“And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we’ve both seen”
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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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Wow, that’s got to be an ugly memory come back to say hi.
Oh, Gerard! Praying for you and so many others. May the Lord be merciful to all.
Oh well, at least we’ll always have ̶P̶a̶r̶i̶s̶ , ̶P̶o̶r̶t̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ , ̶S̶e̶a̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ , ̶N̶e̶w̶ ̶Y̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶ , Chicken, Alaska.
I was listening to Dan Crenshaw interview Michael Shellenberger, former environmental radical and author of “Apocalypse Never.” Shellenberger points out that California could have been 100 percent clean energy by now, with plenty of excess capacity, had not Gov. Pat Brown gone to work for foreign oil interests after he left office. You know, Jerry Brown’s dad. They systematically boxed out nuclear and natural gas.
He points out, more than once, that wind and solar will never ever be reliable. But they’re great for wrecking nature. Crenshaw brings up how Texans can buy electric from many different suppliers. Shellenberger shoots him down: corrupt, self dealing, deceptive.
It is a good interview. I learned quite a bit.
Gordon sed: “He points out, more than once, that wind and solar will never ever be reliable.”
========
As always, if the gov’t is in charge failure looms, in all things.
In private ownership alternative energy methods are beyond reliable.
Clue: Unreliable entities will never be reliable.
Same news, different people…ad infinitum
Can you feel our caring hearts? We are with you and hope that snow flies soon! Go slow now. We will need you soon more than ever.
Many are the prayers that I have aimed heavenwards on your behalf in the past week or so, Gerard. Let us hope their efficacy exceeds that of my recent ones to shift the landfall of Isaias away.
So, the Buffalo Bore .357 ammo has arrived. A little on the dear side, but of late laying hands on any sort of ammo hereabouts is no mean feat; even at $20 to empty the revolver, it’s a tiny fraction of any trip to the ER, so I’m good. Thanks to those who made the recommendation. If I dispatch a feral pig, which in reality is a much more likely event than being attacked by a black bear, I’ll throw a helluva Eastern NC pig pickin’, with all and sundry invited.
What Anne said!
And Gerard, thanks for the Prine line. In this season of tumult and loss he is sorely missed.