94 in August. ‘Nuff said.
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
![See you later, Joe [To improve your day and general outlook, RTWT]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Joseph-Heller-Jr-241x300.jpg "See you later, Joe [To improve your day and general outlook, RTWT]")
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
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
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