Demure Demure

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In the Nacreous Hours (Larry D. Thomas)

before the Great Storm of 1900,
a calm breeze rustles palm fronds
like cotton castanets. The evening sky
is opalescent, disturbed by nothing

but the glides, swoops, and dives of gulls.
The children are nonchalant,
licking their bright red lollipops,
stuffing their mouths with sticky

pink wads of cotton candy.
The waves, grown mysteriously angry,
strike shell beds with the opening notes
of Beethoven's Fifth. The puppet limbs

of lovers are thrashing in the sky,
the cotton threads of their lifelines
twisting, fraying, held by but the screaming
of the brute, careening gulls

Join me and Edna St. Vincent Millay's hand and hear out her short but (bitter)sweet 'what lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why'. 



What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

In this short story, author Saki will let you in on a shameless little secret. Can you handle the truth?

Dive into this lil snippet of the first chapter of Virginia Woolf's awesome Night and Day, and you'll get to walk into a fancy tea-party in Edwardian London with me ♡

Join me as we walk through the intro of Dorothy Parker's short story Men I'm Not Married To



No matter where my route may lie,
No matter whither I repair,
In brief—no matter how or why
Or when I go, the boys are there.
On lane and byways, street and square,
On alley, path and avenue,
They seem to spring up everywhere—
The men I am not married to.
I watch them as they pass me by;
At each in wonderment I stare,
And, “but for heaven’s grace,” I cry,
“There goes the guy whose name I’d wear!”
They represent no species rare,
They walk and talk as others do;
They’re fair to see—but only fair—
The men I am not married to.
I’m sure that to a mother’s eye
Is each potentially a bear.
But though at home they rank ace-high,
No change of heart could I declare.
Yet worry silvers not their hair;
They deck them not with sprigs of rue.
It’s curious how they do not care—
The men I am not married to.⁣