Coversheet• Show poetry

"After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world."
~ Oscar Wilde (in reference to absinthe)


There is nothing to explain
Regard each other as you pass
She looks back, you look back
Not just once
Not just twice
Wish away the nightmare
Wish away the nightmare
You've got a light you can feel it on your back
A light you can feel it on your back
~ Jigsaw Falling Into Place (by Radiohead)


"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."
~ Oscar Wilde


By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangely mute, like little gasping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him.
~ from Modern Love (by George Meredith)


And nightly Icarus probes his wound
And daily in his workshop, curtains carefully drawn,
Constructs small wings and tries to fly
To the lighting fixture on the ceiling:
Fails every time and hates himself for trying.
He had thought himself a hero, had acted heroically,
And dreamt of his fall, the tragic fall of the hero;
But now rides commuter trains,
Serves on various committees,
And wishes he had drowned.
~ from Icarus (by Edward Field)


"But some might say, where was Tess's guardian Angel ? Where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps... he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked... As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: 'It was to be.'"
~ Thomas Hardy (from Tess of the d'Urbervilles)


“I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.”
~ Jean Rhys (from Wide Sargasso Sea)