BETWEEN MANKIND AND MANHOOD

BETWEEN MANKIND AND MANHOOD

The old man is wary
The old man is rough
The old man ain’t waiting
He’s had enough,
The old man is weary, but
The old man is tough
The old man is certain
He’s had enough,
The young man is angry
The old man is strong
The young man’s impatient
The old man holds long,
The young man is fearful
The old man don’t care
The young man stirs others, but
The old man will dare;

The young man is hell-wrought
The old man thanks God
The young man runs riot
The old man hits hard,
The young man talks always
The old man’s ashore
The young man still cowers
The old man’s at war,
You think age a warrant
I’m not talking time
I speak of man’s Nature
His soul, flesh, and mind;

There’s a young man in many, yet
An old man in few
Why the world is so troubled, and
Men do as they do, for
Theory’s your wisdom
Cunning your thoughts, yet
Between them together
Always you’re lost, so
Your cities are rotten
Your races are run
Your collectivist shitholes
The old man will shun, and
Your classes are broken
Your reason corrupt
Down do you stumble, and
Cannot stand up
For no man is master
Who won’t stand alone, for
You moderns are plastic, but
The old man is stone;

Thus the young men are cattle
But the old man’s a wolf
For the masses are cowards
Who cringe at the gulf,
‘Tween mankind and manhood
In their broods and their tribes
Yet he’s better than you are
For He is Alive…

ALL THE SURFEIT EMPIRES OF THE EARTH!

TO OUR FULL MEASURE:

“Now nearly at an end are these, our feckless days of famished feasting, and hard upon us now is come an hopeful age of high and happy labor that shall rightly crown our approaching enterprise with gilded glories still to swell the ceaseless vaulted realms of heaven, and mark for all time this yet unimagined era, when we, fit with industry prodigious and unknown to long sleeping history, sure o’erwhelmed all the surfeit empires of the Earth!“

ONE WORLD, OR BOTH

I have a question to ask my readers. Something I’d like to ask your opinion and advice on.

I have been working a series of three novels now for awhile. I keep going back and forth on how to best arrange the overall story-line and plot. The tale takes place on two different worlds. Worlds which are separate and distinct, but ultimately related. One of those worlds is our world, circa 800 AD (in the Byzantine Empire, northern Africa, and the Middle East), and the other is another world, at about the same time period (though they reckon time differently).

Without becoming overly complicated in my request my question to you is this:

As a reader would you prefer the first book to take place in only one world (our world for instance,) and the second book to primarily take place in the other world, (the third book will move back and forth between these two worlds), or would you prefer the story to move back and forth freely between both worlds in all three books?

I have been going back and forth on which idea would be better as a story arrangement and plot device. And have still reached no definitive conclusion.

So to you, as a reader, which would you find more pleasing and interesting as a story form or manner of progression – One World at a Time, or freely skipping from One World to the Other in all three books?

By the way here is a link to some of the posts I have made about this book series – The Kithariune

 

THE LONELY SCOUT – TUESDAY’S TALE

THE LONELY SCOUT

So today after my walk through the woods with Sam I came home and started work on a new short story. It will be historical fiction and a supplement to my Westerns and it will be about a half-Indian, half-white Advanced Scout for the US Cavalry.

 

He is rejected by everyone, as was the custom of the day, by his white society and by his Indian tribe. Later he goes on to wander much farther West and to form his own settlement of former Chinese rail workers, other outcast Indians, runaway slaves, Mexicans fleeing the wars in Texas and California, and poor whites and others wishing to start over from the Civil War.

 

Eventually he becomes town marshal and then county sheriff until he is hunted down by US Marshals looking to take him in for desertion from his former scout position.

 

Got three pages written just about an hour ago and I’ll post those once my daughter types up the manuscript (still having trouble typing with my broken wrist), but only the intro because I plan to publish the story. Like I said I want it to be a supplementary story to my Western, The Lettermen. Still not sure about the title though, iffin I wanna call it The Lonely Scout or simply The Outcast.

 

My wife and youngest daughter read it and really liked it, and my wife gave me a coupla good ideas for further plot development. My oldest daughter read it and gave it a 9 out of 10 (so far anyway) and then she said, “Writing Westerns and frontier and adventure and detective stories are your favorites.”

 

I like writing a lot of different kinda things, but she may be right. Those hold particular and personal appeal to me…

Manhood is a lost art if you ask me. I hope to preserve it in my writings so future generations can take it up again. Wholesale and unimpeded by whatever we got nowadays.

THE NIGHT THAT THE KNIGHT CURSED EVIL – HIGHMOOT

THE NIGHT THAT THE KNIGHT CURSED EVIL

(A Poetic Meditation Upon America)

The Night that the Knight cursed evil a wondrous thing began
Men who once had cowered, together they did band
Beneath the Lonely Banner of the Knight who cursed the wrong
Once they had just whispered, now they sang his song

The High Lords and the Ladies corrupt upon their thrones
Had laughed to hear such curses when the Knight was all alone
Though when his profane blood-oaths thundered through the folk
Fury rose among them, with the tyrant’s whip and yoke

“Bring us now New Vows from him, make him swear to us!”
Shouted Lords and Ladies, roused now in their lust

Yet the Knight who cursed the evil would not bend to threat
Their embassies he spat upon, then harangued them ‘til they sweat

Then the High Lords and the Ladies began to see the Truth
That the Knight who cursed the Evil was fearless now forsooth!

And still the People rallied, hot now in the land,
The Knight who cursed the Evil gave heart for them to stand

“Send us an Assassin, experienced in crime,”
Said the Lords and Ladies, “to kill him ‘fore his time!”

So the black assassin crept upon the Knight
As he cursed the Evil in the shadows of the night
Yet darkness did betray him as he sought to strike
For the Knight who cursed the Evil caught him in the Light

A struggle hard and fearsome did they both attend
Blood in all directions, wounds as deep as sin
Finally the combat wound down to the Will
When the Knight triumphant the spent assassin killed

He took the ‘ssassins blood-stained blade with the warrant he
had wrecked,
Then sent it to the waiting Lords in scribbled hand,
“You’re next!”

___________________________________________________________

Yesterday I took a little nap because last weekend I contracted poison oak, or maybe sumac. It’s been miserable and I hoped to speed the healing and reduce the itch with a nap.

Anyway I awoke with this poem/song running through my kind. I had to go and take an immediate shower because the itching was so bad and in the shower I composed the rest of the sections above in my head.

Then I got out and wrote out what i had composed. It is still unfinished of course though I already have the entire poem sketched out in my head and some other sections are worked out, such as:

“Your silence speaks to your intent more surely than your pleas
For action is the pledge of life, not promises like these
If you’re determined stand your ground, if not I know you well,
Passive is the heartless man, and icy is his hell…”

WHERE WERE YOU? – a poem on America

WHERE WERE YOU?

Where were you when the warnings wailed
A’ sleeping senseless in your bed?
Did you see the tyrants born
Or were you by then almost dead?

Did you rise when evil did
To aid the helpless Just and True?
Did you ward the Innocent
Or merely on your duty muse?

When your leaders (servants) took the crown
Did you then revolt like men?
Or did you cower satisfied
That others for you make amends?

What ancient wrongs did drive you on
To finally stand and take your feet?
Or did you bow and genuflect
In your subservience complete?

Why did you fight, why did you roar
Why did you fearless go to war?
Or on your bellies – witless worms
Choose to squirm, by all abhorred?

How did you come to be a slave
Mastered thus, so weak and soft?
Did your chains grow overnight
Or link by link, in forging oft?

Who are you, what will you be
What Champion, or mildly take?
There comes a day when all men must
Within their time decisions make,

Arise My Friends, be Brave Possessed
Comes every Free Man to his test
For if he will he can attest
That in his glory he is dressed,

But if you Free Men will not rise
Of fear and shame you are contrived
If you will bend to be deprived
Then other men shall own (spend) your lives.

A FAR BETTER LAND… a New Song

A song I wrote this morning. The blower motor in our main air unit has failed and we’ve been without heat for two days waiting on the replacement motor to be delivered and installed. During the day, and to keep warm, I’ve been going outside to lie in the grass in the sunshine. (It is actually much warmer outside than inside the house at this point, especially around daybreak).

I did that again after lunch just now and these song lyrics came to me as I was soaking up the sunshine. Actually I’ve been thinking lately on events in America and in the world and have sort of reached my bellyful of all the recent bullshit. So yeah, the cold and the sun sparked the lyrics, but they’ve been weighing on my mind for a while now anyhow.

After I went inside and wrote them down, I put them aside for a bit and had a cup of coffee. Then I went back to the lyrics and did some editing and a bit of finagling to develop a final draft.

It’s sort of a hippie song, I’m the first to admit it, but nevertheless I like it.

A lot. I mean it too. Both for myself and this nation, and even for the world.

 

A FAR BETTER LAND

Gonna hop me a train to somewhere
Somewhere I’ve never yet been
A place that’s full of better ways
A place I can start again

Gonna fly me a plane to Shangri-La
A land that will never end
With star-bright nights and golden days
Where the dawn of my heart begins

Gonna sail me a ship to Paradise
Find me the coast of the moon
Where the mountains are high, and
The water is wide, and the grass
Is as deep as the sky

Come with me People
Let’s go somewhere else
Leave all your troubles and cares

Just think of the World
We could make for ourselves
If only we ever would dare

Gonna build me a starship
Gonna build her real soon
Rig her with sails made of light
Gonna crew her at sunrise, launch her at noon
God! What a beautiful sight!

Come with me People
There are new worlds to roam
Gonna leave all our hatreds and wares

There’s a place that is waiting
We could build a New Home
If only we ever would dare

Gonna fill up my heart-chest
Gonna pack up my soul
Gonna leave just as soon as I can

Come with me People
Come young and old
Gonna look for a far better land

Yeah…

Gonna go to a far better land

Yeah,

A new, and a far better land…

4th OF JULY, YEAR OF OUR LORD, 2014

My Fourth of July this year went swimmingly (pun intended – at least in part).

It started out slowly with me waiting on my wife and daughter to get ready to go out (you know how that goes fellas).

There is a new IHOP in Simpleville (well relatively new) and she wanted to go there to have a late breakfast. So she and I and my oldest daughter went. I thought the service was excellent but I was less than impressed by the food portions. Especially when weighed against the price. I told my wife that we could have gone to our favorite restaurant in town, O’Charleys, and eaten for only slightly more and had much bigger portions. But that’s what she wanted so I gave it to her. The IHOP is also on old Moovies (video rental store) that is it is the same video rental store we used to go to in town. After it went out of business IHOP bought the place and renovated it turning it into the restaurant. They really did a nice job of the renovation, but it was odd to me to go in there as I distinctly remembered the video store it used to be, and how it once looked.

After that the girls did some shopping and then we went and got my youngest daughter from a friend’s house (where she was staying) and had a nice little visit with the family while we waited on them to fix pizza for my daughter. A fun, relaxed visit. They also have done a really nice job with the front of their house, creating almost a little Zen garden.

After leaving there we went to another friend’s house so that my daughter could pick up her friend to come stay at our house overnight. That family has a pool and while standing on the deck it looked so tempting to me that I decided to dive in with all of my clothes on (I had no swimming trunks). Which I did. (Well, not all of my clothes, I first took off my socks and shoes.) I swam around about 15 minutes or so and enjoyed it immensely, though swimming in blue jeans eventually feels like you’re swimming in lead. Nevertheless I would have stayed in longer but my daughter had to get home to go to work – the last day at her crappy job (I’m very glad she quit).

So I got out and dried off on their deck and while I was drying off the father came up on his tractor and we all ate ice cream together (their family and our family). We yakked awhile and had fun and I examined a bat they had found dead in their pool as well as a baby snake they had found nearby and preserved in alcohol. At that age and size I could not tell the species but Steven thought it was a Highland Moccasin.

Then we came home and I cleaned the house a little and then took a short nap. After I got up I watched the Brazil-Colombia game which was a very exciting match and excellent game. (So many of the games of this World Cup have been absolutely awesome, and this may end up being my favorite Cup of all time.) The post-game display of sportsmanship between Rodriquez and the Brazilian team was superb as well. Seeing Neymar get his back broken though was hard for me to watch. I knew instantly that his back had been broken by the way he hit the ground acted afterwards. Having had my own back broken I know what that is like. So Godspeed on his recovery, and I hope and pray it is full and complete. He’s an excellent player and broken back is a tough thing indeed.

After that I read over and studied the New Basic Game D&D Release. I happen to love what I’m seeing so far and I’ll say more on that later as I’ll write a full review on my Gaming Blog once I’ve had time to finish reading the whole thing and play test it a bit in a couple of weeks. If you’re interested in the new D&D Basic Game release then click the link embedded in this sentence.

After night fall I went outside. The night was cool (more like an Autumn evening than July the 4th) with a clear sky and a half moon. I heard fireworks and is my wont every July 4th (when I’m not shooting off fireworks) I went looking for local displays. We live way out in the country and so many people shoot off fireworks and the sound and light shows can carry for miles, though because of heavy tree cover they can be hard to see sometimes.

Anyway I grabbed my binoculars and got in the car and rode around in about a five mile radius from my house. Found a really good show near Fork Shoals elementary where neighbor horse and cattle ranchers were having a contest against each other. That lasted about half an hour to forty-five minutes or so.

Rode around some more, crossed the river and found a really good display off Terry Road. They were lighting up pretty good and it went on for a long while. So I pulled over on the side of the road and listened to music and watched the show.

By that time it was getting late and on the way home I decided to ride down to McKittrick Bridge where as kids and teenagers my friends and I had many hour’s long bottle rocket and firework fights trying to take and control the bridge. I really miss those fireworks fire-fights, they were immense fun and I remember we’d make launchers and carry out attacks and just blow the hell out of each other on warm summer nights under a full moon. I can still recall the thick clouds of exploded gunpowder that would hang across the bridge and river as one side or another would launch an assault and try to dislodge whoever was holding it. God we had fun! If only we had drones back then, huh?

Now that was really living for a young boy, and about as much fun as you could have as a kid, and the memories were sweet as I recalled them. That was a youth well-spent.

By the time I got home it was midnight and I waited up for my daughter to get home and then I went to bed.

All in all a truly superb Fourth of July.

I hope you had one as well.

Jack.