Penelope, 1923 by Glyn Philpot (1884-1937)
The War Crime, 2022 by Ben Quilty (b. 1973)
“The Dreadful Has Already Happened”
by
Mark Strand
The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly.
They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel
them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air.
Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.
A small band is playing old fashioned marches.
My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot.
My father is kissing a woman who keeps waving
to somebody else. There are palm trees.
The hills are spotted with orange flamboyants and tall
billowy clouds move behind them. “Go on, Boy,”
I hear somebody say, “Go on.”
I keep wondering if it will rain.
The sky darkens. There is thunder.
“Break his legs,” says one of my aunts,
“Now give him a kiss.” I do what I’m told.
The trees bend in the bleak tropical wind.
The baby did not scream, but I remember that sigh
when I reached inside for his tiny lungs and shook them
out in the air for the flies. The relatives cheered.
It was about that time I gave up.
Now, when I answer the phone, his lips
are in the receiver; when I sleep, his hair is gathered
around a familiar face on the pillow; wherever I search
I find his feet. He is what is left of my life.
Morning, 1974 by Norman Stevens (1937-1988)
Nightmare, 2020 by Salman Toor (b. 1983)
Girl Reading, George Clausen (1852 – 1944)
On the Way to the Doctor, 1974 by Charles W. Stewart (1915 – 2001).
Part of a series of unpublished illustrations that were to illustrate Mervyn Peake’s 1950 novel, Gormenghast. (More here.)
King Cheetah, 2022 by Angela Gram (b. 1985)
Playground No.6, 1968 by Peter Colville Horridge Gardner (b. 1921)
Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia), 1967 by Alice Neel (1900-1984)
Self Portrait by Dora Carrington (1893-1932)
Medusa Grown Old, 1945 by Marion Adnams (1898-1995)
Pipe, 2004 by Hideko Inoue (b.1975)
Gulf Women Prepare for War, 1986 by Maggi Hambling b.1945;
An Unconscious Naked Man Lying on a Table Being Attacked by Little Demons Armed with Surgical Instruments; Representing the Effects of Chloroform on the Human Body c. 1912, by Richard Tennant Cooper (1885–1957)
Biblioklept 