The best defence against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes off.
British Army Journal, 1949.

they were the days
when we all had to watch.

the wind was mumbling secrets to itself,
hamburgers began to leap from their buns,
night fell on the cities like shame,
and on the stroke of twelve, the married couples who weren’t kissing
all turned into trees.

giant boomerangs swooped through the parks,
the mouths of toilets chuckled endlessly,
taps were coughing up hair,
and every child could use their right hand as a gun.

the museums were filled with screeching birds,
anyone who could sleep woke up with their head in a hood,
each piece of money suddenly grew an eye,
three or four countries went to bed with each other.

roads kept shuddering like dying snakes,
a giant pendulum hung from the sky,
the dust formed itself into the shape of claws,
and every woman in the world grew four inches taller.

then after a couple of weeks
everything went back to almost how it was before.

Matt Heatherington

Emma White

A beggar to the graveyard hied And there ÔFriend corpse, arise,Õ he cried; ÔOne moment lift my heavy weight Of poverty; for I of late
Grow weary and desire instead Your comfort; you are good and dead.Õ The corpse was silent. He was sure ÔTwas better to be dead than poor.
From the Sanskrit story cycle, The Panchatantra, c.1000 BC

JOHN TRANTER

FIVE MODERN MYTHS

The Guarani Indians of Paraguay
like to keep a small cork loose in their dishwashers,
to Ôintroduce a spirit of lightness and unpredictability
into what is otherwise a repetitive activity,
and one tedious and unpleasant to contemplate
by the gods of the forest.Õ

In Kota Rendang, a small fishing village
on the East Coast of Malaysia, the wood carvers
refrain from spitting in front of the local cinema,
in case ÔClint Eastwood should become angry,
and blunt the edges of our blades.Õ

Until recently the fishermen of Muckle Roe
used to scrub their decks with toothpaste
on the night of the Summer Solstice,
in order to placate the fish-goddess Fiona,
she Ôof the gleaming teethÕ.

The Mongolians of Ulan Bator have a great respect
for dwarfs, who are trained to recite poetry
in a sing-song voice in front of the television news
which is allowed to run silently in the background.
ÔA short rhyme contains the newsÕ, is their motto;
using ÔcontainsÕ in the sense of ÔconstrainsÕ, or
Ôkeeps within the bounds of proprietyÕ.

The stockbrokers of Lakeville, Connecticut,
take care not to be seen mowing their lawns
on the thirteenth of the month, in case
a water spirit, the ÔWhite Witch of LakevilleÕ,
should afflict them with cirrhosis of the liver.

Diana Cole - Attitude

The fault is great in man or woman Who steals a goose from off a common; But what can plead that manÕs excuse Who steals a common from a goose?
Anon 1821.

ItÕs time to take back the commons.
Maude Barlow, 2000.

Michele Morgan

Bertha Tweem