94 in August. ‘Nuff said.
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— BY THEODORE ROETHKE
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.
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
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Comments on this entry are closed.
Diana Panton covers this beautifully. If you close your eyes, you can see her gently rock a sleeping wee bairnie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBSuxSQQkFE
I loved the boat people and the gorgeous boats. Lots of lovelies and some adult beverages on a warm summer day in a beautiful place and not a single negro or purple haired tattooed soul amongst ’em. If they’re watching that oughta tell them something, eh.
I do remember those days and being involved with girls like those when I was a healthy young buck; they were fine and so much fun and although chasing those fine creatures was literally an endless endeavor I had to hang it up at around 55. I just got bored but then I met a beautiful little red-headed keeper who put a bow on me and made me incredibly happy.
But still, I do remember….
Gerard very often posts the “Boomer Ballads”, rock hits from when I and many others here were young, and stoned. I love most of those tunes, even though I’m tired of them.
But there are the pop songs like “Fly Me to the Moon”, and others as well that were hits before the Beatles, and then the psychedelic thing took over. I don’t do it often, but sometimes when I get a buzz going and I’m feeling nostalgic I find myself clicking on this song, “More”, “Volare”, “Guantanamera”, Moon River”, “That’s Life”, “The Shelter of Your Arms”, and a lot of others that my twenty something year old self would have been embarrassed to leave on the AM radio when we were cruising the boulevard. These numbers tap a deeper well of memory, and call me back to a much better time.
This recording actually brought me to tears.
Thanks.
JWM
Tony does a nice version of the old standard “Time After Time”
@jwm,
I’m in the same boat. I love the music from the 40s and 50s – Jazz and Blues and the crooners. I have recently discovered an amazing young jazz singer who covers a lot of them. She has published 130+ videos so far. Here is her version of Fly Me to the Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf2OjlOBGVY
This is her cover channel which lists all of her work to date. I say to date because she’s only 14, going on some indeterminate age that fits in with the best jazz club you ever imagined.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2v8kgVeo4EbQD6l_WAVjOfItquzW7oEc