The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.by Archibald MacLeish
Author Archives: Kyle Kimberlin
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough(1913) Ezra Pound
“Make it new.”
transform this
What a great costume!
something new
I’m trying out a new blogging tool, and this is a test post.
Windows Live has a blogging tool called Live Writer. I just read about it in PC World magazine, and thought I’d try it out.
http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/
So far, it looks pretty cool. But I haven’t figured out how to insert a split post. That’s important to me, and the button to do it is on the tool bar, and I read the instruction in help, but the button is dead. That would be a deal breaker.
There’s really not much going on around here tonight. I guess the kids are trick-or-treating. They’re being quiet about it. I’m a single guy who needs to keep candy out of his life, so I don’t get involved. I used to hang out at my folks’ place while the kids were out and amuk, and made it my task to look after the dogs. But they’re all in doggie heaven now, so I stayed home tonight. I’ve got a movie to watch.
Well, I’ve typed a few paragraphs and the split post button still won’t work, so I guess this software isn’t ready to go. I checked out forums for it, and the answer isn’t encouraging. Seems the new split post functionality of blogger isn’t playing nice with livewriter yet. So I guess I’ll uninstall this thing and stick with posting at blogger. Bummer. It’s fun to play with.
What I’ve Lost
I was in a store last night; a big, fluorescently-overlighted, linoleum-floored, American Capitalist monstrosity. They sell food there, though in such a place I can rarely imagine myself being actually fed. The food they sell is dead, don’t you think?
Anyway, I always endeavor to persevere to get what I need fast and get the hell out. To linger or tarry is to endure an assault on the senses. Walking in at night is like stepping into the path of a landing jet: light pollution, tense hurried humans, small squealing humans, cage-like battering rams piled with petroleum-packaged eating disorder, large glass cabinetry exhaling cold air, and muzak falling on it all like fetid rain.
It was the latter which struck me as more than usually harsh and cruel last night. From the tinny overhead speakers was falling Touch of Gray by The Grateful Dead. Not Muscrat Love or Copacabana, but a song by my all time favorite band. The audacity! When the hell did the Dead devolve to elevator music? And when did I?
On my way out of the store, I saw a person standing with his back to me, wearing a shirt that said this in large block letters:
HELLO CAN I HELP YOU FIND SOMETHING?
“Yes! Excuse me, but I need help finding something,” said I. “I have lost my youthful idealism. And my faith in the fundamentally implied covenant of due process, good faith and fair dealing inferred by all of us trying to survive in the western world. … And my Art has been canned for the masses, so I guess I’ve generally lost my edge. Can you help me find those things?”
“I don’t work here,” came the reply. “I’m on my way home from another store.”
Figures.
White Space, by Sharon Bryan
paper is pretty dead
A friend said that to me once, only not about paper. We were talking about nutrition and he said, “meat is pretty dead.” I think it applies to paper pretty well too.
When I got my new HP pc in early August, I was promised a free upgrade to Windows 7 when the time came, which it has. So I decided to scoot online and order my Windows 7 freebie upgrade today. God knows when it’ll actually arrive – weeks I guess – but there’s no rush.
I tell you what, though. I have a scanner and I’ve got to start getting in the habit of scanning things like receipts. They wanted the “proof of purchase,” and 6 boxtops from Lucky Charms, either uploaded or mailed separately. I had trouble remembering where on God’s Earth I might have put the receipt. I finally found it on a little shelf-table thing in the kitchen-dining room, where I keep my keys and phone and stuff.
When we buy something we might need the receipt for – anything that’s supposed to last, like electronics – I think the store should offer to e-mail a digital copy of our receipt to us. Because the whole world needs to stop printing important information on sheets of dead tree. And it seems like I can’t go out in public without somebody trying to give me freekin paper to clog up my life.
Whatever happened to the paperless office we were promised when we all started getting computers? We have computers in our offices and homes, surrounded by mountains of cellulose. Our landfills are overflowing, and the fact that paper is often recyclable doesn’t make up for the fact that we’re still grinding up forests to print out crap. I know people who print out their e-mails! E’Gads!
So I scanned my receipt and uploaded it to HP, and e-mailed it to myself, and backed it up on a disc. Now I just need to figure out where I’m going to store the original little slip of fading thermal paper.
Poor trees, we hardly knew ye.
the venturi effect
I have noticed something which may well be proof of the paranormal right here in the hermitage.
On windy days, the water level in my toilet goes down.
Really. This is not a joke and I’m not making it up. The level in the bowl today is distinctly lower than normal. It’s always and only the case when the wind is up. If you’re expecting a photo or video as documentation, you’ll be disappointed. Some matters simply range beyond the imperatives of the empirical. I feel no mandate to offer proof. You may believe or not as you wish.
I have no personal explanation for this; even an intellect as encyclopedic and erudite as mine lacks the reach of this phenomenon’s portent.
Thankfully, we have at easy reach the vast and trivial tubes of the Internets. Truly, nothing is too bizarre that somebody online hasn’t pinched off a piece of it. Behold, the mystery is laid to rest on Yahoo Answers.
The Venturi Effect – I do so love Wikipedia.
Strange but true. And you learned about it here on Metaphor.
the shot heard hardly at all
I have reconsidered my last post, about H1N1 vaccinations being hard to get. I was wrong.
The fact that well- educated, hard-working scientists were able to devise a vaccine for a new strain of influenza, and get millions of doses into the hands of physicians and nurses, in a matter of months, is a helluva lot to be proud of. It’s not easy, I’m sure, and everything takes time.
The important thing is that there is a vaccine which can be provided to the most vulnerable among us. Because Death, left to it’s implacable devices, just loves to weed out the weak.
Vaccination vacillation
I’ve been wondering whether I should look into getting a shot for the new flu this year. I got my regular seasonal shot last week, as I do every year. But I think some of the furor over the swine flu is nothing but that – furor. Emotion, panic. It’s a virus, not the black death. Almost everybody who gets it gets better; it’s no more likely to make one seriously ill or seriously dead than the regular old flu. In fact, it’s probably less likely, from the stats I’ve read in the news. In any case, I guess this answers my question:
“If you’re generally healthy and come down with the H1N1 flu this season, staying home and riding out normal flu symptoms is probably your only option.
A limited supply of vaccines in Santa Barbara County are being targeted for those who are especially high risk: If you’re a pregnant woman or a medically fragile child or young adult, those vaccines are for you.”
[Noozhawk.com]
The H1N1 virus has been a major issue for months and months. This isn’t a sudden disaster. But it hasn’t been possible to make enough vaccine for the people who might want to have it to protect themselves and their families from suffering, and to keep themselves on the job so that this illness doesn’t cause yet still again another major glitch for the staggering economy.
It was ever thus; it’s not the fault of the individuals currently in authority at any level. This is a systemic failure of public policy priorities. It goes back a generation, and it ain’t no way to run a railroad.
That being said, I’d like to ask what the hell is going on with the price of a flu shot. I paid $30 this year, $20 last year, $10 in 2007, and $5 in 2006. Seriously, WTF?
little death
The Dishwasher
is scouring the glasses and plates
the kitchen is humming happily
in the dark and I
am ready for my little death.
The ficus in the living room
is already asleep.
We had a beautiful sunset
with great bold clouds in the west
glowing then dark gray as the sun
went down behind a bank of fog.
The lamp on the desk is the last
one shining in the house
but not for long.
Papa’s clock has struck the half
and tomorrow may be
restless, bearing wind.
Kyle Kimberlin
10.20.2009
The Dishwasher by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a
Metaphor 