Extraction

Black is blacker
Wheels turn
Lift drops
Water follows

Spinning tungsten
Teeth cut out
The black gold.



Some of the words written on benches in Chester-le-Street marketplace, spotted from a bus which drove on before they could all be copied down. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Gauntlet

They existed before my hands.
But it seems like I took them and
put them on my hands and put them
on other hands too. I like the
idea of rhinestones for fun.



Karl Lagerfeld's response to a question about his gloves in The Peripatetic Fashionista, on the Imagine Fashion website. Submitted by Marika Rose.

The devil in its sights

It is, frankly, an amazing story.
The indomitable patriarch who will shortly
be forced to plead age and infirmity;

his headstrong son whose eagerness
to do what his father would have done
will shortly doom him;

the loyalists who will unquestionably fall
on their swords; an upending of the moral
landscape in which the miscreants once

happily functioned; and the virtuous newspaper,
perhaps the last great newspaper,
with a last great editor, who, long waiting

for and never believing it would get
such an opportunity, now has
the devil in its sights.



From Will the Guardian Bring Down Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff in Adweek. Submitted by Rishi Dastidar.

The Remaining Robot

The remaining robot continues to walk
but eventually also gives up.

He falls to his knees and tries
to reach the buttons
on his own back,
but to no avail.

Instead, he removes his helmet
and reveals a printed circuit board face.
He repeatedly slams the helmet onto the ground
until it is shattered.

Using one of the shards
as a burning-glass,
he focuses the sunlight
to set his hand ablaze.

The film ends
showing the robot,
completely on fire,
walking in slow motion
through darkness.



Part of Daft Punk's 2006 Electroma DVD summary, discovered here. Submitted by Jason Davies.

When I'm Seventy-Five

It's very difficult to fall in love
when you are seventy-five
because, at that age,
people are not delicious.



A quote from a colleague's English Language student. Submitted by Miriam.

Way Out

You develop an
instant global consciousness,
a people orientation,
an intense dissatisfaction
with the state of the world,
and a compulsion to do something about it.

From out there on the moon,
international politics look
so petty. You want to
grab a politician
by the scruff of the neck
and drag him a quarter of
a million miles out and say,

‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’



Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, as quoted by Futility Closet. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Measured

Vain and
shallow people
treating other vain and
shallow people in a vain and
shallow

way.



A comment on the Guardian website in response to Dating website for beautiful people dumps 30,000 members. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.