“Who Was That Masked Man?”
Next post: Keeping Things Civil: The Afterword to Empire by Orson Scott Card
Previous post: Nothing Gold…
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.
The quote from Colonel Cooper has endeared him to me since he said it.
It is an important fact to point out that his comment was made specifically in response to the raid of the Branch Davidian’s home in Waco, Texas – 1993, but also as a general rule of proper conduct for police.
I will add my personal sentiment on the matter;
The fatal mistake the Davidians made was that they didn’t kill every last one of the criminals in the ATF that had attacked them. Under Texas State Law they were well within their rights to do so.
As Christian men and women they acted in good faith when they allowed a truce in which the ATF were permitted to collect their dead and wounded. Some 50 days later they earned as they burned inside the home.
There were more than a dozen children, many of them infants, who perished inside that building.
http://english-speak-english.com/remembering-waco/
As the mind rots….. Joe has declared that he “can beat Joe Biden” and you gotta admit, he’s doing a terrific job. https://tinyurl.com/y9ubxurl
I will see your meme, and raise you Trump Tweets Biden’s Funeral…
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/trump-shares-biden-funeral-meme-and-lib-media-freaks-out/
I know. I dealt that card from beneath the deck. But that meme is soooo funny I couldn’t stop chuckling.
Yeah, naw, yeah…
You misheard.
He said, “I’m gonna EAT Joe Biden.”
My name’s Joe Biden
And I’m here to say
No f’ing idea what
I want to say
Anyway
That’s okay.
Eat me.
Kasey, them Nation of Islam bruthas steady be dancin’. Too bad it’s not a last waltz for Calypso Louie.
In light of the tyrannical surveillance state, wearing masks might not be a bad idea.
Tuck your hair up under your head gear, do a pair of mirrored shades, and then a full bottom face mask that looks like the local mayor. Then go commit a bunch of crimes.
I wouldn’t let Joe anywhere near loaded firearms. Would you?
Richard? Not unless it was in MY hands.