Today at Woodpile Report
![MIA: Remus and the Woodpile Report [Updated 2] [Bumped 2]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Remus2-better-contrats-Mystery-and-legend--300x260.png "MIA: Remus and the Woodpile Report [Updated 2] [Bumped 2]")
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
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
So now it’s official?
It’s from somebody who has the keys to the page, so yes.
My apologies for sending you an e-mail earlier today – I had not scrolled down on your page far enough to see your posting. I’m sure you’ve gotten many from a lot of different sources.
We will all regret the passing of whoever “Ol’ Remus” was; I only hope that his heirs and assigns understand the breadth and depth of readership that he sustained in these strange times.
Sad. It seems like we are losing warriors on our side and the demons on the other side seem to live forever.
Coda, with a sad yet triumphant final chord. Remus mortuus est.
Hmmm..It only says that Ol Remus has met his demise…might it just be the death of the website and not the man behind it? One can only hope…
And that, Friends, is how you Come in from the Cold in the digital age.
Unlike Epstein, Remus won’t even need the facial surgery. Who knows, Remus might even be Khashoggi. Remember that guy? The Man who walked into an embassy and came out a Narrative of Death. No remains, no nuthin’ … but he’s deader’n hell, I’m here to tell you. And, those Saudi’s … tsk, tsk.
Good Ol’ Remus! May he rest in peace.
Terri says: “…the demons on the other side seem to live forever.”
No, the bullet for those demons is already, as they say in the artillery corps, “on the way,” and it will, in God’s time, find its mark.
I got misty over his first hiatus years ago, then the rejoice RETURN! Now…my gut tells me, I need a drink and a toast to his talent. Gerard, you are my first go-to everyday, now including Tuesdays. Keep up the great work!
Well, damn.
A D has been my home page for a long time. I wish it to stay my home page. Especially in the weird times we are experiencing currently. Please stay healthy Gerard.
Yes, what Terry said.
Ol Remus Marsilvia was a treasure. He was the voice of wisdom and wit. I shall forever recall his advise to ” avoid crowds, they attract ordinance”. I had the good fortune to exchange emails with Remus and found his personal emails written with the same witty and insightful banter he posted at woodpile report.
He shall be remembered as a patriot. God speed to his family
Spicewoodjoe