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The 10th Victim.
“Nicole” (my entry for the Leonard Cohen Prize)
The world had only lately changed
And I was but halfway grown
Europe was a place I played
And pledged not to play alone
In Denmark lay an old-school circus
This girl and I made our goal
How little I dreamed of the night we’d find
When the acrobat talked of the soul
Clowns and horses and acrobats
Just like in the movies
Summer of my first dark beer
And carefully crafted doobies
We didn’t know each other well
Which was just as well for a roll
With someone neither would see again
When the acrobat talked of the soul
He signalled her from down on the floor
At first she couldn’t tell
Whether it was her he meant
With gestures to implore
A meeting when the show had done
As I in the cuckold’s role
Could not expect so soon to bear
When the acrobat talked of the soul
She left with him and later said
No funny stuff ensued
Which I believed and later lost touch
But long remained to brood
On what she’d said they’d done instead
That night so bright and droll
For all night long while they drank milk
The acrobat talked of the soul
That was a few girls back and some
Have scored far grislier scars
Crazy girls and cruel girls
Who left me seeing stars
But never quite the wonderment
Inciting to be whole
A spiel to fuel my further loves
Like that acrobat’s talk of the soul
" 'How is the world ruled and led to war?' Kraus asked, arguing that the origin of the 20th century’s seminal war lay in a continent-wide collapse, triggered by the press, of cognitive and imaginative faculties, which allowed European nations to blunder into a war they could neither anticipate nor stop." (via Mefi)
“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”
Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943 via @strandjunker.com
Cfern.
