Not “The Streets of” but “The Sharts” of San Francisco
Next post: Murphy’s Made a Ladder that Oughta Be A Law
Previous post: Hobo Matters by John Hodgman
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
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.
As if Nancy Pelosi was even capable of feeling shame at this point…
…if I had her coin and cohorts I might be shameless too. And so would you.
Ghost,
I’m calling bullshit!
Some humans have principles.
The Pelosi Monster and her rotten cohorts made their “coin”, on the back of the public. Screwing every law to their advantage and without a thought of the health of the nation. Insider trading, backroom deals, conniving and manipulating every thing.
Before she goes to Guantanamo, she should be forced to live on the streets in an encampment for a month.
I enjoyed much the excerpt from Chandler’s short story RED WIND. I think your choice was very deft.
side when the big post was the “Not What America Should Look Like”
Since the day I first read the line “Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks” I have always made a set of carving knives my wedding gift when friends got married.
Tony Benett tributes the Sharts of San Fransisco
The shithole that was Haiti
It made my nostrils quail
The odors found in Qom
Are on another scale
Ive been terribly unwell
Tubercular in Qandahar
Im going home
To the sewer by the Bay
I. Left. MY. Shart (Do be da doo .. Do be da doo)
In-n-n .. San Fransisco
Atop a pile .. of tramp feces
To be where massive squalid stink
Drives me halfway to the brink
The morning logs befoul the air
They dont care
A stench wafts there (Do be da doo …Do be da doo)
In-n-n .. San Fransisco
Above the stooled and squalid STREETS
When I come home to you, San Fransisco
A squatting bum … WILL ..
Make .. Me ….. Flee!
Kevin, what are you calling bullshit on, my use of the word “might”?
Never under estimate the power of “stolen money”, for it is in the process of wrecking an entire country and perhaps the world. Gov’t thievery is not isolated to Pelosi.
Ghost,
It is your casual assurance of, “so would you” to which I object.
I understand the power of stolen money among thieves, but not everyone is a thief.
Kevin, I’m not going to educate you on the power of stolen money, if you are interested you’ll educate yourself. Looking at the power of stolen money as if it is simple everyday petty theft is the wrong approach. I’m not a thief but if I was gov’t employee and my supervisor offered me an extra $100 grand a year just because why should I turn him down? Then a few months later he asks for my “loyalty” when a certain matter comes up. Etc., etc. It starts small and balloons from there and 10, 20 years later you’re starting to pull in Pelosi levels of coin, and you STILL don’t consider yourself a thief. At some point a thief decides his thieving ways are justified or aren’t hurting anybody, or any number of reasons and excuses. It’s ALL theft and EVERYONE can become a thief under the right circumstances. Me too. And you. For me, I try to stay at least several steps away from any circumstance that could possibly lead to immoral behavior – that is, behavior that is harmful to me or others – that way it is difficult to be drawn in. So far, I have been successful with this method.
Theft is theft, whether it be at the point of a gun or by majority vote.
Never underestimate the ability of some people to rationalize their crimes.
CML, your epic song is ringing in my ears. Damn you.
Try this: zero tolerance for drug offenses. Shitters and urinals in the open air, down the medians of the streets. Soviet-style blockhouses for the derelict.
Jail time for Pelosi.
idk why I’m not in charge of everything.