The very last of something

Sudan doesn�t know how precious he is,
his eye a sad black dot in his wrinkled face
his head a marvellous thing, a majestic rectangle
of strong bone and leathery flesh,
a head that expresses pure strength.
How terrible that such a mighty head
can be so vulnerable, lowered melancholically
beneath the sinister sky, as if weighed down by fate.
This is the noble head of an old warrior,
armour battered, appetite for struggle fading.



From A picture of loneliness: you are looking at the last male northern white rhino by Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 12 May 2015. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Unexpected item in bagging area

Do you have a Nectar card?
System can be frustrating to some shoppers.
Are you using your own bags?
Growth is projected to steadily rise.
Keep customers happy.
Approval required.

Your call is currently number six in the queue. Please continue to hold.
Reduce the length of checkout lines and wait times.
Your call is very important to us, please hold.
Minimizing the stress on employees.
We are currently experiencing high call volumes.
Please call back later or continue to hold.

Please insert cash, or select payment type.
The salaries of multiple cashiers can quickly add up.
Notes are dispensed below the scanner.
Lower overhead costs.
Providing customers with the service they need.

Many customers don�t feel comfortable with the process:
Dealing with a faceless machine.
Customers enjoy a brief conversation,
Prefer to have a one-on-one interaction with cashiers.
Thank you for using Sainsbury�s self-checkout.



A combination of automated voice commands from self-service checkouts and telephone answering services, and The Pros and Cons of Using Self-Checkouts by Nick Mann, business Bee. Submitted by Andrew Walton.

Death in the afternoon

My body is falling apart, he said
He shaved meticulously
He forgot about his eyes and ears
He smelled good

Bloody certificates
another barrier to impetuous action
in case of lovelorn despair, for example
ten minutes before noon

A sparkling, sunny day in late spring
We ate more cherries
Even he tasted one or two
and the angels looked quite grateful

No one talked about the next act
No one talked very much at all
The angels went for a walk around the garden
We stayed where we were, savouring the lovely day

Do you know what this is?
Do you know what will happen if you drink it?
Do you want me to give it to you?
Yes, I do. I will die.

His eyes shut, quietly
It�s over now
Goodbye then
I returned to the garden.



From 'I held his hand as he drank the fatal dose': the day my husband chose to die by Liesl Graz, The Guardian 7 February 2015. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

What They Don't Tell You

My mum doesn�t know who I am.
Sometimes I�m her sister.
Sometimes I�m her dead mother.
Once I was Shirley Bassey,
which made for an interesting evening.

I�d assumed we�d have lots of time
to get to know each other properly.
I was wrong. Instead of visiting coffee shops,
we ended up visiting the memory clinic.
It�s like going home with a newborn baby,
but with less support and no balloons.

They don�t tell you that she�ll hit you
as you coax her into the bath.
Neither do they tell you what nappies to buy
when she becomes incontinent,
how to persuade her to wear one
or stop her taking it off
and stashing it in a pillow case.

They don�t tell you what to do
when she thinks that the small boy
you pass on your walk is her grandson,
and tries to talk to him. Nobody tells you
how to placate the angry parents.

They don�t tell you that she�s never
going to phone you again, see you get married,
be a grandmother to your kids.
Nobody tells you how to channel the anger
you feel that your fellow thirtysomethings� lives
now involve marriage, mortgages and children,
and yours revolves around a confused old lady
who doesn�t know who you are.
They�ve chosen their responsibilities;
you�d give anything not to have yours.

They don�t tell you that you�ll spend hours
trying to feed her a spoonful of hospital jelly
even though she�s pretty much given up on eating,
because you can�t just watch her starve.

It doesn�t matter how distraught you are
that she�s wasting away before your eyes,
or how much it upsets you to agree
to the doctor�s request for a DNR order;
this disease is relentless .

I�m still not sure how to feel about it
when there�s nothing tangible to mourn.
�Waking grief� someone called it.
When the person you knew is gone, but not gone.
But it�s not. It�s a waking, sleeping,
cloud of despair. But then nobody tells you
how to grieve either, do they?

Especially when there�s no funeral to go to.



From What they don't tell you about dementia by Dawn Vance, The Guardian 28 January 2015. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Jamdani Weavers

A bead of sweat rolls down my face;
I am struck by the silence. The air
is hushed and filled with concentration.

On the banks of the Lakshya
master weavers sit in pairs, barely breaking
sweat at their bamboo looms.
The men are shirtless. The women rest
their arms on cheap white cotton,
protecting the delicate muslin.

Hands interlace silky gold thread
into sheer cloth the colour of oxblood.

Around us turquoise, yellow and white billows
in the breeze that � like a cool blessing �
comes off the river through latticed bamboo walls.

Motifs � jasmine, marigolds, peacock feathers �
neither embroidered nor printed,
are painstakingly sewn by hand.

Children of the loom, taught by their fathers:
strong backs and magic fingers. Dedication.



From The delicate material that takes months to weave by hand by Caroline Eden, BBC News Magazine, 14 December 2014. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Annoyance

Just when we thought some
of the old annoyances
of the 20th century
had died out, they come
roaring back
new,
improved,
upgraded,
and intensified like the government

dug up their corpses
and stuffed them with hydraulics
and, like, RAM sticks
and shit, and turned
them into deadly cybernetic warriors.
They didn't die.
They were waiting.
They were adapting.
They. Were. Evolving.

They've returned,
fortified by modern technology,
designed to annoy us anywhere,
everywhere,
and at the convenience of
the person who wants to annoy us.



From 4 Obnoxious Behaviors The Modern World Made Worse by Luis Prada, Cracked, 11 December 2014. Submitted by Kenn Merchant.

Absent Father

I find myself here with a baby with delicate bones,
fine features and blue eyes, who � especially asleep,
when she's at her most beautiful � looks exactly like you.
The fine movements of the lips, the almond-shaped eyes,
the one dimple on her right cheek.
I still find this resemblance strangely, unsettlingly painful.

I imagine you waking up beside that other woman,
whoever she might be; she will never find out
about this one aspect of your life.
I find it hard to picture you; I don't know your apartment,
but I imagine you waking up in it, flat on your back,
elbow tucked beneath your head, thinking of your baby,
somewhere, with someone else, hundreds of miles away.

For a few minutes every once in a while,
more rarely each year,
and too briefly.

Taken from A letter to...my baby's absent father in The Guardian, 7th June 2014. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Spring Drawings

I had had a very minor stroke
and the first drawing afterwards
took me two days to do
(the days are a lot shorter in November).

The stroke only manifested itself in my speech.
I found I couldn't finish sentences, and although
it came back after about a month
I find now I talk a lot less.

But it did not affect my drawing.
I think it even made me concentrate more.
I thought, well I'm OK so long as I can draw,
I don't really need to say much any more;

I thought,
I've said enough already.



Taken from an article by David Hockney about his Spring drawing series, published in the Guardian, 18th April 2014. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Futurama

As the car
in front of us
stopped,
the lanky German
driving our car
indicated
that he was going
to look away
from the road
and slam
on the accelerator.

And he did.

This is how
the future
creeps into
the present.



Taken from the NPR article, By The Time Your Car Goes Driverless, You Won't Know The Difference, 4th March 2014. Submitted by Howie Good.

A City on the Edge

St. John's is
gnawing on my bones.
You can't take it in
with tiny sips; you have
to choke it back, you have
to swig it down. You have
to wheeze about and stagger.

In St. John's,
the houses tumble uphill
if such a thing is possible
and the entire place-
the streets, the squares, the alleyways-
seems to have been laid out
without the aid of a ruler
(and possibly while
under the influence of screech).
From Hill O'Chips to Mile Zero,
from Water Street to the colourful homes
lined up on Jellybean Row:
the city is full of angles that
don't
quite
add
up.

St. John's is, as the Irish say,
"a great place to get lost in."
Wander around long enough,
though, and you will
eventually end up
at the harbour
as surely as water flows downhill.

Great ships lie tethered, bleeding
rust into the bay,
and rising and falling
on s l o w exhalations
of water. From the pier,
the bay looks like a landlocked lake,
the Narrows sealed off by
perspective and distance.
The very air
tastes of
salt.

I am homesick for St. John's,
and it isn't even my home.
I miss the city and I think of it often,
the way one wonders about
a boozy uncle who comes crashing
into your life every couple of years
and then charges off,
leaving a trail of tall tales
and laughter in his wake.

It is a good city, this fishing village
on the eastern edge of
North America.

It gnaws on you.



From The City on a Rock, Will Ferguson, Macleans.ca, 21 July 2003. Submitted by Megan.

Ha-Ha

The force of laughing can dislocate jaws,
prompt asthma attacks,
cause headaches, make hernias protrude.

It can provoke cardiac arrhythmia, syncope
or even emphysema (this last,
according to a clinical lecturer in 1892).

Laughter can trigger the rare but possibly grievous
Pilgaard-Dahl and Boerhaave�s syndromes.

There are choking hazards,
such as ingesting food during belly laughs.

We don�t know how much laughter is safe.

There�s probably a U-shaped curve:
laughter is good for you,
but enormous amounts are bad, perhaps.



Taken from Who Says Laughter�s the Best Medicine? in The New York Times, 20 December 2013. Submitted by Howie Good.

Notes in My Barefoot Voice

Result, restful, mellow, autumnal.
How the asters cheer me! So old-
fashioned-looking, in the plump
white mug that�s making do
for a vase. In these
strange, uncertain
times, I sit
down to
write�



From Notes in My Barefoot Voice by Diana Atkinson, July 2002, Shambhala Sun. Submitted by Eugenia Hepworth Petty.