One-Offs

Blackberry-Picking
by Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun

For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.

At first, just one, a glossy purple clot

Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.

You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet

Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it

Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for

Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger

Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots

Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.

Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills

We trekked and picked until the cans were full,

Until the tinkling bottom had been covered

With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned

Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered

With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.

But when the bath was filled we found a fur,

A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.

The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush

The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.

I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair

That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.

Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

written and read

by

Thomas Woodrow

For Benjamin Woodrow-Fisch

Who wanted a scary story with a monster

Look out for yourselves.

Don't eat too much cheese.

And be kind to people you don't know, because you never know...

...who they really are.

Look out for yourselves.

Don't eat too much cheese.

And be kind to people you don't know, cos you never know...

...who they really are.

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

by Wallace Stevens

"Jabberwocky"

by Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks"

By Wallace Stevens

In the moonlight

I met Berserk,

In the moonlight

On the bushy plain.

Oh, sharp he was

As the sleepless!

And, “Why are you red

In this milky blue?”

I said.

“Why sun-colored,

As if awake

In the midst of sleep?”

“You that wander,”

So he said,

“On the bushy plain,

Forget so soon.

But I set my traps

In the midst of dreams.”

I knew from this

That the blue ground

Was full of blocks

And blocking steel.

I knew the dread

Of the bushy plain,

And the beauty

Of the moonlight

Falling there,

Falling

As sleep falls

In the innocent air.

"The Clash of the Superheroes"

by

Benjamin Woodrow-Fisch

and

Thomas Woodrow

Two superheroes, each attempting to rescue a cat from destruction by an exploding ball of yarn, clash over who should save the day. Mayhem — and life lessons — follow.

Look out for yourselves.

Don't eat too much cheese.

And be kind to people you don't know.

Because you never know who they really are.

Look out for yourselves

Don't eat too much cheese.

And be kind to people you don't know, because you never know who they really are.