Next post: Going Full Orwell: Social Media’s all fun and games until somebody’s head ends up in a cone
Previous post: Strange Daze
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
Comments on this entry are closed.
I designed a home for the client of a contractor and the contractor owes me $7000. and hasn’t paid me for more than 3 months. I called the contractor last week and was told the client is “ghosting” them and they can’t pay me til the client pays them. Apparently ghosting means refusing to believe someone or something exists. They don’t answer the phone or emails or texts and don’t answer the door when the bell is rung. I wonder if they would come out and grab the garden hose if they saw a 5 gallon bucket of diesel billowing black smoke outside their front door?
I ‘spect that would fetch ’em.
After thinking about it a bit and decided wasting one of my buckets is not wise, besides I’d have to drive 1000 miles to the home in southwest Florida. I can’t put a lien on the owners property because again, 1000 miles, and I have a real problem getting to close to the tiger. So I hired a long term associate to do the energy calcs on the home and then told him that I will pay him an extra $100 to file a lien against property owner now that he is a subcontractor on the project. Done. (2 weeks ago) Now, the ball is in the owners court because basically the property is froze. Nothing can be done. The land is off limits til the lien is satisfied. It takes the county about 10 days to render a certified notice to the property owner about the lien. I’m expecting a call from the vanished property owner later this week. Of course I’ll have my associate vanquish the lien, about 10 days AFTER I have cashed the check.
I really, REALLY hate getting nasty with people and really, REALLY wish people would act like human beings toward each other.
Ghost,
I am curious about the validity of a third party lien if the first party did not sign a contract with the third party (you). I am not unsympathetic, simply curious. Possibly legally different state to state. I am considering some contracting to be done around my AO, just wondering what my liability is if the contractor does not pay his contractors. Any insight?