Thirteen

Try to avoid your movements
in long lonely road after sunset,
which approaches the beach
where there is a poor light.



Item 13 of a photocopied 'Advice to tourists' sheet, handed out upon arriving at Kudle Beach, Gokarna, India. Submitted by John K.

From The Gentleman's Companion, Volume Two

Being an Exotic Drinking Book, or
Around the World with Jigger, Beaker,
And Flask: THE SAIGON SPECIAL,
another ODD DRINK from the CAPITAL
CITY OF FRENCH INDO-CHINA & DATING
from the YEAR 1925...
This dates back to 19-
25 when the good old SS RESOLUTE
stopped in French Indo-China, and some
of our friends undertook to fly upriver
as near to the marvellous Cambodian
ruins of Angkor, as might be sane,
then motor back via Pnom Penh—imagine
a place called Pnom Penh—to Bangkok
to meet ship again at Pak Nam....
The plane reminded us of a celery crate
decorated, respectively, with an electric fan
and an evinrude motor. It sputtered and
died finally coming to rest on the Saigon
River, with no chance to walk home....
This addition to any anthology of damp-
ness was one remembered aftermath
when back in Saigon, and muttering about
the contrariness of fate generally.
On checking we find that it is a slightly
sweeter Jerusalem Between-
the Sheets, plus a nip of egg white.



From The Gentleman’s Companion: Being an Exotic Drinking Book or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker, and Flask Vol.2, CH Baker (New York, 1946). Submitted by Jerome.

Found Shaunette

When I first drove
the Carlisle/ Wiltshire commute,
I’d do it southbound non-stop.

It was four hours or so
and I was keen to get home.

But, when they started the road-works,
it drew out and I started making stops:
two usually (Tebay and one other).

Some mornings I’d leave Swindon at 4AM
and head north for a 9AM meeting.

I have not been south of Manchester since July.


An email from a friend, Shaunette, sent in June 2011. Submitted by Martin.

Like ghosts

cats
tend to exist in
your peripheral
vision

and after a while
you move around the house
in a manner that
accommodates
the expectation of their
presence,

waiting
to trip you up
on the stairs
or suddenly
emerge
from nowhere
and start slow-walking
in front of you
as you try
to get
from room to
room.



From My Life as a Cat Undertaker on the blog Blood & Treasure. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.

One drink too many

The other night,
as I was coming home in the dark,
I saw a strange ungainly thing in front of me;
then when I drew closer I saw that it was
a man giving a piggy-back to a woman.
They lurched a little…
I overtook them and left them
piggy-backing in the country lane.



The diary entry of Denton Welch, 22 October 1943, from The Faber Book of Diaries, ed. Simon Brett (London, 1987). Submitted by Neal.

Enchanted Doll

How to play with the nude doll properly:
Pose it, bend and move its body without force
Hold it gently and move the limbs in their sockets
carefully in the direction of the slits
To clean it, wipe with water or any household cleaning agent
Braid, brush, wash or even dye its hair
Dress and undress it carefully

Avoid:
Dropping the doll
Submerging the doll in water
Forcing the joints to move in the way they were not intended
Pulling the joints out of their sockets - it loosens spring tension
Handling it roughly
Taking the doll apart

I cannot ship you new body parts



From the repairs page of the Enchanted Doll website. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

Russian Girls in Love

Hello, gentleman!
I will be honest with you
I tell that I can't see a future
that does not include you.

I feel great inspiration every time
when I see you I feel scared
that your heart isn't single
that you won't want to build
romantic relations with me.

But from other hand,
I try to forget about all fears
to believe that you are the man of my dream
that I am a woman beyond your dreams.

It was not the easy step for me
to write to you this letter.
I didn't used to get acquainted with strangers
especially through the internet.

But I am very disappointed into real life
where I can't meet a good man and
I can't build love and family.
I decided to change
something in my life
and this first change is
my letter to you.

you won't stay cold
you will be touched with
my sincere and romantic letter.
I am always ready to write
to you a reply to continue
our romantic acquaintance.



Taken from a spam email. Submitted by Karen Greenbaum-Maya.

All the tattoos I want

I’ve decided that I want a japanese tattoo sleeve
starting at the shoulder
and ending at the wrist.
It will include at least a koi fish,

some kanji, a samurai sword, some nice blue
waves, a pokemon (not sure which yet, but hell maybe I’ll get two),

probably a torii, probably something small
in dedication to yu yu hakusho (not sure what). I don’t have all

the ideas yet but it will at least
be very colorful and with basically no skin color showing. And my back piece

will be dedicated to egyptian mythology;
specifically Horus and Anubis facing each other
and some nice looking egyptian-like images in the background
to bring it all together.

And honestly that’s all the tattoos I want.



A post on the White Morgan Freeman Tumblr, 20 May 2012. Submitted by Ezra.

Re-Verse

Redira second in defensive digs –
Retain Potter.

Dumpster fire scorches bookstore –
Mariners set sail.

Lobster too good to eat –
Zuckerberg has the world by the tail.

Corrections/Clarifications
Dead man awakens at funeral.

Plan to revive economy –
Free public workshop.



Headlines in the Monterey County Herald on the 14th and 15th May, 2012. Submitted by Neal.

We wanted to let you know

The dog Billy died
on a rainy cold evening.
He had stopped eating
and exploratory surgery
found a long cancer.
He fitted right in with us,
his stoic cautious cooperative self.
He was with us for 5 years, perhaps half his life.
It feels very empty here today.
We lit a candle and played the Requiem
by Mozart.



An email from a friend, around 5 years ago, on the death of their dog. Submitted by Karen Greenbaum-Maya.

Hi Emily,

This is just to let u know
I love u no less than I did at school.
Maybe it’s time we both moved on,
I will always love u
no matter how this ends.



From a text message that was sent, accidentally, to my friend Anita, 1 May 2012. Submitted by Lynda.

The Shape of Our Rage

Gradually men rise up to confront them.
One of the bravest is
a teenage hairdresser’s apprentice.

Vidal Sassoon, the man who gave us
the Five Point Cut, the Asymmetric Bob
and Mia Farrow’s £2,500 haircut

was a street-fighting man.
“That popinjay Mosley.
Fascists preaching hate on every corner.

The same abuse that I remembered
from the 1930s,
I was too young to do anything about it.

The pictures we were seeing
from Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Dachau
changed the shape of our rage.

I went to work at the salon in Mayfair
with a badly scratched face
and this refined client said

Good God, Vidal, you look terrible.
What happened to you?
Nothing much, I said. I just fell over a hairpin.”



Taken from a report published by Anti-Fascists Online following the death of Vidal Sassoon, published on 9 May 2012. The poem consists of selections from the article, with punctuation added. Submitted by Jo Bell.