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Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
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The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
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
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That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
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
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
Comments on this entry are closed.
Imagine if some random White guy said in public what Jason Whitlock says here. The FBI in full battle array would be pounding on his door at 3 AM in a New York minute.
The “progressives” and ultra woke among us—that is, the entire Democrat Party and much of the Republican Party—treat blacks like pets. As such blacks must be pampered and told what to eat and where to live and what to say and what to think. And if one of their pets runs off to fend for himself—in other words, to be free from racist nonsense—why, all Hell breaks lose. He becomes, like Larry Elder became, “the black face of white supremacy”. He somehow morphs into a modern day Nat Turner who must be hunted down and silenced.
In the “progressive” universe, black guys like Whitlock should STFU and get back on the plantation. Where they will be succored. And fed. And given a living. And told what good boys they are. You know, like every slave in History.
I was employed as an itinerate bluecollar worker in the film&television industry for decades and this man’s attitude prevailed among many, whatever their background.
Refreshing.
I really enjoy Jason’s message and find myself agreeing with what he says. We need more of him with that message out there.
He needs to get to his point quicker though, before he puts me to sleep.
Liberalism, Racism,,,,,, it’s all pretend stuff, to fuck with those whom assume their intellect is intact. Something to stew over, check ones moral compass.
What to truly understand how important this nonsense is. Turn your tv and radio off, listen for a year. You likely won’t here either mentioned once.
That’s structurally how unimportant it really isn’t.
VI
I have not watched tv in 43 years. And no radio since Rush passed on—and even then I listened on a computer. Hollywood movies? Maybe one every five years. Maybe.
I have never seen a professional sportsball game live or on tv. I read six books a month though. And read other things six hours a day. Yes, really! I would like to write more, but we’ll see. I exercise—muscles, yoga, walking, bike riding—several hours a day. I like my $25,000 hi-end audiophile system too.
In my spare time I relish having spare time. A “lifetime of Saturdays”.
Mike, good on you! I don’t have that level of commitment. Watched A Lucas movie last night “The BFG.”
Big Friendly Giant. I cried. Wonderful, much to do about nothing. And I drank it down like fine wine.
Who was it that said, “ Funk The Dumb Stuff! ”.
I’m heavy into Audiophile, please tell me about your set up?
Dirk
Dirk: I’m retired, so my time is my own save what I owe to God, Country and Family.
My set up:
1. Magnepan 3.3s bi-amped through two Emotiva HPA HC-1 monoblocks for the lows, and a Jolida tube amp JD 1000p for the highs.
2. Rega P6 turntable with Ortofon cartridge.
3. Harman Kardan ST-8 Linear Tracking Turntable with Audio Technica cartridge.
4. Black Ice Audio tube phono pre-amp.
5. Pro-Ject – DAC Box RS.
6. Cambridge Audio CD Transport.
7. Jolida Fusion tube pre-amp.
8. Schiit Audio Freya+ tube and passive pre-amp.
9. Two Emotiva XPA 1l monoblock amps for spares.
10. Kimber and AudioQuest cables.
11. Speaker wire is 10 AWG Blue Jeans Cable with gold banana connectors.
12. Magna Risers for the Magnepans
14. Listening room—actually, the living room in my apartment—has dampening squares and bass traps everywhere.
The sound would make an atheist believe in God.
Mike nice! A bit more modern then mine, but dam nice. After all isn’t it all in ones ear!
Been collecting for many many years, have closets and closets full of stuff. I’m stuck in the 60s, with my stuff. Most modern is remarkable, David Berning tube, while it’s high end, not my favorite for listening.
It’s modern it’s a power house, it’s just not warm and inviting with depth, high and low. I seem to get the most from the least, 12/20 w per channels quit nice for my tastes.
Thanks for sharing.
Dirk