George Orwell Library Orwell’s fundamental works online.
In response to this sickening story which came via wood s lot, I can only weep, and hold on to the thought that there is hope and peace out there, somewhere. And I can also post this poem from John Morgan’s book The Arctic Herd which sort of takes me to where those Marines are now in a different way. Ambush A light with the richness of cream pours over the bar. Slack night. I sip a glass of beer remembering who I think I am and then forgetting. “Killing’s more direct than talk,” he says, says he could do …
Poesis by Douglas Burton-Christie “Stone by stone it rises, this little house by the sea. Soft, damp sand for mortar, moss for the garden, driftwood for the roof. A tiny stone wall encircles the yard, a path winds toward the front door. I am on my belly working to bring this little dwelling into being. My wife and young daughter work beside me. A breeze from the ocean cools us. We have begun building this miniature house on a whim, but now we are going at it in earnest. We want to make it strong and beautiful. Pausing from time …
Iraq has known war for thousands of years. This account is from Sin-leqe-unnini , the Mesopotamian story of Gilgamesh, one of the legendary kings of Uruk who lived between 2800 and 2500 BCE. [Why (?)] have you exerted yourself? What have you achieved (?)? You have made yourself weary for lack of sleep, You only fill your flesh with grief, You only bring the distant days (of reckoning) closer. Mankind’s fame is cut down like reeds in a reed-bed. A fine young man, a fine girl, [ ] of Death. Nobody sees Death, Nobody sees the face of Death, Nobody …
From my little compilation of Heany poetry to the left From the Republic of Conscience When I landed in the republic of conscience it was so noiseless when the engines stopped I could hear a curlew high above the runway. At immigration, the clerk was an old man who produced a wallet from his homespun coat and showed me a photograph of my grandfather. The woman in customs asked me to declare the words of our traditional cures and charms to heal dumbness and avert the evil eye. No porters. No interpreter. No taxi. You carried your own burden and …