Fear is what keeps us all in our places, and the fear of the flesh, the ruin of the flesh is the greatest of them all.

I am sickened, I am ruined, but I will build such machines to contain this plague and heal us all.

A skin of a shroud
a stump of the bled
old Lily is flyblown
old Lily is dead
and dreams of the jungle
will flood through her head
and light up her head.

Thrupenny sixpence sparrows and doves
See all the angels a-weeping above
there's no more forgiving, there's no-one to save
for today darling Lily goes into her grave

Higgeldy Piggeldy blue china eyes
My love comes to me in the fairest disguise
We skips and we totters
I seize her hind trotters
And enter her porcelain thighs.

Send the Tramp Catcher, cosh the old man
Sink him in a barrel of gin
When he's all mixed and the bones turned to jam
We'll raise a glass kindly to him.

He who makes a beast of himself removes himself from the pain of being human.

A cleansing fire always burns little Mandus, but it purifies and it makes anew. Did it hurt to carve out the fevered flesh? Did it hurt to cut free the gangrenous foot? Ask instead this: Can we save them?

I held your hand and watched the blood pool between your legs. You lived long enough to see Edwin, but not Enoch. I will take care of them my love, I promise you this.

Hands are bleeding, raw. I scrub and scrub but the smell will not lift. How can I hold my children with these hands now? How can I kiss them goodnight with lips that have issued such instruction?

This dawning Epoch, this age of reason. An empire grown fat, ripe for the bleeding.