Frodo Soup

Honour Killing by Imtiaz Dharker In Lahore, in the last year of the twentieth century,  A woman was shot by her family in her lawyer’s office.  Her crime was that she had asked for a divorce.  The whole Pakistan Senate refused to condemn the act.  They called it an honour killing. At last I'm taking off this coat, this black coat of a country that I swore for years was mine, that I wore more out of habit than design. Born wearing it, I believed I had no choice. I'm taking off this veil, this black veil of a faith that made me faithless to myself, that tied my mouth, gave my god a devil's face, and muffled my own voice. I'm taking off these silks, these lacy things that feed dictator dreams, the mangalsutra and the rings rattling in a tin cup of needs that beggared me. I'm taking off this skin, and then the face, the flesh, the womb. Let's see what I am in here when I squeeze past the easy cage of bone. Let's see w...

What exactly was the Romantic Movement? Watch this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV_q45Otdic  9 minutes 42 seconds Boat Stealing by William Wordsworth I went alone into a Shepherd's boat, A skiff, that to a willow tree was tied Within a rocky cave, its usual home. The moon was up, the lake was shining clear Among the hoary mountains; from the shore I pushed and struck the oars, and struck again In cadence, and my little boat moved on Just like a man who walks with stately step Though bent on speed.  It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure. Not without the voice Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on, Leaving behind her still, on either side, Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light.  A rocky steep uprose Above the cavern of the willow-tree, And now, as suited one who proudly rowed With his best skill, I fixed a steady view Upon the top of that same craggy ridge, The bound of the hori...

Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass   It seemed an unlikely match. All winter unplugged, grinding its teeth in a plastic sleeve, the chainsaw swung nose-down from a hook in the darkroom under the hatch in the floor. When offered the can it knocked back a quarter-pint of engine oil and juices ran from its joints and threads, oozed across the guide-bar and the maker’s name, into the dry links.  From the summerhouse, still holding one last gulp of last year’s heat behind its double doors, and hung with the weightless wreckage of wasps and flies, mothballed in spider’s wool . . . from there, I trailed the day-glo orange power line the length of the lawn and the garden path, fed it out like powder from a keg, then walked back to the socket and flicked the switch, then walked again and coupled the saw to the flex – clipped them together. Then dropped the safety catch and gunned the trigger. No gearing up or getting to speed, just an instant rag...

Eat Me by  Patience Agbabi When I hit thirty, he brought me a cake, three layers of icing, home-made, a candle for each stone in weight. The icing was white but the letters were pink, they said, eat me. And I ate, did what I was told. Didn’t even taste it. Then he asked me to get up and walk round the bed so he could watch my broad belly wobble, hips judder like a juggernaut. The bigger the better, he’d say, I like big girls, soft girls, girls I can burrow inside with multiple chins, masses of cellulite. I was his Jacuzzi. But he was my cook, my only pleasure the rush of fast food, his pleasure, to watch me swell like forbidden fruit. His breadfruit. His desert island after shipwreck. Or a beached whale on a king-size bed craving a wave. I was a tidal wave of flesh too fat to leave, too fat to buy a pint of full-fat milk, too fat to use fat as an emotional shield, too fat to be called chubby, cuddly, big-built. The day I hit thirty-nine, I all...

Vergissmeinnicht by Keith Douglas 1942 Three weeks gone and the combatants gone returning over the nightmare ground we found the place again, and found the soldier sprawling in the sun. The frowning barrel of his gun overshadowing. As we came on that day, he hit my tank with one like the entry of a demon. Look. Here in the gunpit spoil the dishonoured picture of his girl who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht. in a copybook gothic script. We see him almost with content, abased, and seeming to have paid and mocked at by his own equipment that's hard and good when he's decayed. But she would weep to see today how on his skin the swart flies move; the dust upon the paper eye and the burst stomach like a cave. For here the lover and killer are mingled who had one body and one heart. And death who had the soldier singled has done the lover mortal hurt.  Context: Keith Douglas was an English poet born on January 24, 1920 in Kent. He attended s...