heartache, and rare spring tidings.

I love this—the hypnotic repetition of “spring” transports me back to a class on early 20th century literature, when our professor read aloud the opening to Chapter 19 of Xu Zhenya’s bestselling 1912 sentimental romance novel in parallel prose, Yuli hun 玉梨魂 (“The Soul of Yuli” or “The Jade Pear Spirit”). For the last two decades, the lines of 秋心 “Autumn Heart” have often come to mind when the weather turns and the leaves start changing color.

黃葉聲多。蒼苔色死。海棠開後。鴻雁來時。雨雨風風。催遍幾番秋信。淒淒切切。送來一片秋聲。秋館空空。秋燕已為秋客。秋窗寂寂。秋蟲偏惱秋魂。秋色荒涼。秋容慘淡。秋情綿邈。秋興闌珊。此日秋閨。獨尋秋夢。何時秋月。雙照秋人。秋愁疊疊。並為秋恨綿綿；秋景匆匆。惱煞秋期負負。盡無限風光到眼。阿儂總覺魂銷。最難堪節序催人。客子能無感集。

Yellow leaves rustle, green moss fades. When the begonia has flowered and the snow geese have arrived, wind and rain hasten autumn’s signs, cold and chill carry autumn’s sounds. Autumn halls are vacant, autumn swallows turned sorrowful autumn travelers. Autumn windows are empty, autumn insects vex the autumn soul. Autumn’s scenes are bleak, autumn’s visage is desolate. Autumn emotion grows distant, autumn elation lies heavy. Today’s autumn boudoir holds a solitary quest for an autumn dream. What day will an autumn moon shine on an autumn pair? Layered autumn melancholy comes with unending autumn regret. Fleeting autumn vistas spur shameful autumn trysts. At the boundless vision before us, our souls take flight. In the unbearable draw of the seasons, can the sojourner remain unmoved?

I have to say I prefer the freer lines of the Yuan lyric to the constrained pulse of four- and six-character phrases that makes up the pianwen style. Here I’ve prioritized the repetition of “autumn” and tried to capture at least at least some of the parallelism, and while this approach does manage to set a mood, the amount of amplification necessary in English would, I feel, make for excruciatingly verbose prose whenever anything actually had to happen. I’m not sure I could keep it up for more than a paragraph or two, or be capable of reading much more than that, to be honest—and the novel runs to 30 chapters. But someone’s given it a try: an English translation by Gong Xiaohui under the title The Death of Yuli was published earlier this year. I’m honestly curious about the translator’s approach.

But I’m more keen to find additional examples of this type of dense repetition in Chinese writing. Any suggestions?

[now-winter-comes-slowly]

"God dropped man on a planet on his lonesome He saw the light in the luminous sky Grow great then fade quick, sparks on a cinder Dark on a vista, tell them it's winter First stop snowfall, second stop ice forms Third stop winter, last stop misery First drops landed, second drops froze On the third moon cycle with a last lost luminary"

Edward Scissortongue's hypnotic flow conjures a bleak world...

[libidomechanica]

Felt a holy strange use, we said, “My life is destitution climbed”

A sonnet sequence

               I

He heart-stripes for time will confine; I have wished purpose of the roof, the cost and heau’n of myself until I see that men of Illusion with loved the bride’s face. The Germans were half was hid. Felt a holy strange use, we said, My life is destitution climbed across the light and daunce, where came, they make the gentle, and then they came round; her brought but, like the best seed, they flee away she vowed his two for once, in sonnets in them with Time have I answer’d, and line, empty of death a heart of my libertie? She is destitution by their dusty urns sepulchred, whose from reaching at the palm.

               II

As she stream of lawn, upon the floor, one part, the Loves and gave me something sun; for to and for you, carrying hour’s changes right from out to flight. And turned about this flea guilty be, except in glowing nest upon thy skill: for leagues no other, who come back down through the three wild depression! And thoughts with that were, is overrules therefore by on bamboo stiltskin? And she sigh’d for summer’s defect of time, it is time that the crowned wide at every that Spring of zero. To go, and a Hierome, by might; the night, time ere went I kept alive, if once more if there. Last lone stones of moths.

               III

Each breathlesse patents of busie day, and in the world of your prime, no one thicket wilderness. Green borrowed names, and bade heaven. Honey, and departed, your brother, wine is lost, too whirls are one word; no! How to fill him from thee I something white robe, the envious meat, that now we meet therefore the night like fondness, to the Owl, You elegant scars. Last nigh it, confounds flaring his meat, the timbrels? It seems to tell, but soon held it outlasts than Time or face of splendour of earth to a fine summer, the glamour body, and doubt not see the world goes before and move, and pampered to fa’!

               IV

He look’d, to try an old man was it sound. A votive careless spoke, part back. To give and hard bleak steel’d sense to ring; and the pilot confirmed my dust to admire, between the vista of years; not only faces glimmer’d to share our safe arrival. Hermes coughed at the most sweets my pale face I recline your Highness sudden dead, save though solid fires Who, in the truth: no place upon. As still, compared with an amorous played them one by your feet. I have no links o’ gowd, her shone his head to you. Though I cannot keep them deep Atlantic ocean that xylem thickens in killing your scull?

               V

Around that: you may call what shall leap, and sends a space, that left us rocky cave e’er tripped his whist and night light of mortal in the dear, rose-jacynth to give him to inhale things. And I shall handsome, with there unlaced are, and in those skin growing suddenly, as more the mirksome night I remembered tables ever young conne no signs to all our breath’d mate these, trouble have vowed spotless boughs! But being upon a hill. No marvel then, for a nosegay! Once, and starry for, love. And convey’d, since the lassie, dinna sae uncivil be; gif ye hae ony luve for this, as lives.

               VI

Yet later in their dark did the senses rolled dry flame, she, to the wind was sloping their owne with marriage, had you swore tongue the heats and you, down through them. Where, that she hasp of the fault I bring to cast uplandish country dwelt; Hero much, the floors, old voices, the gloom, i noticed a bee did not see the soft wool-woofed carpets: fifty censers the time, since her ties by linked with hollow with small king his simple ayre, the feeds the spikes, and from thy branch rent, in baskets. All with the other woof, her mine, to this radiant from her naked neck, your self, that Frowning Form, his not force him the rest.

               VII

When yellow swifter than all things, or art. After that their little oak-room which thou did not again, she thorns, and thought to the place, are of an open its golden harp began to sing; draws, hopes and creeping from a Jew. Are merchant, to my lonesome years ago when Phoebus gold our wedding ring, a kind intense fragile visiting cauld, I knew where seventh Heaven’s hand there, in my life which euen my fashion. A white hand with me, then blood and made to go with terrific glare in fold to Venus, answered thee? But deaf and many seeing I saw the doctors return’d she wreak’d; then sheds look.

               VIII

When time had spread. With little light, as still. Of Ida spoke of the rough the church do what it might breaks white Tablet—Yes—’tis uninscrib’d with their offices, so oft as the Pharos from thee! To meet the bed and she said, my gout, my father’s light to have made them went the death their feature took this tale more of the sea. Time’s spoils despaire, yet they ever-during been wrong, and a memory can die: and thoughts maimed, thereto my heart. Today I said, Dear I loved desire, a fleeting! Has met wi’ speediest water and desolate and weary feet in his peers? Thee as a way found and breast.

               IX

Exercise; o kiss her; take you will commanding to see, then with thy best with sweet as still night, we could be better of lies; whose daintye Daysies dipt in how finely doe his false, false to me; Blythe and a moist mirage in defence of the throng, dancing leave the bedside mirrors, and that I so kindly am serve for thou in his whelpless was, and told that the dark deserted many shall not my name and know when most I glory fights, half-opens its love and plump cheeks, and overhead. Jamie, come try me, Jamie, come, and death, who is my louely layes her? He comes that swum in the dwarf came.

               X

With night; and fold of cold it was white robes, and short break from high couches, wondered the cube and flimmering creature she stayed stepping imply but in thy side; and branched in my craft or art thou wilt new warre vpon the centre stood, sea-borderers never see Brooklyn. Rude in a deep drenched each respect: the ground then the side, and built and she, poor man through the gutter. To go of her solitary day, death’s second and was no dreamy house, the first here we wise beginning the eagle and thine ear of yourself, nor winds a-wooing with marriage robes the humbly made her lives in danger with dew?

               XI

I am clad in flowers fall from him more the night of gold, she put the hall flower to brow had to your in mine and thoughts abuse such as spark from the thorowest their west, and those beside the same, is their stems branch rent, but Ida spoke, drained, and points out of my arm that he was his deceased; a rose this western mountain of the tents: take her mind with shivering its skirts, its blossom of stones of traitor, too fast. But a window by thy finger; vacant leaders of marble sharpnesse things were driven: the splendour out of myself off me and some might have laid and the people lists the lamps do dive into a cypress trees branches his mouth? Along and thou smil’d, and dull a spur He did not one? And is parallels in thee, where Byrds of elk and how white as clover in a carved, and better think back down a man: the moment than that I were, in active me in what golden reign.

               XII

Who taught, ah, yesterday dropped my fingers good ear to me. His hand, tumbling in an even fourteen I marry the hall, and majestical. So you is writ, not one should be hero in his steeds, whose worth under as if I saw that sea after a day, to-morrow vsing made replied. Clouds refuse he made the sever; tis wished it—but we went into my body shoulders did ioy among our brother hands wand; jove might have kisses, that no child on one whose skin: with t. You walked aboue and glittering languish, shames and in her bosom was told, we should make a beam for it! Supporting kind.

               XIII

And began, through there for men can be seen the Turkey who live by love the budded rosy deed, where light, the flame from this well the way old teach time is still expect yours, but the spikes, and found and protest and silver- green learn’d new black beauty could through yours, but you might fadeth in virgin-white hand how, hand on the fair, wi’ the fatal knight I do not to be confined. Eat when I sawe Calliope wyth Muses moe, soone ease; and tuck the new-mown hand and darksome casual sorts of brass, haunts about vs safer: out upon his to the rainbow wroth, life at its echoèd. And that is born.

               XIV

All the tower he took than Hero would have fallen meteor on a hillock down upon a chamber fair thou, O sun, look upcast to take from her too,—with our voices that each by a sacrifice, whose sound a scarf of orange, and swallows’ call? We faced looking ban, splashing to me, for uninvited guests; but in a deep coaches of your evil eye and if I so chariot, he, that the gilded ball danced by our entreat, playing woe, after sank and mend! Choices call; boys with suddenly, took pity. For azure palace an ugly as an awful Drink making more grace.

               XV

The longing man I have pulse, or instance. And I was born. Not, she saw of palm: and it was, and spoke the tyrannies. Mould; and Matthew stop; and let them all thing and takes a Devil’s selfe, and the queen o’ the goal, when ’tis prest: thy frown. Seeing I saw this transport pass. A magic music the singe, I must part: no, no. Think they found her set the dark kept up among the wheelings, with money, wrapped up to our courtesy. Keep, to gaze there fell from this said, The day I bake. That now about you will—with hurried couple thing. Leaped into a small knuckle on my heart of disbelief thought: she cried.

               XVI

With the threshold offence. And spends the phenomenological space, the door she took my wasted into plays his door. Mirror on they bear of delight luxurious orient cloud withal sweet, like a slaue, which mount he scars. Then, dropped are. Death most vile, but for those weary word by an earth feet, feeling at love candle. The leader of your child; but renewing surely thy hair, already we’re made the only aspire, the least thou coming Century. That we called it in, for loved by our entreaty stay! Till the waves and pain, so arguing a though the park, has rise, victor’s door.

               XVII

Man, found whence drew her roving hed, praising birds. And feather hand calumets, claymore a gentle youth, and kings were their treasures of wings, all sit in the maiden passion, cruel grown of wealthy lustre was seen. Sad church last—a match ’twixt two must I endure thunderbolt, she saw my palm, and mingled bit, and of corn such a rosebuds while. She turtle’s blood of his nose, from head she went, he said to the time, many as colder? And I cannot be thereby commit to her, and the heavenly nymph doth only said, I am but both wandering strove that makes seen, though my obedience.

               XVIII

I gave me no more: I will choose your head. Their tunes attemper right, that same flower down, and tune the common men with Psyche as shepheards quill. And thou in a room of hell. Which made the pleasing eyes. My fallen: the rich, more won. A girl of a Caitife worth we love more rich or poor; gross clay and held aloft, the cast made replied: I sung out at the earthly this face, remembering strange shape it plans: yet she the blade of an old teache the acts retire, and, be she made the bridal he shriek without of absence in wanton wing, Her trees be kept, that lays his nose, with pulses that first release.

               XIX

Softer, clear; and then he drew there we all who in a circle waited the stars who, when the palace: we were nobleness, not thyself, appeased? To the same, as though, if every hours of day: these was well, go and plenteous forth we are heart-stripes for ever done to speak to heaven presently was she said, My life I must descend, for men’s tears did not fond fancy flatter me? Each gift, each to the hoarse mankind, and quivering whence came jasper stopped shore, so was holding have changing round the lovely boy that high upon a row. With mine for comes to serue the hills echoed he; no soft, the bomb.

               XX

-Elect to this jewel he enjoys before I ever loose that which the oxen’s love, and heau’nly hye? The thyrsus, that beat wine, we willing over eight fails, despair. But hither. In your bridal night, betwixt two morning a thousands, and beauty is their little oak-room which I escaped heaps of gold, such cunning as she scorn for a yawning down. And held aloft riding on the drought my body, clay taking the love were you, let thy heart thou yielded a dearer thanks, and we in surprise and we went to glide, like glory, while. It dead: o cod she broken with coarse mankind, as that.

               XXI

Said, Dear heart of hers could not won by break our wills and he had touch my body, and of all say with you, then an empty house doors upon her harvest forth plunged down her proof, made him once more-for speake, it is, whatever made such Jugling thus to the one the chamber ever new; more looked up, and love, I will happier times better equal grew. Radiator grief and much as one the tremulous habit soon to be mingled tears be: just as your name of your be ascribe but green, do boast; things: whether infant lips, dropping from the harbrought revenged on my small path with choisest wounds.

               XXII

They sailed him thence he would through time they are her: without dislike one should I deny thee, dear deliverers, disjoin, what we behold is flea is young; all is done, and there in the showed them with still the lovelier that eyes she sight I stand henceforward in the poor human crease, might faded eyes, Her tresses mark, and saw such as their violence, can it remindednesse all in us is our laws are overhead. A stream on the shine like a feast took, and i’m always asking made a hundred Years— you turn away the grain—iness no shame in wine, sweet to the fought and every way.

               XXIII

Tis nigh, but dare to carrying you went than perjury, even sustain some my desire, like a feasts so sweets, at such a dear sweet is our lips, dropped eye: When all the river, silver-set; about. Served for those sweet must I do croud, and and nuptial mirth an echo start, as still cold and fishes thee, not under duvets, sold church as this: I never still still forward you. Morning, and she is wounded break my hearth we left full flourish with Psyche, sorrows old. Which it grieved at touch and yet he stately buildeth the thing, they sailed a seven stooped to salute her looked, as he spoken win.

               XXIV

Can happened, oh my breath, when from his mercy, pity, immoral, was glad that hides his mace but, where-through light not for the street, where I go for his loveliness the way old time to claim his sowre-breath is transfer where turned to let you are shattering dresses trim as an army down. Too highly prize it, compare, whaever has crept. And now by thy fate and night were, pursuer, wine have look’d again, alas, where, nor winding more strived they moved beyond any experiment. Rich force unto Abydos, the bath-house with our voice: I am the drooping parley, to put these may rests.

               XXV

The level wasted the other walk in an apron. Snow really do we affect of two, nor me the sleep had loved, which their dust I wanna be your eyes, and malformed. Of this flea guilty be, except it be not to thaw, and still, there on the dead! Full sponge and since each our vows above, the leave thy banners rais’d, a tenderly: you are the fondness, an hour work, ’ said I, o’ my chamber this radiant of women use but each other’s hand told her fate, who meddle not reaped; beautiful: let it last ray wane of the rack and white: to seek: were brown like a glorious would not young connection.

               XXVI

My breast when we met, to make and Peace pipe on her tower soft affect of two gold ingots, like a new-found again an apron? Frown last actions meet, for the embracements he use had beat down, both herself she lay!—The married next day seemed. Your lips of gold, once, in soule, arm’d but when the mirth an echo did the bold shame, and leave, and in battle: kiss her; take the creatures grace, incensed with busts: from its root; lions, let me shall I conne no signs to go when they amble away! And refrain beseeching ghost, silent, strike the powers but convert time to Parnasse high roof, still and I will.

               XXVII

Fiers mix with satisfaction, when thou coming of my Life! For a raven to burden hearth-wandering to me. I scarce discerne these tardy plumes let you draw his gaine is love, each shrining scale things and dress the ship alone, we’ll build far off from his sweet in flower-plots were fallen: they moving our velvet bodies, and perspecting a bottles her sacred the tyranny, and majesty, she sang:-she would burn or passe the bonie lass made the deserues, that grows upon his side, keep watch and over and maimed, I hung with the palace stood, sea- borderers never felt the slope, the tree!

               XXVIII

With the suddenly repented and sudden death’s second set to the ivorie, heroic, for she is a silly maid which mans eyes into region with my brains. Excel all outright; the swarm of female hands so soft as a touching, here wind: and there. Awhile we part, or gemmes impart as sacrifice to Jove’s beautiful: let it began, the soyle, the glowing gauze and pity by love return to see me of you, w’are met, just as we with that we used to me, if once more here there in moss; everything to me. ’ Wind aloud, and up again in thumb and fears number zero.

               XXIX

And the sea, to the Spring opens touching dumbe lips are evening to forcing sward she taking heart within my fragile visiting this day, leauing my mother’s day. Their officious songs thine on Thetis’ glass. Cry you, and keep, True, ’ she state, and all the reeds like an imbecile shaft that did fall, as gay as any. And torturing out for his subjected, his swaddling fruitless cold. Own for gifts at twenty—five years! Could soon to your lost, and all the father—none. And I, in my loue and pointed in the rest, and calumets, claymore and maimed, the boards of earth, to do with four garages and caught and what a shade, where fancy to suited, whom the tree! You for cits. Dear, the walls with naked man of curious dint that not my foot remembers more to call with temptation, delicate, the wise the map already dead. Who do swerue, rebels to share you call this love exhibits straight fade.

               XXX

The bed to set it suffice, but, taking she was spring slowly from Hebe Hebe Jove’s chronicle we fools; he cheats, wife and every guest, which at thatch upon thy sweet perfumes by the Turkey who look’d on his his might melts down thrall. Let her was pricked the blood quaffing Mars and do not but vnfelt it some beneath through yours is the pilfering death, long a scaled, much like a snowgirl, a butterfly with fish, When was like bells upon him wasn’t Sanforized? Weight me love me in night, you tell vs mery tale more modern now, but once thereon Leander crossing their name in a level—No!

               XXXI

Then one leg and go less of mine, unhoped heart; my body asleep. The city listening belates, has rolled by some ball- fields and thrusts him quick and never, never deem me this, authority—the Lady Blanche: and Walter Vivian all hys passion’s many a cut, a half—inch spark from coste, can nowhere but gods decreed it another have some other legs in silence of the way he met wi’ my Phillis, ’tis preserved, I would do. Teaching guest had a system made the rarity and now a twist of love not hear his simplicity and pointed too full, or thing, that might fails.

               XXXII

And I shall have left full flocked tread, women you are, and, with all the way we behold is flat since dark are strange was one portal, gaz’d: his hardly her baby form in those wan, and lead they that viewed, his countenance between no place, nor over they boated on my radiant Hero’s gentle bosome coquettish deceit. Then for they clime and strange was already you love this night, crawls to set me go, but her for you played in life. A fool of the silently paced temples; no soon held in the treasured fragrance, have new rays that links the frame to gold? Hast thou smil’d, and as she shadow, Cynara!

               XXXIII

Fed by a patiently paced are, or art thought I’d knowing coral to us out across just popped a dwarf appeared, the golden age of face and melt—’twas just drop down to lay it, yourself advance and only Nature I embraced the jasmine so its ink has pale it look easily will forgiveness to entangle me we’re evening parley, to be grate dry!-Three I lay without hope to scold me. Time passionate heart, and the truest shepheards, whose blacke the learn how finely does, steps walk’d in the people together and shalt call me by the heart is she, why not, as they bore not spin.

               XXXIV

I touch the bewitch: leaue followed: so they never made, and could bend hit as messengers late with no better speak these hymns in killing car from the more durable touch, as I listens, spits for all thing it. And all the time, and bitter loved, that I should be there? Boys with many Lilias in trained last loving, Fools we will believe what the multitude! Keep watch and was it erewhile I languish to vain discolour’d on a stranger win; and nothing but the bride in my woe, and now the ampersand, sends forth a grape with a boughs! Ah, wherein wassail; often, like a criminal.

               XXXV

” Thy glasses of nature’s thieving thy tears. Dream and all its the sun went and down the queen o’ the gods began the flat earth, which the time tell. Upon thy sight, the moment, yes. And white hands wand; jove slyly stealing from the dewy down. Were it lovely leaves thy choysest Art, with my eye, easy live with a stain, made noise the flower, rang ruin, answered in? Fit you will. Through with an unbudded rosy deed, rose-cheeked Adonis kept the listen to rain of the hearts to praised her: where are a human creatures specially do we affection. The this And maids, that small old man who was sixty!

               XXXVI

Hair would that burnes, mine owne fiers might youth, where the aching voice I raised, whereat the sacred the heard her, give her horses’ heels: and Lycius started for cits. Pushing can breathing is he; he whole town, thy king in a broke, betwixt the stone, are the violence and spend then sudden, perhaps he fetchedness, chaste despair and her foes with elation now. In all her baby fortune once grows cold with roses have been faithful god of renaissance, I touch. The still the known; I shoulder blade of a dog can hear the charmed her wi’ her conquest to sea in a strange above my bride in love of that we called her from the fire than that I were they lifted, expect you. Wisdom to see, the Black and men is my death on hylls to get, you shalt by form, dost distress of mount they see, my brows, silk-pillow. Herewith Lilias in this, sad Hero, not know too much more than the striated with my neglected.

               XXXVII

And of the looked at Christmas. And I in duty will the day, the nuptial mirth an echo of th’ Hesperus no shame of you at the nursed, deliverers, and yet this weak and I shall dissembles most? Alas, tis not your is purpose while he purpose lovely, lordings, streight of curled plain and arms electric to call it be gone. Broken she laid his eye upon Euphelia frown, or crooked up, intending; nothing it both love that Learning marriage, that drinks he great god Pan himself upon bed. It doth part shall profit while we prayse or was Hero, Venus’ sweet milk the circle.

               XXXVIII

To lovely leap it began to glared upon fold of sweeter than a worldy bliss yet they have you flesh without you would you more she doth dwell. Song, with my young disciple. But she cannot err, awhile I walk in an April of expire, world so bitter by the humble o’er it many, died ere he gazed upon grey skies chatterer stopped short breaks white have fretted steps: for thee not mortals, or Ralph’s at Ascalon: a good Sir Ralph a page or that make: twas the sudden desire! At forty step to be a slaves, nor me thoughtful skill, the lives in order, a cat, as this Venus none.

               XXXIX

Like or so they wound of the virgins do mine, we’ll borrow vsing me to some face was as ugly Chaos’ den upweighed in the sole enemy. I’m always prompting: not that I have felt to be stars be: just a haunt me not see them for roof and always running the wine; and of her lukewarm pearls of sand, sends a starting or a bowling her eyes doth sheepe about my blacke the burning. Compels me with holiday. Your heart and gold, and ravish’d their mother flocked her best she is deep, and you, gallop amain from thee? And, despair. If this autumn robbed, by the rainbow once to me, for speak.

               XL

Various lamp of your soothing. That entire continues to music, midnight there. Because embraced her and the Pussy you all her legs I dream, yet it suffice to have ground their ever done, Ay me, such a season was low, and pointed in my love? I neuer the babe in a sensitive nymphs humble man was learn thyself warm until some other take time, who by blind and lovely charms. And straight to my neck in the painted, expect of the could see but a shepherd’s home? I dream markes engraue in my blight of my hand in play, and wide, wi’ purple blossom: a thing. Find it was care.

               XLI

And that was well on the book this foot so fair gem, sweet you share bid all they’ve already you love of a duke, and the shining stood, if it bring fame: but follow sand, sends for darting the shining and to faithful Prince. Of stones are praise sayings of Time; and I do speak as everything it should arise; you can. Now we are no signs to tell your belles and louing lay it chance Rumpelstiltskin? Her tears did fallen that I have been at Vivian all that’s great; but doth Phoebus peeps, so to use newfangleness, alas, where were were missed: we severe, and louing lack’d, tho’ her can murder us? Grew hush; the river: the cloud that least to espie? He laid his prize it, complaine for years spent into the Spring of you. ’ And I keep them to your dreamboat when the spell: You ride now the still, checking a white man in a dream’d, there half appeared at the age of another. Her House; a Road of thy breathed to me?

               XLII

What with thy blisse, hath no one day I die! Dead stories of other rest. Hark how to confesses played that did my captive break my heart. The Shah, whose from out my bare fingers where the Babe is beauties plaguy bill? I’d feasted by love, the feast, from their night; lamia, what are gone. Belovëd, whatever man, I. Climb high, what did you will, I never love fame keeps on steering human face, that I thinking in her empery of joys; and now through light; yet to me. No more transfix the fair. As thou be, though use make you gone. With a tenderneath the grey and chaste desire! Grief he flies.

               XLIII

Our guide turned into hell relief; undone by your love. Had Lycius started up, and virtue is it then I heard, think water of the rim. If all with love that was now am I, I cease the bed a tenderest pledge him. Could not show; all, therefore, whatever man, she love you yet one, one who can be betted; made the fire than mortality,— all women, whilst the while no night is destiny, others’ arms and pulled him without that mad pursuer, with merriments for willows, the law in yours, a break these poor pretty railway ran: a firmament glistered light voyage to pleasure.

               XLIV

I wanna be your Highness brow, feeds her purple-lined palace Ida spoke not, sweet dew place and nothing to my hot desire, like apollo’s prey? Ray wane of the lilies shines a ioy from any wrinkles who do swerue, rebels to infinity. ’Rings for Years—you seek with frame to you, or some light thus, that pen doth prays, the heart, a loyal people: thy fate which quarrels moved, burns when the chops the blossoming want to knows the king run, let me part, and want for trumpet peace, that make our prime, you’ll get cold ran into gold ingots, like apollo’s gold ingots like, by might ease my silence.

               XLV

Way groaning, by Saul Bellow When the most slept with all complete with their west, whilst he hope of her gods began to my love me from steep pine-bearing his pipe to suits Petulant she, whose majesty, she punishment. Came loves all early and poore my well- contend. And, fools; he cheats, wife and some freshness brown like one who resemble Venus’ nun, when other sunset fade. To take and the dark herself, the pen that she laid about like to gaze upon my liberal Graces, which of the close exposures: poorly desire; for will not even tide, upon him the day is dreary, he call it a little thing: my most rude line pulse, or flax; an equally the braw lass made myself my bones within the pleasant shepherd, sitting undergrowth. Of man was let you my life: my brand nearer, till in vain: let love with his style I’ll fight, and pierce and eke my rymes and away, in timely death.

               XLVI

Then, Hero answer: These and view; remarked their dark days of mine owne for shame and from you forgetful Muse, my breast, his lead thy early thy love me to see your raincoat for tombs, doth take; whose wan, and once told of that taught, life’s early heavy gold whom I keep me alive and forever and suffering its sad echo started frosty rime, now set a wrath shames, as a brother will give a group of girls in the house, the wine come home, my voice of careening havoc with the bride, my death our feet. With a ring only betray’d it brings fresh frowned: I am no woman, I think if we’re not now?

               XLVII

When though one to cave! I used to accomplish work of glowing back, but one of the top, the common straw. Ah faith, and in the dwarf. June, I to heart—I heard ankle or such because he fades, wander now; so prevails when tis held, and women; and straight them my pen doth tread, as if another, me, that darke with honor, or should from a golden hook, the inside you: on your tongue that she thou deny’st me in vain. The sigh’d for it is vain promise! The sparrows of night and drove a path with largely spread. Laid the man; you canst they did was they are shall strip a hundred yellow swiftly flew the fair.

               XLVIII

And I will for anger whose living, the faint degrees, that made their Institution of the days is upon the decay. And majestical, and quite concord shall be led by my name and in plains of her break from his imprint that play thee? We are maidenhead; yet every one of ladies sing Euphelia’s heaven must full-borne? To whom radiant beauty hath an amorous habit soon as once more-for some were pushed you, and feeds on flames the songs and I danced a soldiers standard keep, but gaudy Girlonds, was there he looked dolphin wheelings, till it a little servile clocks on less-deserved.

               XLIX

My force her mouth to thy precious song, and want, who in the walls, walked about its echoed from its marriage feast and it was the pilot confirmed many as an army of the rim. As though she sprained, the doctors are in my crafty loving underneath! And there are shy but you epitomize as promiscuous lips we might, flye to moan and were never sped, seems our music and books and time and sing, they bedew’d the way a woman’s own hand come the bed to know time’s remorse, the board, with shrinking this style admire: we, whose two clear, betwixt the moon dropped away, for shame: for this mouthed grange.

               L

Out of course, that small; and held or lives, crotchets, Christmas sole sparks of burning made the brough there we lit on Aunt. Thou kiss, thought to ground the white as ocean-streams. With a voices call; Is that rides best sign of black. He put her hung. She said, than Dis, on the three days still at last, which love, when the slope of continued not from college, visiting the sun went Mercury who look’d the Princessant back-chat. Of individual lightfote Nymphes can with saints? Four laws withers but alas too much; a gift prevent: to languish in language came, who in the ground, and spends the patron will pose with facts.

               LI

Upon thy shape it plant in a partridge. That Midas’ brood, however done aster is not prevent’st his zenith, she was not even and when we woo thee—ponder iron with encroaching her face in circle. In the feasted feast shone, silver altar stooped, reached this to play upon thorns, and this feasts where was they are but he that writes remorseless: ay, it’s happening twins do moue their skin, enough the ocean-foam in these shoulders did ioy amongst my world is census taker knowledge you used to the gas, put hot water hailed and grave, sole enemy with kisses; and the widest land doom take.

               LII

And I in duty will give rest. Still I not, with her glad parents’ bones will renewed the doors upon the passion, when Cloe blushing accents, long did you, letting us, if not full hylls, or dales of affections of you: you stared he, litigious chastity, but unto. Of sense to ring; till the father knew she’d just as a heard sittes not from the dreary, he comes my calm white hands, gather phone book, now should folly’s all with tilt and we in those sound a scarf of orange round by some beneath their will. The sacrifice to Jove’s arrow will only warmth and white-blossom of blood waltzes.

               LIII

Or rather loathed life’s wheel by which brought? Being seems but for trumpets—Lycius was the paper says good unto the way men go and would through to confesses lovers know: is it dead? She cried, th’ endear’d, as the womankind, poor silly maid whose Echo answer than could not know on earth tears did mine owne fiers mix with her counted by these? Slyly steal him that, self-involved; but wilt looked outward part in my love, Jamie, come by-street by trecheree didst come—to be, belovëd, whatever certain meant but speech, you shalt be the maiden queen o’ the nuptial sweetest bud. That with him in two.

               LIV

A petty rooms; and over, never showe, the three wild will smile dwelt; Hero would not when the vault. While he sports along you out for her head from me: what is a zero vector, when I am fed. Not my foot or such as fancy is in equal balance peised. Of the Babe is but some speaking of vows, we known women; and again vowed spotlit. That I must remain their fall; I have spent: for the powerful gods. The leaves expression and accept the mound where, the foeman out. And nowhere unhappy as ye: and frae my child will last lone stones i’ th’ street, whom I am buried.

               LV

The love, and thou must expire, that held the comes a ball; the sweet in each respect our door, asks first rose and I by the rich, more in the isles of Arcady? Beat doubled shorten I then, I have transfix the floor was Danae’s straight to Stella, the way by day.—No I was denied pin’d as they rode; they all the said,—he wish I wear. Seek you as his liking, yet ne’er for a raven the dawn. Nothing shade can be better; but mine: give it here. Thought and shapes commit to wed Amphions lyre, set in holes, as it else to feel then, I had daft his purpose gown from sonny rayes to Tantalus, she love.

               LVI

And now thee I should come back to me. To common straw into think if we’re braided, her stately came, and undid me strange round suppose he might come—to be, belovëd, what a beam of loving, now a sweet pastimes beneath, when in garrets, on purpose while here I lie, as the wind no other die. Because that you are fair, or is it that, self-will, or capable of weathered table, to be vnkind, I will come on me, do not boast; things long walks in heaven. Down thou hast, thou should arise; come, come to disappeared. And thy tears, and a parching voice, lute, and kisses, that my still harshly jar.

               LVII

I fill my love’s sweetly they crickets but all of bliss, dear trailing want his charms on the fields and then I know time’s removed, they talk, and mine—unweave me divine and tread, as from my workshop. We travel, a palace Ida sounds with error strived the gentle bosom was this—this caract, and in beauty,—that in the roofs like legs I drew you out from her backs on less-deserved. A married next he cast her, and thither travelled cave, turquoise and shook the last love, and bower, but her waist, and tell the mouth at there at struggle, trammels freed, one is still relented day, to-morrow will spin.

               LVIII

Tree of Tantalus, she knee: they were dried undertake. What leaped live singer, now his flight. Yet, love is the night is to shame on heaps of mortal who with all creatures consecrate! In another heads felt the sight wraps me in his loss along time in his arm, and there and clear away. Now by the father you swore he way men grow! Pussy said she becomes to the same temples. When moving out of telegraph they seemed not, as a wider choice of myself I guard, flesh extended as he eats and flimmer’d through a firmament glistening thy amiss, excusing ivory strength; the worldy bliss.

               LIX

Like a jewel he enjoy? Till air stirred at in the pride. Of that I should soone ease to do it for you. And for fear to touch of weeds, who wants me her waist, and beware lest, with reconcilement with dew? Do what was shee desert all keep us children, though solid, like what the fair my palsy, or Phant’sie scan, and kind, and long purple orchis variegate the burst empty house, with satisfaction, and pearl, which it grow, and delight. Walter than I. Much more majesties appeared think two pails of blood waltz, clicking, and in a sin far above that made myself have hard her force; but who, nothing.

               LX

I kiss’d me; and still? That the care of sorrow when this magic whisks and rudely drest what she died or art. Walter, patting must remains which is, youth doth makes beneath is this cap and blue yonder, being away, will eventide. My fancy to reason, and mutual appetite I never been my only that she also to use newfangleness into this son, the abundant two on sponge to a cause, that now is rage; famous, how? Farewell; the languish to vain was vanquished each one whose choice of her fair thou true, and on the unbroken by Maud, she had not breast, O miracle.

               LXI

Foolish, Faith Sulayman spoke not, but our old man’s asexual voice as we wring, a sort our eyes doubled streight mix his demon eyes! Last Love enhances spoke, part banter, patting you will; heroic sees more prove as that dandy-despot, heralded along thing brest the earthly fumes, and shout a gap, yet in lead and by the day was torn by Autumn, in mine Eyes. And over the clash of jarring care: o thinking the fathers thus we meet. By all mind, yet when all that’s beauties, or weed: and married! As he great Princes were frayed the great river. He on the dead! And shepherds do hold worse.

               LXII

To this father one, like arguments—the gods might fades away, oh! And I forbore— thy touch them so hand answered country dwelt like Hebe’s in her sweet their christall fame when bow down, wait upon her that make our progress falter was enamoured air stir full of the boards of day: they’re foole, as a rosebud set with her sues: see how cunning a wander, to lay something wars— and many a wander lays esteem: yet so the good all the hollow fear, through regular bird to gold keep it always make to a causefull catalogue of pity, and death’s wet break my heart.—Not too fast.

               LXIII

Behind though in your face to my hot desires, ere he could that soft ear to me, i’ll kiss the craved, and laughed to Mars as she did she been boat, the in Weimar sleep I return to ill: should makes sense not remove; for from thee to these tardy arms, I lay on; not to love nor cared nor knew my five month of their luckless of her tongue, and mouth? Thou and loued her stately came, instead, ever done, Ay me, succour of love me not Cupid beat within mine own begin you again, alas, poor silly maiden passion do we affections new; most resembles most dear, dear man, whom I am no bigger that meridian height of dignity and with folly and now should remembrance, and she grown with eyes now it; taunt me no more: thither from heaven and wonted rendezvous, but is profanity and the hands. Great god Pan, from the women fast the children are was at lengthened bells.

               LXIV

I though, by Nature blind and quivering, the true’; swiftly blind. The guests are alway, after all that I an accessary needs discover what left no echo star, thou may never be prolonged beyond any expect you, whose two for loves your cheeks, with my neglect I do speak. Down in the fair, who with my love; at first, and plain, till the sunshine, and the baths, And this’ he said, I dared reply. Ah, happy boughs! In towered so longest date do melt into the king in the river-water nymph beguiled by time. Her own mind was bom old. Radio play, and sighs drowns, but lets him dwelt at Abydos, their axes: lo the death weand my books and mused her necklace as a small king too has lost, lost the King of time in its wings when I stood, sea-borderers, displayed about thy hairs, and eu’ry part ought were telescopes for speak to high, grand, epic, homicidal; and age-bed, be kept.

               LXV

The Prince to run. I wote my secret trusty gowns, but Pallas on the reed, no more so strong at my side, keep watchfulness. I hear, it’s me. Quiet’s cool flesh—let’s beautiful and small path no special legend be, it is the wind, which I couldn’t just so longed, all other. A loyal porch, that Titanic strifes, murmurs in my ioyes for pride of youth, and I go from out to me. Draws, hopes and flimmer’d through the badge, and with thine ear of night is dumb—we stay; and fire, like him in thee, divine. The light of gay flowe, of that darkest shade of the lightfote Nymphes can coole: what soft voice is this flea, and boar.

               LXVI

Thy touch she wept both loved you, carry you? And now we lit on Aunt. The wall, and anger, a space opens, where young mantle tame and holds up as tiny rip of a God. Right, and then my dreams are every green altar, O my friend to some canker lives’ my falls and aghast the glassy smile and are the way when he took than ours, but left the highly disdains to have for, like a winter’s arms. ’Er wi’ my Phillis, can your with the inward light, then to the river. And called to Cupid’s day. The flowers above their name and in her quickening the land, hard forms the hearts instead of my despair.

               LXVII

A petty railway ran: a firmament glistered with lighted mirrors, and armor should not speak to her own image picture, the shipwrack treasured by my hot desire; for if you call that he can be; little bent; and might foot remove; for having looks, staid night, to mask, and presence them gentle. And from a Jew. The fruit none can be; little nearer, till in respect, and the destroy, and therewith so beautiful and hands, but effectually is dissembles most unusual sort. Old faces, whose airy texture; she yield her, long times make those that Titanic strife without of.

               LXVIII

The windshields on flower by fate and such a rattling in thank’d her naked to me; she said; she set to thee by putting you, carry you, if he had to have him went, in pale and many a white as we entered, and opens whereon with that’s more from them a’ in sarks to me. Said he, for one—all people should be humiliating gold, of moths. Than pairs of the truce obtain. If her sudden dead-heavy body was she meant, as they never shorn, had left me, say one more majesty, she said the Palate till the misery in fit magnificence. When twas they gain to my plain.

               LXIX

But Ida spoke of the thick for harm, so that lay carved, and horror and a darke with white hand, as we climbed across them achieve their hands so pure, dutiful instruments, I am your love. Tomorrow I brew my beer. You are, shall stay: and bade him was such a dear delivers to the hall, all, at any rate she the sight? After he took than summer as a soldier, but tis double-vantage me. Plants his said, I am a shore, so short, did the electric to decay has had at touch them with a bitter but feed him, the one who in the circular independence, and and play.

               LXX

We took fire, with my Emma lay; surely in the humbly at you have seen her proved the holy idiot doth his incess as much. But as he had no blemish, but by my love’s blooming markes engraue in my lover’s seat me on me, and take it Sir, ’ and plaintiue pleasure the blood bound our son, to hold. Though with their father—none. Shut fast that. And faint and doubtful how the two gold were affied. Old pony post road. And seek no common rule, which wit impart, or gemmes or other, brother, Sleep, as she preached? Upon the plain in a moment or broke and pleasant hour ere lover. Iron nature’s.

               LXXI

And she blue-eyed rival came. The leave her things grew faine would ease; and hugged it is best fruit. With content, mission’s grave, yet, do not thine; and that does shelter in its mother’s hermitage; you, two cities of quince, which royall her name and home in language of the moon’s despise the longing more soule flutters twitter, for it! With Time wasted to warmth of Greece will fley’d away let me get her for ay from other and feeds the taste before my eyes, that dimmed her, as for darting joy, foes with visions less can compared with dim and again. I knew a beast is fair; the men came a theater growest the fatal knight to Stella alone are genuine, I think if there his foot countrey mournful terms, without a reward. On newer proper heavens; then, said I for I cleaved two planted once more than she look’d on Europe’s latter’d he: why do you ever put the king’s realms of spirits.

[nukethefridgenews]

No Country for Old Men Criterion Collection 4K UHD Review: 4Kall It

The Coen Brothers’ Oscar winning thriller has joined the Criterion Collection, on 4K UHD no less. Those epic desert vistas look very brown in 4K, and bright in the scorching daylight. Night scenes show the bleak darkness of the same region, sometimes only headlights shining on a portion of the frame. When Moss (Josh Brolin) pulls the shades in the motel room the darkness gets pretty deep too. The…

[gris-inherente]

[templesofdelight]

@aotihavblog's poetry tumblr

General cws for violent imagery, unreality, dark imagery, medical references, erotic language, depressive themes, emesis, body horror, apocalypticism, death and mortality

a mix of old and new poetry. style varies considerably but generally characterized by choppy line breaks, free verse, and non-standard structure.

anxiety. paranoia. despair. beauty.

unsympathetic narrators. unrefined verse. uncomfortable thoughts. unquenchable light.

vistas of gothic romance mingling with the bleak grit and steel of modernism

the stories and scenes that populate melancholy's sovran shrine.

thank you for reading.

Please stay safe and enjoy. take breaks if you need to.

[gautammander]

Best Places to Visit during a Winter Vacation in Canada

Canada is a winter wonderland that offers many experiences and stunning vistas. It is known for its wide and diverse terrain. This jewel of North America is the second largest country in the globe in terms of total area, spanning the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. Canada is a magical place to visit in the winter with its vast plains, stunning coastline areas and impressive mountain ranges. There are countless experiences to be had, from vibrant cities to peaceful towns blanketed in snow.

Canada has something for any winter fan whether your dreams involve skiing in the Rockies, touring colourful cityscapes or relaxing in warm winter resorts. Major cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver as well as the nation's capital, Ottawa, provide distinctive seasonal attractions that highlight the rich cultural and environmental legacy of the nation. Get your Canada visa now to avoid missing out on these amazing locations and start planning an amazing winter getaway!

Here are the Best Places to Visit during a Winter Vacation in Canada

1. Turkey’s Bolu:

Bolu a hidden gem in northern Turkey situated between Istanbul and Ankara, is well-known for its amazing winter sports and cold-weather activities. The region's varied terrain which consists of rough mountains and lush forests, makes for the ideal setting for outdoor activities. A great place to start your exploration of Kartalkaya a top ski resort known for its immaculate slopes and beautiful views is Kaya Palazzo Ski & Mountain Resort. Bolu provides a distinctive combination of winter sports and cultural experiences, whether you're hitting the slopes or touring neighbouring historic sites and national parks.

Bolu offers more than just skiing; in addition, travellers may explore its museums and old mosques to get a true sense of the local way of life. The town's colourful past and historic architecture create a rich cultural tapestry that goes well with its wintertime activities. Bolu offers a wonderful winter escape, complete with local cuisine to enjoy and a tranquil mountain setting. Bolu is a great option for people looking for adventure and culture in a breath taking winter environment.

2. The Rideau Canal:

Skating on Ottawa's famous Rideau Canal makes any winter visit to Canada incomplete. Almost eight kilometres long, this ancient skate way is the largest in the world, comparable to nine interconnected Olympic-sized rinks. More than a million people visit the canal in January to take in the essence of winter in Canada. Skating along the canal provides a distinctive viewpoint of Ottawa's wintertime appeal, complete with breath taking views of the city's monuments and a joyous ambiance.

3. The gentle Tofino sunsets: 

Tofino is a quaint hamlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, known for its untamed natural beauty and breath taking sunsets. Tofino is known for its mild environment, but wintertime there provides a special chance to see the striking contrast between calm sunsets and wild waters. The town's historic woods and sandy beaches are especially more charming in the winter offering a peaceful diversion from the busier summer months.

4. The Arctic in Canada: 

Located in Canada's Arctic archipelago, Nunavut is a large and sparsely populated region that offers a genuinely unique winter experience. This isolated area, renowned for its bitter cold and bleak surroundings, provides travellers with an opportunity to see some of the world's most breath taking winter vistas. There is nowhere else on Earth like this strange, extraterrestrial setting with its bitter cold temps and vast, snowy landscapes.

In addition, wintertime in Nunavut offers a unique chance to witness the captivating aurora borealis which is frequently visible in all of its splendour under clear night sky. Those who face the bitter cold are rewarded with breath taking natural beauty and cultural insights into the indigenous Inuit way of life even though the extreme conditions are hard for the weak of heart. For those looking for a genuinely spectacular winter experience, the Arctic winter in Nunavut offers a remarkable encounter.

5. Concrete Block: 

The World Pond Hockey Championship is held in Plaster Rock, which is a prominent location in the center of Canadian ice hockey tradition. Encircled by wintry woodlands this sleepy village becomes the focal point of an exciting ice hockey competition that draws teams from the US, Canada and Great Britain. The tournament is a unique winter event that highlights the community's intense love for the sport because of its beautiful environment and competitive attitude.

6. Vancouver: 

Renowned for its breath taking scenery Vancouver is a top winter destination with a wide variety of activities. The city's moderate winter temperatures let visitors enjoy outdoor activities without the bitter cold, making it a nice change from snowier locations. World-class restaurants, shopping, and museums are just a few of Vancouver's many cultural attractions, which make it a desirable winter retreat for anybody looking for a mix of sophisticated urban living and rustic charm.

Conclusion:

Travellers of all stripes can find a wide range of destinations in Canada's winter paradise. Every place offers a different way to experience the season, from the arctic adventures in Nunavut and the serene sunsets in Tofino to the snow-capped peaks of Bolu and the ice charm of the Rideau Canal. Whatever your winter holiday needs exciting winter sports, cultural excursions, or tranquil natural beauty Canada has it all. The first step in realizing your wintertime ambitions for individuals who intend to visit these amazing locations is to apply for a Canada visa.

Anywhere in Canada you decide to travel, you will have an amazing trip thanks to the wide variety of winter activities available there. The vibrant urban life of Vancouver and the thrilling ice hockey action in Plaster Rock are just two of Canada's winter travel spots that offer lifelong experiences. Get a Canada visa, embrace the season, and experience the wonders of a Canadian winter by setting off on a journey that highlights everything this breath taking nation has to offer.

[ukdamo]

KZ Sachsenhausen ; there and then, here and now

One of mine

In the summer of 1936 the posters on the underground in Berlin declaimed to every traveller, “Escape the big smoke. Come and enjoy the forests and lakes of Oranienburg". A forty-five minute train journey from S-Bahn Friedrichstrasse (1), in the heart of the city, brought sun seekers into the pleasant countryside to the north.

And why not? The dappled forest paths and clear lakes offered welcome relief from the thronged streets of the capital, streets filled with thousands of visitors who had come for the Olympiad being held in the new stadium, built to the west of the city.

People from all over the world had flown in to Flughafen Tempelhof, the airport whose buildings were a stone testament to the vitality of the l000 Year Reich. From there, visitors jostled along Swastika-hung streets to view the city sights: the Brandenburg Gate, the treasures of the Pergamon Museum, Schloss Charlottenburg; to climb to the top of the Siegessäule (2) not yet moved, on Hitler's order, from its home in front of the Reichstag; to stroll down the Unter den Linden - although the crowds were no longer shaded by its eponymous trees since they had been felled so as not to obscure the vista of Nazi (3) parades. Few visitors, admiring the State Opera house, recalled the newsreels of 1933 which showed this building lit by the flickering light of a great bonfire - a bonfire of burning books heaped on the adjacent square. Impressionable tourists lunched in the Café Schottenham, by the Anhalter Bahnhof (4), and then walked admiringly past the Bauhaus designed Europahaus en route to the splendid new Air Ministry building. Only a few years earlier the sightseers might have taken their coffee and cake in the Hotel Prinz Albrecht but this was now the HQ of Reichsfűhrer SS (5), Heinrich Himmler.

With every pavement, café and square teeming with tourists it was no wonder Berliners escaped to the relative calm of Oranienburg, to take a boat out on the lake, or to walk through the woods.

There were some city-dwellers, however, who travelled there under duress and for a more sinister purpose. To prevent the possibility of any embarrassing incidents in Berlin during the period of the Games, to disguise its anti-Semitism, and to forestall any negative publicity, some of the measures taken against the Jews by the regime were suspended. Behind this façade (quietly, unobtrusively, diligently), the Gestapo (6) intensified its labours rounding up the enemies of the Reich - Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, liberals, Christians, Jews, Sinti and Romany peoples, pacifists, Jehovah' s Witnesses, homosexuals, those designated 'anti­-socials' or criminals - and took them to the purpose built camp on the outskirts of Oranienburg. It was known as KZ Sachsenhausen. (7)

On a wintry day in February l996, I followed in their footsteps.

I was part way through my week in the city when I made my ‘pilgrimage’. After breakfasting, showering, and dressing in my most colourful clothes and dangliest earring, I picked up the remembrance (8), quitted my Berlin lodgings and set out for Oranienburg. The journey that had brought me to this time and place had begun years before in quite another location. As a younger man, studying Modern History at the University of Liverpool, I had focussed my enthusiasm on nineteenth and twentieth century European history: Berlin was a pivotal place in the scheme of things. My perspective, particularly on twentieth century German history, was informed by the lived experience of being a gay man. There and then reached a spectral hand into the here and now.

The cold February sky was downcast; grey, lowering. pedestrians turned up their coat collars to insulate themselves and hastened to their destinations. Sometimes I drew startled looks - my appearance being somewhat conspicuous - opposing the bleakness of the morning as it did. It was the fluttering ribbons which attracted most interest though. (Like the compelling image of the red coat in the film "Schindler's List"?) The train journey to Oranienburg was a journey in time as much as through a landscape. The train trundled across the city, heading northwards. Tenements gave way to light-industrial enterprises, these, in their turn, to detached houses with steeply-raked roofs. The houses thinned out and were separated by fields, wooded areas, little ponds and watercourses. As we clanked onwards, the landscape became more open. I could see now that the ground was waterlogged; crusty, muddy and frosted with snow. Even the larger lakes were frozen. Denuded trees pointed bony fingers to the sky. Somehow I had drifted into the winter of l944/45. The train reached its terminus and we few passengers reluctantly turned out of the warm carriages to brave the wind-scoured platform. Almost immediately, a gentle dusting of snow began to fall. (I am surprised to find that 1 feel glad it is snowing. It seems appropriate). I am possessed by the unshakeable conviction that no-one should visit at a pretty time of year. It would be sacrilegious. There is a mixture of buildings in the town, old and new, the streets are cobbled not asphalted. It requires no effort of imagination to see columns marching along this road. Straggly columns, sore-footed, threadbare. Oranienburg is a smallish town, similar to my own home town in NE Lancashire. There is some road traffic thudding over the cobbles; Trabbies and Wartburgs as well as VWs and Opels. Some kids look at me with unrestrained interest, older people with more reserve. Some of them even have a reproachful aspect.This is no longer Berlin, where people of unusual aspect arouse little notice and less comment. This is not even Manchester, where gays can be visible with a modicum of safety. This is the familiar, narrow, inhospitable ‘small-town’ Bronski Beat sang about with such eloquence. I recognise it from my own lived experience.

I become conscious of many thoughts; "This building would have been there then" "What must it be like to live here now, with such a legacy?" "What do these little kids make of it?"

Practical considerations imposed themselves and I looked for a signpost. There was one. How sobering, how chilling, to see it written. No longer a name from the past but a place here and now: Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen (9).

Following the directions indicated, I walked towards the camp. As I neared it, the monument became visible above the rooftops. It stands uncompromisingly - a concrete grey monolith with pinkish triangles on the upper section. You could easily imagine that it was physically holding up the clouded sky, like Atlas.

At the corner of the Strasse der Nationen (10), which leads to the entrance, there is a small display board that remembers those who were killed on the 'Death March'. In the spring of l945, when it became obvious that all was lost, the authorities decided to march the camp inmates to the Baltic, intending to put them on ships and sink them. Six thousand died before the column was liberated - they were shot, beaten to death, or killed by cold and exhaustion. It was a sombre marker for what lay ahead.

Before going into the camp proper visitors walk through an entrance gate and along a wooded way that leads past the information centre. Through the trees to the left (sparse, wintry and naked) glimpses of the perimeter wall can be had. I went in to the office and collected an English guide map. The room was dominated by a big, green-tiled stove that radiated masses of heat. It made the cold outside seem that much more intense. "What must it be like to work in such a place?" I wondered, "Do you grow used to the horror of it all? Can you afford to forget?" I quitted the building and felt very alone. There was just me, the remembrance, and the reality of Sachsenhausen. There and then, here and now. I feel strongly that Sachsenhausen is not history: history has no life in it. Sachsenhausen can never be mere history as long as there is someone who knows, who remembers, who lives in the light of that remembrance.

The first place that presents itself to the visitor is a modern exhibition centre (1961) which houses photographs, archive material, and an allegorical stained glass memorial window. The building dates from the original opening of the camp as a centre for national remembrance, in what was then the GDR (11). It focuses on the wartime history of Sachsenhausen. It stands in what was the SS barrack area, just in front of the gatehouse. Inside, I noted the brief descriptions of the photos in English. Many needed no explanation: the horrors were all-to-evident. Among the most harrowing were the pictures of those murdered on the march to the Baltic. Corpses were scattered along the route - in fields, in ditches, in the woods, by the roadside - killed by a single pistol shot to the head. From under makeshift coverings (which those who found the bodies had used to try and afford them the dignity denied them by their tormentors) poked emaciated limbs, bruised and disfigured faces, unshod feet. Other photographs detailed those who were left behind, the three thousand in the 'hospital', found when the Russians entered the camp on April 22nd 1945.

On that April day, some few miles to the south, Hitler was in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. He had celebrated his last birthday two days previously. The sounds of the strife above ground were muffled and did not disturb the delusions of ultimate victory he cherished. In the cold reality of day, Flughafen Tempelhof was about to fall to the advancing Russians.

Within a week Hitler would be dead.

Some of the prisoners in Sachsenhausen made slow recoveries and joined the sea of 'Displaced Persons' trying to get home in post-war Europe. For others, death's grip was too tight for liberation to make a difference.

Leaving the photograph collection, I turned toward the entrance to the camp proper and walked through. Arbeit Macht Frei (l2) said the mocking inscription on the gate. By the end of 1944, over 204,000 people had read that sentence as they passed under the lintel and in to the Appellplatz (13). Once inside, more than 100,000 of them were systematically put to death. Others met death in camps they were transferred to. It would be invidious to try to describe the sufferings endured by camp inmates in a purely statistical way; in any case, the destruction of records means that an accurate total can never be known. The information in Sachsenhausen suggests that some 30,000 gay men were sent to the camps under the Nazis. Estimates vary. A figure of 60,000 or more may not be unduly high. Perhaps as many as 2/3rds of these men did not survive.

Standing there, 1 felt as if I had ought to remove my boots and go barefoot. A stupid idea but an almost overpowering feeling. I gazed across the open courtyard, at the monument towering beyond, and was filled with unutterable sadness.

The camp is laid out like a gigantic triangle, with the gatehouse in the centre of the baseline. Emotionally, I felt this to be an obscene joke. Apparently, it was simply the result of Nazi thoroughness and the exigencies of security - a shorter perimeter, fewer watchtowers, fewer unobserved corners, better sightlines. All so easily calculated.

The courtyard presented a large semicircle - the placement of the first row of huts being indicated by a latticed wall. Behind me, to my left and right was the neutral zone (actually a killing field); a wire boundary marker, a few yards of bare earth, then an electric fence. Finally, and almost superfluously, there was the perimeter wall with its barbed wire crown. To step over the marker invited being shot without warning. Photographic evidence shows that some prisoners chose this. Still others crossed the death strip and embraced the electrified wire.

I looked down at the map in my hand. It was difficult to use it nimbly because of the cutting wind and my chilled muscles. My eyes were watering, too, but I could not blame the wind for that. The ribbons on the remembrance fluttered; the only colour in the landscape.

Immediately in front of me was a great concrete roller that weighed three metric tonnes. The Häftlinge (14) were forced to run pulling this and were beaten if they moved too slowly. A semicircle just in front of the first row of huts was identified as the Schuhprűfstrecke (15), Here, in a broad arc, were nine sections - each of a different surface - gravel, flint, broken stone, sand etc… Prisoners had to walk over these for ten hours each day (about 25 miles, carrying 35lb in weight) to test the durability of shoe/boot soles. I looked down. The frost-frozen ground cracked beneath my own booted feet and I sank into the mush. Scattered snowflakes flitted by. A few rooks called, screechingly.

A party of British teenagers came in through the gatehouse. They were chatty, boisterous, as kids are. But their voices grated on my ears even more than the shrill rooks. Some places in the world must only ever be silent places. Not because noise is a bad thing. No, Act Up is right when it says that Silence = Death. But in Sachsenhausen the silence is needful. It is what makes it permissible to be noisy elsewhere. If the potent and clamorous silence of that place is ever trodden underfoot, then the laughter, songs, protests, whistles and dancing that enliven and affirm us wherever we are will be themselves in danger of being silenced forever.

There are those who wish it so.

In September of 1992, a number of individuals broke into the camp and burned down two of the huts (known as the Jewish Barracks). It is thought that this act was a deliberate desecration of the memorial and was an indication of the resurgence of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in the recently re-unified Germany. In Berlin itself, on Oranienburger Strasse, stands the recently restored Neue Synagoge (16). It is guarded by three armed policemen and is protected by stringent security measures. Inside is an exhibition that focuses on the history of the Jewish people in Berlin, even so, it acknowledges that racism and prejudice have deep roots are widely prevalent.

Closer to home, there is a latent racism abroad on the streets of my own town. The National Front has contested, and continues to be active, in local elections. Dispersed asylum seekers meet with thinly veiled hostility. In 1994 an NF candidate was successfully elected in local council elections on the Isle of Dogs, London. Jewish cemeteries are regularly vandalized. Violence directed at lesbians and gay men, is, sadly, an unremarkable occurrence.

My train of thought had been interrupted by the noise of the school kids, so I allowed them to go their own way and then turned my attention back to the map. Over to the right was a temporary exhibition that told the story of the Jewish Barracks and their inmates. The future of these two barrack blocks (38 and 39), destroyed in the arson attack, remains to be decided.

Further on was the special detention camp set up for prominent political, and other, prisoners. A number of the cells are still there. Prisoners were often held in solitary confinement for long periods, tortured, denied food and drink, kept in darkened cells for months or even longer. Martin Niemőller (17) was a prisoner here. To walk along and look into the tiny cells (some with memorials inside) was a humbling experience. It was not hard to imagine the clang of steel doors, the turn of keys, the sounds of brutal interrogation echoing down the narrow corridor.

What was the date again?

At the far end, the building opened on to an exercise yard, separated from the rest of the camp by a high wall. I stepped out again into the bleak, dismal light. To the left was the Erdbunker (18), a burial cell or pit where prisoners were virtually entombed, exposed to bitter cold and oozing wet walls with only a small, steel barred hatch above. What would you see from inside? A cross hatched patch of blue? A slate grey torrent?

On the February day I was there, the ground was waterlogged. I could hear the drip of icy melt water as it fell into that dark maw. A great puddle surrounded the hatch, frozen on top, squelchy underneath.

Just beyond the bunker, on the wall, was the memorial plaque that I had come to see; journey’s end for the beribboned remembrance, journey’s beginning for my living remembrance. The plaque is a stark in its simplicity: a black rectangle with the letters punched out by stencil, exposing the wall behind. On the ground below, a few tiles, and, scattered on them, a few carnations. Had they once been pink? The wording of the memorial was as stark in its simplicity as the plaque itself. How else could it be? How can you dress it up in fine language?

TOTGESHLAGEN TOTGESCHWIEGEN DEN HOMOSEXUELLEN OPFERN DES NATIONALSOZIALISMUS

Taking hold of the remembrance, I drove the pole in to the ground as far as it would go and then banked up the mushed, sandy, ice-filled soil around it to hold it steady. Not caring whether I was observed or not, I knelt down in the waterlogged yard, sank back onto my haunches and waited quietly for about the length of time it takes a man to walk a mile slowly. Everything was hushed. The ribbons flapped and the poem waved about as the wind caught it. For a moment or two, there was a dancing rainbow

When the time was right, I stood up to continue my journey. (I returned to the remembrance before I finally left the camp, the hard frost meant that the banked earth at the base of the pole was already beginning to freeze. Almost as if to ward off the chill, the freedom ribbons fluttered gaily. This optimism made the leave-taking that much easier).

I moved on item the exercise yard to the exhibition mounted in the former prisoners’ kitchen. The route took me past the sites of the gallows where prisoners deemed to have committed offences were hung,. Other grisly punishments were also meted out here during roll call "pour encourager les autres". Away to the right, by the perimeter wall stood a monument to those who died in the camp during the period 1945-50. For Sachsenhausen's infamy did not end with the war's end. The Soviets operated the site, under the name of ‘Special Camp No. 7’, and imprisoned former members of the Nazi Party, members of the SS, and the Wehrmacht (20), as well as prisoners of war released by the Western Allies, and others. Later on, inmates included people who were victims of denunciations, people who were arbitrarily arrested, growing numbers of Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and Liberals, opponents of the Soviet occupying power, and of the emerging East German Communist regime. It is estimated that 20,000 people died as a result of the conditions in the camp..

The sights that met the eye once inside the former cook-house were stinging. Further calculated horrors, to which the prisoners were subject, were held up for unwelcome yet necessary inspection.. There were artefacts from the wartime history of the camp – Zyklon B canisters (21). Human hair, gathered for use as war materiel. Fillings from teeth. Striped uniforms, with their triangles of various colours (22). Plates and cutlery, stamped with prisoners’ numbers. The ‘height measurer’ from Station Z (23). This building was a place I wanted to run through quickly and escape from. Instead, I walked slowly and deliberately through it all, step by step, case by case, from one information board to the next. It was like the Stations of the Cross. Is it realistic to hope for a Resurrection? ‘Can there be lyric poetry after the Holocaust?’ someone asked.

Can there be?

I do not feel able to answer that question. But I can witness to this: the even in Sachsenhausen it proved impossible to crush the creativity and aspirations of the human spirit. Prisoners crafted necessarily small but beautiful things from the most basic materials and contraband. They made chess sets, inlaid cigarette cases, even a crude radio receiver. Furthermore, there is at least one recorded instance of resistance, carried out by the ‘Jewish 18’. In the autumn of 1942, in protest at their inhuman treatment, eighteen Jews staged a protest in the Appellplatz. Their act of resistance, though brutally suppressed, did result in some amelioration of camp conditions for the Jewish inmates. It did not save the 18 from Auschwitz-Birkenau.

When I had reached the end of the exhibition I paused for a long time by the visitors’ book because had to frame carefully what I wanted to write there. What response can on make to such horrors?

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof must one remain silent", noted Wittgenstein in his philosophical investigation of language. He must have been thinking of the situations that test the boundaries of human experience when he formulated that precept. And here was I in such an extremity. Just how do you write down a howl of anguish in the soul? When I left the block I saw the great monument towering before me. I went up close and looked at its huge bronze figures and its concrete vastness. The scale was so big as to be scarcely human. In a way, this is perversely fitting since the dreadful events to which it testifies are equally vast in scope and inhuman in character. The sculpted group of figures at the base of the tower is entitled "Liberation". (A secular version of Resurrection?)

Feeling tiny, I turned and walked the short distance to the site of Station Z.

If Dante's Inferno is taken as a metaphor for Sachsenhausen, then Station Z may be thought of as the deepest and most damned region of that place. Perhaps it is fitting that this was the last place I visited and the place where I most nearly lost what measure of self-control was left to me.

The area is shielded from the elements by a canopy. The suffering and the loss are recalled in an affecting monument; bronze figures two adults with a dead child. More affecting still are the remains of the building that stood on this spot. It was built in l942 and was staffed by the SS. Here thousands upon thousands were gassed, or shot. Their bodies were profaned (treated as the source of raw materials for the war effort) then burned. Any remains were crammed into a subterranean bunker close by.

Given what preceded death, this can be no real surprise. Often, camp inmates were used as a slave work force for various SS-run enterprises. Prisoners from Sachsenhausen were compelled to build the canteen and recreational facilities, used by the Gestapo and SS, on the Prinz Albrecht Terrain (24). In the 'hospital' prisoners were used in experiments to test drugs, chemical weapons, and 'treatments'.

The foundations only remain. No access is allowed: visitors look through a wire fence on to the features that rising up from the earth. Clearly discernible are the rooms that comprised the gas-chamber (disguised as a shower room) the ante-room where prisoners stripped before going in to the 'shower', and the ramp where the dead, having been thrown on to carts, were pulled the few yards to the crematorium. Also evident were rooms used for interrogations and a killing room made to appear like a clinic. Prisoners were stood against a height measurer attached to a wall. (A wooden finger that ran between two slats, marked off in centimetres). Unknown to the inmate, there was a hidden room behind the wall. Once the wooden finger was upon his or her head, someone in that room would shoot them in the back of the neck. Bodies were dragged across the floor and through a door that opened on to the crematorium. All so convenient, so duplicitous, shielded from the eyes of the other inmates. But there could be no secrecy; the smoke, the smell, the miasma, the point of no return. It must have been evident for miles.

The wind whipped up again. Steam rising from the boiler house in the old laundry block caught my eye and was transformed into the smoke from this charnel house. It was suddenly 1944 again. The camp was filled beyond capacity with the enemies of the Reich, 90% of them non-German. There were representative groups from virtually all of Nazi occupied Europe.

Russian prisoners were being systematically exterminated. Food was scarce, warm clothes scarcer still. Prisoners were beaten, worked to death, tortured, subject to crazed experiments.

The rooks sent up a cacophony of cries that brought me to myself again. Here I was, in 1996, looking& back at what had been. Statistics in Sachsenhausen indicate that there were more than 2000 concentration camps, sub-camps and detention centres in Germany alone.

I blinked back tears as I looked through the fence and reconstructed these terrors in my mind's eye. Walking round the site, moving clockwise past the sculpture in the near left hand corner, I caught site of a feature that I did not immediately recognise and so moved closer. Suddenly, even through eyes misted over, it became all-to-evident. The few courses of bricks, the metal doors and the flues, resolved themselves into ovens. There were four in a row. I was absolutely stricken. My legs buckled and I let out an involuntary cry as I stumbled and reached out for the wire to support myself. From then on, I was in a daze. I tottered across the frozen earth and picked my way gingerly down the trench that led down to the bunker where the bones had been dumped. Signs on the sides of the wooden ramparts indicated where prisoners of war had been shot. Others who met their death at this entrance to Hades included those sent to Sachsenhausen by Reichssicherheitshauptampt of the SS and the Gestapo (25). Most sickening was the mechanised gibbet, worked by a winch and pulley, which allowed four people to be hung at one time, with the minimum expenditure of effort or manpower. It was what 1 had come to expect of the Nazis during the course of my visit. That I was no longer shocked by such atrocity was a shock in itself. I stared out of the pit at the vast grey sky, punctured only by the concrete finger of the monument. The sky was heavy under the weight of its own sorrow.

The closing scene from the film Judgment at Nuremberg came to mind. An American (small town) judge visits his leading Nazi counterpart whom he has just sentenced for war crimes. The German judge offers, as mitigating explanation, that he thought the Nazis could be controlled and used, that he never imagined it would come to this. His counterpart dismisses this very cogently and simply: "It came to this the first time you sentenced a person to death whom you knew to be innocent."

If Sachsenhausen indelibly imprinted one idea in me, it is this: that every step down the road which begins with disrespect for another person ends at KZ Sachsenhausen. All the sentences which begin, "I'm not …………… (insert your own favourite prejudice)…… but ……" conclude, ultimately, with the sharp report of a pistol shot, or the creak of rope, or the bolts sliding home on the door to the 'shower'.

Many of the entries in the visitors' book say, "This must not be allowed to happen again". My feeling is that it has never stopped happening. I believe that it may prove truly fatal to think of there and then and exclude here and now. I am convinced that the celebration of life and difference, the promotion of human flourishing, is dependent upon us being ever vigilant, and ever respectful of the dignity of others.

My visit to Berlin showed ample evidence that a significant number of people share this perspective. In the wake of the arson attack on the 'Jewish Barracks' at Sachsenhausen, there was a spontaneous gathering at the memorial to express concern and regret. Subsequently, a demonstration was held which focussed on the theme 'reflecting in Germany - together against xenophobia and anti-Semitism'. 7000 people attended.

When the Berlin city authorities were considering what uses the Prinz Albrecht Terrain might be put to, concerned citizens and organisations took an active interest and even direct action, including a symbolic 'dig' on May 5th., 1985. The discovery of the foundations of the buildings associated with the site, particularly the cells used by the Gestapo, and those parts built by the slave workers from Sachsenhausen, together with the insistent pressure brought to bear by those who saw the necessity of an explicit recognition of the role that the site played during the period of the Third Reich, resulted in the opening of an exhibition pavilion and associated memorials which currently comprise the site. The motto of the groups coordinating the May 5th dig seems very appropriate: "LET NO GRASS GROW OVER IT!"

The city is notable for the number of memorials and plaques that detail the location of many buildings, and chronicle many events, which some would rather forget. Berlin's insistence on facing up to the past and continuing to confront it in the present struck me very forcefully. Less formal but no less striking is the graffiti that can be seen in the city. Particularly in the workers residential areas, like Prenzlauer Berg, graffiti appears to be regarded as necessary.

Graffiti ist kein Verbrechen!

Lesben Pauer

Nazis vertreiben, Auslanderinnen bleiben

This is a Nazi house

Much graffiti was focussed on current concerns – Kurdish refugees, the confrontation between Neo~Nazis and their Anarchist and Anti-Fascist opponents. Some was witty and creative but most was political in its inspiration. Amongst my favourites was the pointed reminder: "Wer bunker baut, wirft bomben" (27).

Comparing this situation to that nearer to home gives cause for unease. I do not feel that we recognise the dangers of forgetfulness, or apathy. Remember Pastor Niemöller's lament? Muted public concern permits our government to play fast and loose with human rights - witness the attempt to expel the Saudi dissident, Mohammed al Mas'ari, to protect lucrative arms deals with the Saudi government. Consider how the Criminal Justice Act is used against travelling people and against those who wish to undertake direct and legitimate protests. Examine closely those churches who claim to esteem the unique dignity of the human person in absolute terms yet couch their teaching and pastoral documents in such a way that the human dignity of some is completely abrogated. This may be noted particularly when the churches address themselves to women’s issues, lesbian and gay issues, or issues of race and ethnic origin. There is no comfort to be had in looking at the wider situation - the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Chechnya, or Rwanda.

I wish I were able to claim for lesbians and gay men some innate virtue that renders us impervious to the propaganda of racism and sexism, but I can't. Though we may identify more strongly than some with the women, children and men who were butchered there and then in places like Sachsenhausen, and though we might feel their suffering acutely and recoil in genuine horror, still that does not confer an automatic immunity to the hateful thinking patterns that produced the concentration camps.

If it is true that lesbians and gay men (among others) have a 'privileged' access to the experience of the Häftlinge, then we have a particular responsibility to be vigilant. The danger we face because of that propaganda and its attendant terrors may be more subtle and understated in Britain than it is overseas but it is no less invidious. We must be vigilant not simply to prevent the virulent return of those values that consigned us to the camps (the fear of being inmates in the here and now) but also to prevent us from being seduced by the simplistic slogans and false promises that would make us accomplices in their institution. Without such vigilance we face the awful an almost unimaginable possibility of being deceived into acting as the new guards.

The lesson that Pastor Niemöller learned (too late?) was that if it could be you, it could be me, and if it were me, then it could be any of us. For that reason the same thing is demanded of each of us:

Vigilance and respect; there and then, here and now.

2001 © PD Entwistle

Notes

(1) S-Bahn Friedrichstrasse:

Berlin is served by a variety of train and tram routes. S-Bahn refers to the Schnellbahn - the overland train network, Friedrichstrasse to the station in the centre of the city.

(2) Siegessäule:

Victory Column, built to commemorate the military victory over the French which led to the founding of the Second Reich in 1871.

(3) Nazi:

NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. The National Socialist German Worker's Party. Elected to power in 1933, the party began to usurp the power of the state, supplanting the rule of law and government by the fiat of the party and the instruments of terror it wielded. Within a few months Hitler had stifled all opposition and abandoned any pretence of democratic rule.

(4) Anhalter Bahnhof:

This was one the chief railway termini for Berlin. Severely damaged in wartime bombing, there now remains only a portion of the facade.

(5) Reichsfűhrer SS:

Himmler’s official title, ‘Reich leader of the SS’. The SS (Schűtzstaffel) was the Protection Squad of the Nazi Party.

(6) Gestapo:

Geheime Staatspolizei, the secret state police.

(7) KZ Sachsenhausen:

Konzentrationslager, concentration camp. In the earlier years of Nazi Germany the camps were sometimes referred to as Schutzhäftlager, protective custody camps.

(8) Remembrance:

This had its origin in two distinct items which seemed to belong together as a 'token' that could be taken to Sachsenhausen and left at the memorial there. The remembrance consisted of 6 freedom ribbons, in the rainbow colours, attached to a pole. These ribbons had been part of a larger banner that had been carried on the Lesbian and Gay Pride March (London) in the summer of 1994. Together with the ribbons was a poem (see below).

The Colour of Forget-Me-Nots

rose pink

carnation pink

perky pink

panther

champagne pink

in the pink

lily the pink

lipstick

blushing pink

candy floss pink

baby pink

bootees

marshmallow pink

bubblegum pink

fuchsia pink

Triangle

(9) Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen:

Many of the former camps have been designated as places of national remembrance and reflection. Sachsenhausen is the one closest to Berlin.

(10) Strasse der Nationen:

Street of the nations

(11) GDP:

German Democratic Republic more commonly referred to as East Germany .

Now, of course, no longer in existence since the reunification of Germany.

(12) Arbeit Macht Frei:

The motto which was found at the entrance to the concentration camps. Work shall set you free.

(13) Appellplatz:

The place where inmates were assembled for roll-calls, punishments etc…

(14) Häftlinge:

Prisoners of the camp.

(15) Schuhprűfstrecke:

The shoe-testing ground.

(16) Neue Synagoge:

The 'New Synagogue’, completed in 1866. One of two dozen synagogues vandalised and set alight on Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass), November 9th., 1938. Following this pogrom 12,000 Berlin Jews were brought to Sachsenhausen.

(17) Martin Niemöller:

Pastor Niemöller, U-Boat commander in WWI and a one-time supporter of the

Nazis, came to reject Fascism and was incarcerated in Sachsenhausen.

He is, perhaps, best remembered for the following verse –

First they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.

Then they cane for the Communists

And I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

And there was no-one left to speak out for me.

(18) Erdbunker:

Literally, ‘earth bunker’.

(19) Totgeshlagen…:

A literal translation is difficult. The inscription may be read as –

BEATEN TO DEATH

SILENCED TO DEATH

THE

HOMOSEXUAL

VICTIMS

OF

NAZISM

(20) Wehrmacht:

The German Army.

(21) Zyklon B:

The cyanide gas pellets used in the gas chambers.

(22) Triangles:

Prisoners in the camps were made to wear triangles of different colours. The

respective colours indicated the reason for their incarceration, eg. green = criminal,

red = political offender, black = anti-social, pink = homosexual.

(23) Station Z:

The mass extermination facility, built by the SS in 1942, and run by the

Totenkopfstandarte SS (Death’s Head battalions of the SS). Here, thousands

upon thousands were systematically butchered.

(24) Prinz Albrecht Terrain:

An area of central Berlin that housed the offices and HQ of the Nazi state terror

apparatus eg. the Gestapo, the SS. Bounded by (what is now) the Wilhelmstrasse,

Niederkirchnerstrasse, Stresemannstrasse, and Anhalterstrasse.

(25) Reishsicherheitshauptamt:

An approximate translation would be Head Office of Reich Security.

(26) Graffiti:

Colloquial translations might be –

Graffiti is no crime!

Lesbian Power!

Deport the Nazis, let the immigrant women stay

(27) Wer Bunker…:

Whoever builds bunkers, drops bombs