A friend of mine lives on this street in Salem, Virginia.
She says the rents are dirt cheap, but it sucks having to keep the windows boarded up to keep the zombies out.
Can you imagine if the cross street was named “Grimes Avenue?” That would be F%*#ing EPIC.
“The Door,” (Part I of “The Quest” by W. H. Auden)
Out of it steps our future, through this door
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.
Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.
We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made
Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.
Photo credit: By Tim Green from Bradford (Door, King’s Manor, York) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons.
Under the Wonju Street overpass in Roanoke SW, heading north.
“The Crossroads” (Part XVI of “The Quest”), by W. H. Auden
Two friends who met here and embraced are gone,
Each to his own mistake; one flashes on
To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie,
A village torpor holds the other one,
Some local wrong where it takes time to die:
This empty junction glitters in the sun.
So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell
These places of decision and farewell
To what dishonour all adventure leads,
What parting gift could give that friend protection,
So orientated his vocation needs
The Bad Lands and the sinister direction?
All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear,
But none have ever thought, the legends say,
The time allowed made it impossible;
For even the most pessimistic set
The limit of their errors at a year.
What friends could there be left then to betray,
What joy take longer to atone for; yet
Who could complete without the extra day
The journey that should take no time at all?
Photo credit: Martyn Harries [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons.
“The Hero” (Part XVI of “The Quest”), by W. H. Auden
He parried every question that they hurled:
“What did the Emperor tell you?” “Not to push.”
“What is the greatest wonder of the world?”
“The bare man Nothing in the Beggar’s Bush.”
Some muttered: “He is cagey for effect.
A hero owes a duty to his fame.
He looks too like a grocer for respect.”
Soon they slipped back into his Christian name.
The only difference that could be seen
From those who’d never risked their lives at all
Was his delight in details and routine:
For he was always glad to mow the grass,
Pour liquids from large bottles into small,
Or look at clouds through bits of coloured glass.
Gonna write a screenplay in which a man sells his soul to the devil to win every street race he enters.
Gonna call it “The Faust and the Furious.”
Starring Sin Diesel.
Looking north past Main Street. That church you see is First United Methodist.
Update: I asked my friends what kind of trees those are. The consensus is that they’re cherry blossoms.
Oil on canvas.
I missed it. It was playing for free, too!
It was the least of Smith’s “View Askewniverse” films, but I would have loved to see one on the big screen. I’ve seen all of the V.A. movies on either VHS or DVD.
Do you see the clock in the tree?
By Gregory B. MacKenzie (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
