Family issues will curtail Paradise posting for a couple of days.
Next post: And now, a message from The Editor sitting on my keyboard
Previous post: Paradise: Hell from the Air
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Gerard Van der Leun
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Our family will be keeping your family in our prayers and thoughts.
What John said– I hope that whatever has happened will have the best possible outcome. God be with you.
I pray all is well.
I pray all is well and is there is another crisis, I pray it goes away quickly. I will keep you in my prayers and you and Paradise lost have been added to a prayer chain I am part of. God blessings for you sir.
Prayers for you and your family. Thinking of your mom especially.
Prayers also.
Praying without ceasing for you and yours.
Do what needs be done. I can wait, and I expect all your other readers can, too.
We look at you as part of our family because we read you daily. Our offer still stands. If you need ANYTHING we are there!! You are in our thoughts and especially in our prayers.
Thank you all and bless you all for your prayers. Mom has had a fall but is not in any critical danger. She bumped her head and is being held for observation with a very positive prognosis. All other systems are fine. More than that we do not know at this time.
Prayers needed still. I’ll update here when we know more.
Oh no, that’s trouble not wanted.
Hope that observation and tests go well for your Mother.
Is that a photo of your Mother at the top?
There’s a certain point at which humans should be able to put on bumper pads or a bumper
suit not unlike the pillsbury dough boy. We need them. Our wavering balance systems require them. Yet where are they? Too many folks to busy inventing and marketing $1,000 phones and other gadgets that distract us.
I am sending out a woo woo ish protective bubble to all things Mom and Gerard. Remember to breathe. Deeply. All will be well.
Prayers for you and Mama…and may HE give you peace and healing.
…and from here as well.
God Bless.
JWM
Wind bubble wrap around that gurl, she’s an American Treasure!
Lot’s of bubble wrap, loosely, comfy, the BIG 3″ bubbles.
Call some place Paradise, Kiss it goodbye.
you can take the boy out of paradise but you will never take paradise out of the boy !! even 50 yrs.on & all properties changed hands PARADISE will always be home !!
Thinking of you often – thoughts become prayers which will continue especially for your mom.