The Book Thief - Fiction 55

Set in Nazi Germany – a time and place where Death watches over Life, here is a tale of surrogate fears and childhood dreams. With her best friend’s help, Liesel consumes herself secretly in universe of books. And when her father hides a Jewish fist-fighter, Liesel saw the power of words to make or break a world.

(My) Viva La Vida

Hey ya'll,

this was my poem (:

---

(My) Viva la vida

Screaming feet, canape breath,

Moments captured between whispers.

Having dreamt every moment over,

Enter bright lights and

Wild dreams.

Hush hush - once more, with feeling.

Profoundly alone in a room of strangers

Of webbed relationships

Lost memories and the

Utter desperation...

The utter desperation to be heard.

Comfort, conversations.

People, parallaxes.

Metro stations,

Across city spaces,

I'm still trying to find the thing that means the same.

Different air, different colours,

Different priorities, different ardours.

Screaming feet, caffeine-filled breath.

Moments captured between whispers.

Almost - just almost -

The same.

Prose - Recommended Reading for Students

The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials Trilogy) - Pullman
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Red Sky in the Morning
Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haydon
Books by Catherine Lim
Harry Potter series - J K Rowling
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
1984 - George Orwell
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Book Thief - Markus Zuzak
Boy in Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
Beloved - Toni Morrison
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez

teatime

[just to share, please share yours too!]

teatime

churned yellow
a spoon of sweet
pockets of air
mingle and meet

drops, crumbs
smooth velvet
creamy peaks
scooped and spatula-ed

flour and flower
sitting on tiers
just to say
for you, my dears

-Sophia Lim (aka seehwei)

[would love to hear if you have comments! :)]

The Antidiluvian Tomorrow

So many rainfalls

yet such a thirst,

So many shadows

why is there still some light?

So much pleasure

in this trivial plight,

I stand different in the sea of poppies

waking-up to a slightest of silence!

So little doubt

yet an abundance of faith,

I smile and say "Hi"!

to your silent examination,

Blisters of humanity

in the trivial hint of imperfection,

I rise early to see the bluest canvass

to meet the smile-"why such a fuss?"

So many imaginings

yet this colorless disgust.

-Hermano del Loco (yours truly)

LOST

Lost
is a puzzle
of stars
that breathes
like water
and chews
like stone

Alone
is a reminder
of how far
acceptance
is from
understanding

Fear
is a bird
that believes itself
into extinction

Desperation
the honest recognition
of a false truth

Hope
seeing who you really are
at your highest
is who you will become

Grace
the refinement of a
Soul though time

- Jewel

On the Go

I had to jump like a monkey
To grab the dangling handles overhead.
My sister, two years older, only had to tiptoe.
By the time I reached the handles
She was swinging from the bar
On which the handles hung.

We spun around the poles
Until we got dizzy and had to stop.

When the train went underground
We knelt on our seats,
Cupped our faces in our hands,
Stuck our foreheads on the glass,
And became a part of the whooshing darkness.
There were little blue lights that flashed by
And the game was to exclaim
Whenever we saw the sudden spark.

We mimicked the announcements
In English and Mandarin
Fumbled with Malay
And giggled over Tamil.

Mom laughed at us, with us.
Sometimes she told us to hush.
When she stood up and went
We followed.
In those days we knew not
The difference between going
And getting there.

The Months by Christina Rosetti

January cold desolate;
February all dripping wet;
March wind ranges;
April changes;
Birds sing in tune
To flowers of May,
And sunny June
Brings longest day;
In scorched July
The storm-clouds fly
Lightning torn;
August bears corn,
September fruit;
In rough October
Earth must disrobe her;
Stars fall and shoot
In keen November;
And night is long
And cold is strong
In bleak December.

Love Secret by William Blake

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.

Ode to Autumn

Seasons of mists and mellow

fruitfulness,

close bossom-friend of the maturing sun:

Conspiring with him how to load

and bless

With fruits the vines that round the

thatch-eves run.

-Keats

The Second Coming

Turning and turning the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand...

-W.B.Yeats

Endymion

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will

keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health,

and quiet breathing.

John Keats

Childe Harold

There is a pleasure in the pathless

woods,

There is rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and the music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature

more,

From these our interviews, in which

I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What i cannot express, yet cannot

conceal

-Lord Byron

Garland

There was an old woman who lived in

a shoe,

She had so many children she didn't

know what to do;

She gave them broth without

any bread,

She whipped them all soundly and put

them to bed.

-Graham Gurton

Peter Piper

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

pepper;

A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper

picked;

If Peter Piper picked a pickled

pepper,

Where's the peck of pickled pepper

Peter Piper picked?

-Anonymous

Untitled

The lion and the unicorn

Were fighting for the crown;

The lion beat the unicorn

All about the town

some gave them white bread,

And some gave then brown;

Some gave them plum cake,

And sent them out of town

-William King

My Heart Leaps Up

My heart leaps up when i behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now i am a man;

So be it when i shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The child is the father of the man;

And i could wish wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety

-William Wordsworth

The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose

Perfection of the life, or of the work,

And if it take the second must refuse

A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

When all the story's finished, what's the news?

In luck or out the toil has left its mark:

That old perplexity an empty purse,

Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse

-W.B. Yeats

Old Tom Again

Things out of perfection sail

And all their swelling canvas wear,

Nor shall the self-begotten fail

though fantastic men suppose

building-yard and stormy shore,

Winging-sheet and swaddling-clothes

-W.B Yeats

Sri

Asleep

Under his helmet, up against his pack,
After so many days of work and waking,
Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.

There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping,
Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking
Of the aborted life within him leaping,
Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.

And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping
From the intruding lead, like ants on track.

Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking
Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars,
High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making,
Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead,
And these winds' scimitars,
-Or whether yet his thin and sodden head
Confuses more and more with the low mould,
His hair being one with the grey grass
Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old,
Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass!
He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold,
Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!

Rathiy