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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.
close it on your thumb *once*…
As a firm believer in Murphy’s Law, buying Murphy’s Ladder just seems to be asking for trouble.
Another shitty ladder toy.
Not sure why storage is such a concern.
Get a Werner #300 fiberglass ladder and be done with it.
Yes, #300, so you can carry shit up the ladder without buckling the rungs.
Cris has a good point, but “Free chipping!”
Might this collapsible ladder’s name be derived from the hideaway Murphy bed?
I’m covered in the ladder department (last guy working at my branch when it closed down, told to ‘toss’ all the tools and gear… I picked up the best of the lot and stuffed my garage), but that was a funny commercial!
A foldable ladder that stores away AND can help me fight Rey Mysterio?
Sign me up. 👍🏻😆
The best ladder is one you use successfully. I have one of the Little Giant models, with all the attachments. It really works well. But it’s heavy and getting heavier. And honestly, I am not all thrilled about being at the top of an 18-foot ladder any more, even if I can place it where I want it. And if I need to use it indoors, I have to haul it in from the garage.
So even though I am well served in ladders, the Murphy has some interest for me. They are not inexpensive. But I could store one in the main floor closet easily. And it’s rated at 375 pounds, not your wimpy 300 pounder, Ghost.
I guess I could sell off some of the ladders I haven’t used in years. My Mexican neighbor across the street with the painting business might want some. And such a politically incorrect ad practically deserves my support.