Sunny Steamy Friday (and a poem)

[nightdog_barks]

Ah, we are well into summer now. :-P

Have been reading Nathan Ballingrud's collection of short stories, North American Lake Monsters, and holy shit. If you like Stephen King, Clive Barker, Shirley Jackson, Joe Hill, or other horror fic-writers I can't think of, you will love this volume. Oh my god. And these are not nice horror stories. Bad things happen -- really bad things, but these tales are so well written and so deeply layered, they are a pleasure to read even as these terrible, terrible things are taking place. So. Want some full-body chills? Read this book.

AND A POEM. I saw this poem making the rounds yesterday on Twitter, and today I learned it had taken on a life of its own. So here it is.



Good Bones


Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.



~ Maggie Smith
From here.