A friend says, “Watch the parachutes. It’s like a large art display.”
…On a very big canvas.
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Previous post: Carving The Monument
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
Comments on this entry are closed.
They did it the old fashioned way (splashdown in the ocean) in a 21st century spacecraft. Very cool!
So – Space-X spends $2.6B of Uncle Sam’s money and pulls this off without a hitch. Boeing has spent $4.5B or so to date, plus whatever they have kicked in on their own to clean up their software mess ($.5B guess) and won’t fly people until 2021. Remind me again why we have Boeing? Maybe Musk will buy it for pennies on the dollar, fire the management and put Jennifer Shotwell in charge.
As an old retired engineer, I’m am very impressed with Space-X!
Space X is at the point where they can put a pound in orbit for around $1000. No one else is even close to that. Blue Origin (Bezos) might get there, but they are years behind. NASA’s Boeing project may well launch next year, but Musk and Space X will have the process streamlined at that point. I watched the splashdown and recovery. They recover every damn thing, for reuse. They recovered the main chutes and the drogues. They can land a booster on a drone ship at sea. Not every time, but no one else has even attempted it.
There’s no need for helicopters and a big ship to carry them when the recovery ship just backs up to the capsule, picks it up, sets it in a cradle, and rolls the cradle into a platform where the crew just steps out. They were so close to Pensacola that they had to warn a bunch of sightseeing boats to stay back. It looked like there were 50 or so.
NASA should have been doing this 40 years ago. Of course, 40 years ago we didn’t have tech billionaires, just millionaires. Who would have thought the dope smoking, blonde bimbo loving Elon Musk (who made his nut with PayPal) had it in him?
Aerial Jellyfishes heading for the bottom.
paypal blowz
…karma shave
Elon Musk is the Howard Hughes of this generation.
Take it to the bank.
I see that Gerard’s website has been invaded by the Italicans.
My dear PA Cat, your comment Cracked! Me! Up!
Thanks for the laugh!
I remember Shepard’s flight. It’s nice to see us back in the game and leading with our private sector, which is our greatest strength.
Trying to fix the formatting:
The parachutes do not go to the bottom. They had bouys attached to them before they put the lifting harness on the capsule. Assuming you watch more of these events, you’ll see them again.
This is what makes Space X unique. The others designed spacecraft and boosters, then tried to figure out how to recover them. Space X designed recoverability into the whole system. Watching a double booster landing at Cape Canaveral is like watching a video backwards.
Ahhh, Good ole capitalism. Gets it done every time. Just think, these BLM marxist jerks and antifa commies want to make us another Cuba. We should offer them a one way ticket.
Worth noting, I think, that the capsule is designed to be able to land on solid ground. They didn’t try it this time, understandably.
The private boat at the splashdown site with the Trump flag was icing on the cake. A fabulous day!
A private tax farmer par excellence is the first and bestest into space. Not sure what to make of that.