"Not, Father, further do prolong
   Our necessary defeat;
Spare us the numbing zero-hour,
   The desert-long retreat.

Against your direct light, displayed,
   Regardant, absolute,
In person stubborn and oblique
   Our maddened set we foot.

These nissen huts if hiding could
   Your eye inseeing from
Firm fenders were, but look! to us
   Your loosened angers come.

Against your accusations
   Though ready wit devise,
Nor magic countersigns prevail
   Nor airy sacrifice.

Weaker we are, and strict within
   Your organized blockade,
And from our desperate shore the last
   Few pallid youngsters fade.

Be not another than our hope;
   Expect we routed shall
Upon your peace; with ray disarm,
   Illumine, and not kill."

--Auden

--Awhile back i proposed a book written with mismatched halves.
It appears that such has already been written! "Michael Korda...
was working as an editor at Simon & Schuster, and a few years
ago he wrote a memoir of those days, entitled Another Life.
...Harold Robbins...started writing one book to get the advance,
wrote half of it, and put it aside. When he needed the money,
he finished it, but he'd forgotten much of the first part, and so
the second part had an inconsistent plot with mostly different
characters. Asked what to do about it, he said, 'Leave it.' (Korda
is too professional to say which, but I believe it was The Pirate.)"
--Arthur Hlavaty in Derogatory Reference (now Nice Distinctions 3)

Jargons seem to give you a handle on the world--but it's a
handle that's not connected to anything.

"No matter how cynical I get, it's never enough to keep up." --Lily
Tomlin [something i have quoted many times]