RKS Literature: Sleeping with a Cannibal (Herman Melville)

“Ye gettee in’ he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooing he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal.Continue reading “RKS Literature: Sleeping with a Cannibal (Herman Melville)”

RKS Literature: No Reason for a Sailor to Sleep in a Bed for Two (Herman Melville)

“No man prefers to sleep two in a bed, In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don’t know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in aContinue reading “RKS Literature: No Reason for a Sailor to Sleep in a Bed for Two (Herman Melville)”

RKS Literature: “Tooth Money Thievery” (William S. Burroughs)

“She was constantly saving money to have teeth out, but somehow she always spent the money on something else. Either she got drunk on it, or she gave it to someone in a in irrational fit of generosity. She was a mark for every con artist in Tangier because she was known to have moneyContinue reading “RKS Literature: “Tooth Money Thievery” (William S. Burroughs)”

RKS Literature: “Beautiful Mouth But not so Beautiful Teeth!” (William S. Burroughs)

“When she opened her mouth to speak, she revealed horrible teeth, gray, carious, repaired rather than filled with pieces of steel-some actually rusty, other of copper covered with green verdigis. The teeth were abnormally large and crowded over each other. Broken, corroded braces stuck to them like an old barbed wire fence.” William S. Burroughs,Continue reading “RKS Literature: “Beautiful Mouth But not so Beautiful Teeth!” (William S. Burroughs)”

RKS Literature: “Quitting Junk and the Last Words of the Mad Dog Esposito Brothers” (William S. Burroughs)

“Lee walked about the room. ‘I have to quit,’ he said over and over, feeling the gravity pull of junk in his cells. He experienced a moment of panic. A cry of despair wrenched his body: I have to get out of here: I have to make a break.’ As he said those words, heContinue reading “RKS Literature: “Quitting Junk and the Last Words of the Mad Dog Esposito Brothers” (William S. Burroughs)”

RKS Literature: Oceans are the Key to it All (Herman Melville)

“And still deeper the meaning of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the keyContinue reading “RKS Literature: Oceans are the Key to it All (Herman Melville)”

RKS Literature: All the Difference Between Paying and Being Paid (Herman Melville)

“And I always go to the sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.Continue reading “RKS Literature: All the Difference Between Paying and Being Paid (Herman Melville)”

RKS Literature: The Temporary Joy of a Successful Operation (Yury Felsen)

“I was recuperating after a successful operation. The joy, such that convalescents experience was long gone and had given way to neurotic boredom of interminable waiting. Those who are often ill know this impatient reckoning of days and hours, the alarm if the time of discharge is again discharged, the irritability brought on by theContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Temporary Joy of a Successful Operation (Yury Felsen)”

RKS Literature: Post Morphine Blues (Yury Felsen)

“I would awake towards morning (already prepared for the requital) with the anguish of an unhabituated drunkard emerging from inebriation, but tenfold and irremediable. A fierce cold penetrated my body, no matter how warmly I enswathed myself. The pain would return, fortified by bitter comparison-just moments ago I had dropped off so serenely. The dayContinue reading “RKS Literature: Post Morphine Blues (Yury Felsen)”

RKS Literature: The Initial Bliss and Joy of Morphine (Yury Felsen)

“After my own operation I had experienced unremitting, unbearable pain, and over the course of ten days, every evening before sleep, that same Margarita would inject me with morphine. I cannot recall another so blissful and happy state that could compare with what you begin to feel several minutes after the injection. Somewhere inside thereContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Initial Bliss and Joy of Morphine (Yury Felsen)”