Orwell’s Final Warning
Next post: The Snow Man BY WALLACE STEVENS
Previous post: Turkmenistan: Land of the Brave New 1984
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.
Orwell warns, “. . . don’t let it happen . . .”
We did let it happen. The Federal government is “nearly” 100% composed of every sort of vile human being ever to walk the earth. Liars, thieves, child molesters, murderers, rapists, cowards and on and on.
The current unelected President is signing executive orders as fast as his arthritic hand can manipulate a pen to paper. The legislative branch of swine are hiding behind their new concertina wire topped fence with thousands of armed guards passing legislation to further remove the rights of the people. Approximately 100 million of these people are at the end of their patience. Possibly even a greater number.
The Federal gov is a totally illegitimate group of thugs. We know this is true. The gov goons know we know now. Zero gov investigation of election “irregularities”. Irregularities? How ’bout massive international fraud.
Why the unending attacks on Donald J. Trump? The criminals are behind the fenced area of DC and outside all over the land we call USA.
There is no law, friends.
as above.
now, random terror.
FICUS is signing nothing. Someone else is. Twitching marionettes and sock puppets are too weak to hold a bic.
The problem with Orwell’s warning is that today there is no longer a “We.”
Reading tonight how Ted Cruz is shitting on Trump. You see, his election fraud complaint is all unsubstantiated and unproven, we are supposed to believe.
See: my rant before about the fukking voting machines. Vote fraud is both plausible, and probable; Cruz can shove it up his lawyerly ass.
Oh, it was “never proven in court.” Like I am supposed to eat that dung like a geek eats his puss.
I’ve got something unsubstantiated: Covid. That is mathematics: where are the dead in the streets in the millions? How about Marxism? How’s that go, Einstein? Proven evil in dozens of countries around the world. Track record of success: zero wins.
Anyway, words don’t work on these DC morons anymore. If you are a Republican in DC, you are dead to me. I know ye not.
Orwell speaks from the grave and I wish it was all fiction. GD the writers, anyway. Ripping off the bandage.