From “Notes for Fatty Cakes”

By Andrew Spragg.

III

Intros all made. First scene –
FC, a sea captain:

The Ballard of
Captain Cakes

So well met, she begun like this:
our love, dear Fatty Cakes
stood stern aboard her merry ship.
Our captain wails & quakes.

Consoled by map & chart alone
tales told: crude, stark & sad,
of Cakes at night lone wandering:
the deck, her feet would pad.

Cruel hinterland she longed to see,
ship stocked & anchor raised,
set sail, horizon in her sight,
for Cakes a start of days.

The crew, all told, on ration’s wage
idle, mean hearts belie
a bell, telling, rung late one night
& deserted Cakes & I.
& deserted Cakes & I.

From “Love’s Work”

By Gillian Rose.

Subsequently, I found myself in a routinely tedious faculty meeting, in which, as usual, I carried no presence whatsoever. As drivers insist that the blaring radio aids their concentration on the road, so I always found that a volume open on my lap enabled me to pay the small amount of attention needed to navigate these shallows. When asked with withering detection by the impassive secretary whether the book I was blatantly perusing was good, I nonchalantly replied, “I only read good books.” I responded similarly to her policing my failure to send a note of apology for a meeting that I actually managed to miss, “But I’m not sorry.” On this particular occasion, I was aware of an intense aura emanating from someone whom I had never seen before, an intense, sexual aura, aimed precisely and accurately at my vacant being. “A man,” I wondered, “could there be a man in this meeting?” He looked weather-beaten, his flat, lined faced suffused with a self-consciously alert intelligence and a knowledge of sensual power. I had no idea who he was, and did not pursue the matter.

&&

Art for Whites.

Via Greg Thomas.