They aren’t poor because they don’t try hard, don’t work hard, aren’t deserving of better things. Mary Pat can look at almost anyone she’s ever known in Commonwealth in particular, or Southie in general, and find nothing but strivers, ballbusters, people who treat ten-ton burdens like they weigh the same as a golf ball, peopleContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Poverty and Luck in the United States (Dennis Lehane)”
Category Archives: literature
RKS American Literature: Southie Boston Kids from the Project (Dennis Lahane)
All Southie kids loved the streets but none more than the project kids. Project kids hated staying in the way rich people hated work. Staying in meant smelling your neighbours’ food through the walls, hearing their fights, their fucks, their toilet flushes, what they listened to on their radios and record players, what they watchedContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Southie Boston Kids from the Project (Dennis Lahane)”
RKS American Literature: Forty-Two Years Old and Looking Like Crap (Dennis Lahane)
She carries the trash can into the living room and sweeps the beer cans into it. Empties the ashtrays from the coffee table and side table and the one she found on top of the TV. It’s there that she catches her reflection in the tube and sees a creature she can’t reconcile with theContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Forty-Two Years Old and Looking Like Crap (Dennis Lahane)”
RKS LITERATURE: Beware of Unbridled Success: Letter from Pharoah Amasis to Polycrates Tyrant of Samos (Herodotus)
‘How pleasant it is to learn that a friend, a man who is bound to one by ties of mutual hospitality, is faring so well. Nevertheless, your outstanding good fortune is not a cause of unconfined joy to me – for I well know that the gods are given to envy. What I wish forContinue reading “RKS LITERATURE: Beware of Unbridled Success: Letter from Pharoah Amasis to Polycrates Tyrant of Samos (Herodotus)”
RKS British Literature: Hatred of the Brabant and Flemish Mercenaries (Henry Gilbert)
The Englishmen hated these foreign invaders with a hatred too deadly for mercy, and as they shot them down they knew their arrows were loaded with vengeance for unutterable deeds of murder and cruelty committed upon defenceless women, little children, and unweaponed men, when these marauding wretches had spread like plague through the land underContinue reading “RKS British Literature: Hatred of the Brabant and Flemish Mercenaries (Henry Gilbert)”
RKS British Literature: The King’s Justice Worth No More Than a Roast Pippin (Henry Gilbert)
‘Softly, good marshal,’ replied Robin with a laugh. ‘Ye know who I am, and ye know that I reckon the king’s justice or his marshal at no more worth than a roast pippin. Thy justice!’. He laughed scornfully. ‘What is it? A thing ye sell to the rich lords and the evil-living prelates, while youContinue reading “RKS British Literature: The King’s Justice Worth No More Than a Roast Pippin (Henry Gilbert)”
RKS LITERATURE: “I Hate and I Love”: Bright White Teeth Cleaned by Urine
Because he has bright white teeth Egnatius whips out a tooth flash on all possible & impossible) occasions. You’re in court. Counsel for defence concludes a moving peroration (Grin.) At a funeral, on all sides heartbroken mothers weep for only sons. (Grin.) Where, when, whatever the place or time – grin. It could be aContinue reading “RKS LITERATURE: “I Hate and I Love”: Bright White Teeth Cleaned by Urine”
RKS British Literature: A Great Fear and Dread of the Forest (Henry Gilbert)
The forest he had heard was a place of dread, for the other villeins had told terrible tales. Of monsters who flew by night and hid in dark thickets by day to snap up unwary travellers; of hills from whose tops at night the glow of fire shone forth, and within which little dark elvesContinue reading “RKS British Literature: A Great Fear and Dread of the Forest (Henry Gilbert)”
RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds): Toronto Hijacked Yet Again but Don’t You Dare Criticize
Toronto Hijacked Yet Again but Don’t You Dare Criticize Bike lane tyranny where the miniscule lord over the many and unlike the Lord brazenly give fingers to motorists while breaking all laws known to cyclists Charity runs clogging city streets and expressways Charity walks all over the place “for a noble but perhaps obscure cause”Continue reading “RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds): Toronto Hijacked Yet Again but Don’t You Dare Criticize”
RKS LITERATURE: “I Hate and I Love”: My Sweet Ipisthilla (Catullus)
Call me to you at siesta we’ll make love my gold & jewels my treasure trove my sweet Ipsithilla when you invite me lock no doors nor change your mind & step outside But stay at home & in your room Prepare yourself To come nine times Straight off together In fact, if you shouldContinue reading “RKS LITERATURE: “I Hate and I Love”: My Sweet Ipisthilla (Catullus)”
