res gestae

On Somme

2010-12-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

Suddenly into the still air burst hudding
And thudding, and cold fear possessed me all,
On the grey slopes there, where winter in sullen brooding
Hung between height and depth of the ugly fall
Of Heaven to earth; and the thudding was illness' own.
But still a hope I kept that were we there going over,
I, in the line, I should not fail, but take recover
From others' courage, and not as coward be known.

No flame we saw, the noise and the dread alone
Was battle to us; men were enduring there such
And such things, in wire tangled, to shatters blown.
Courage kept, but ready to vanish at first touch.
Fear, but just held. Poets were luckier once
In the hot fray swallowed and some magnificence.

Ivor Gurney (1890-1937)

Footfalls

2010-01-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden

...

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope.

forlorn

2009-06-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

For what availed it, all the noise
And outcry of the former men?—
Say, have their sons achieved more joys,
Say, is life lighter now than then?
The sufferers died, they left their pain—
The pangs which tortured them remain

Wandering between two worlds, one dead
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn

immortality l hadn't seen

2009-03-05T20:46:00.000-08:00

What's this war in the heart of nature ?
Why does nature vie with itself?.
The land contend with the sea?
ls there an avenging power in nature?
Not one power, but two?

l wondered how it'd be when l died.

What it'd be like to know that this breath now
was the last one you was ever gonna draw.

l just hope l can meet it the same way she did.
With the same... calm.

Cos that's where it's hidden -
the immortality l hadn't seen.

Be born a fighter

2009-02-20T17:54:00.000-08:00

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers

Trusting in the Emperor's Star.
Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, -- but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

General George Patton Jr

.

Blue Hills

2009-02-15T12:53:00.001-08:00

My dear wife,
you get something twisted out of your insides by all this blood, filth, and noise.
I wanna stay changeless for you.
I wanna come back to you
the man I was before.
How do we get to those other shores?
To those blue hills.
Love.
Where does it come from?
Who lit this flame in us?
No war can put it out,
conquer it.
I was a prisoner.
You set me free.

Dear,
I know you can say no,
but Im asking you anyway,
out of the memory of what we had together.
Forgive me.
I just got too lonely
We'll meet again some day.
People who have been as close as we've been
always meet again.
I have no right to speak to you this way.
I cant stop myself.
A habit so strong.
Oh, my friend of all those shining years.
Help me leave you!

We Band of Brothers

2008-12-24T09:22:00.000-08:00

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day

Blood, Filth and Noise

2008-12-12T15:36:00.000-08:00

Burnt Norton

(Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot)

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present

.

Seeds in the Heart

2008-11-24T16:17:00.000-08:00

Video created and edited by Toni Novak

Foe unvanquished, I won't perish in the field;
I'll be born again, to take up the halberd seven more times.

Sick and feverish
in the gleam of cherry blossoms
I keep shivering.

It isn't the cold
nor the dying leaves, just
that the birds have flown.

Losing its point:
the spire fades into
midday mist.

The sea at springtime
all day it rises and falls,
yes, rises and falls.

Crisp and clear blue sky
alighting on a tree branch
a goldfish.

Can it be that the moon has changed
Can it be that spring
Is not the spring of old times
Is it my body alone
That is just the same

Earth and metal...
although my breathing ceases
time and tide go on.

The world now unchanged from ancient times
leaves that are words retain seeds in the heart

Season of Autumn

2008-11-23T10:44:00.000-08:00

The Death of a Soldier
Wallace Stevens

Life contracts and death is expected,

As in a season of autumn.

The soldier falls.
He does not become a three-days personage,

Imposing his separation,Calling for pomp.
Death is absolute and without memorial,

As in a season of autumn,

When the wind stops,
When the wind stops and, over the heavens,

The clouds go, nevertheless,In their direction.

War Horse

2008-11-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

(video author: Toni Novak)

THE BLOOD from deep inside
Began to color flecks of foam about the bit.
And pink the moisture in his heavy breath.

And yet the pain,
Sharp and searing hot,
Appeared to make no difference in his stride.
For this great chestnut gelding,
Dark with sweat,
Was all a war horse;
In his pace
And in his sinew,
Bone and blood . . . and in his heart.

The towering General, light-reined horseman
- Light in the saddle, too-
Felt the shot
That hit the horse beneath him.

There is
Some indescribable communion
Between a man and horse
Who’ve shared the roughest roads,
The longest hours,
The hardest battles;
A singleness of spirit, faith unflagging.

The General felt the pain
As though the gelding’s wound was in himself;
It tightened muscles in his jaws and throat.

AND then the second shot
Struck hard the chestnut’s side.
And then the third.
Stunning.
Staggering.

His powerful and easy stride
Became a labored lunge,
Steadied only by the General’s balanced weight
And sure band.
The war horse gathered-
With every ounce of courage in his heart-
To carry on,
To fight the mission through.
Calmingly, .
The General reined him in.
And stepping down
He loosed the girth
And lightly slipped the saddle to the ground.

.

2008-11-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

Flowing through
like a galloping current
of million things
viewing something static
but full of everything
you control everything
knowing your "cogito"
and don't know how neither why
that's the way
feeling it
never rationalizing

.

All and Nothing

2008-11-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

You was there
As always
With your millions of billions of molecules of energy
Staring at everything
With those opaque eyes
Eyes of everything and nothing
You capture all
You generate all, you consume all

You answer to my prayers
By worsening their tragic causes
Feeling the power
Of one thousand horses
I'm you
My heart beats with your heart
but, at the end
You make us all pathetic freaks
don't you?
that's the game
release me
May be I'm a pathetic stupid freak
But I will not abide

..

Broke free

2008-10-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

There's a soul in the Eternal,
Standing stiff before the King.
There's a little English maiden
Sorrowing.
There's a proud and tearless woman,
Seeing pictures in the fire.
There's a broken battered body
On the wire.

...

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the starts that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end they remain.

..

You gotta go down deep down into the pain
Let it purge your soul like flesh to a razor blade
Dig down deep into the pain
Surrender, surrender, dig in, dig in
Put yourself down deep into the pain
Embrace the bliss of pure sensation
You can't escape from the ultimate pain
So let your senses drift into Euphoria

Blood is thickest when love is bold
But blood runs thin when the heart grows cold

So you need your pain, we all need pain
We were born into this world to feel the joy of all our pain

So naive, so innocent, trust in a world too intense

Flesh is weak but the soul is strong, and you will bleed but you'll carry on

Yes you need your pain, life is pain
I could hold your hand, but you must take your pain

Great War: 90 years

2008-10-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

Music: Soldier's Poem - Muse

Cartas reais da Primeira Guerra Mundial:Um piloto inglês escreve para a mãe do piloto alemão que ele havia derrubado, após encontrar no corpo do oponente uma foto dela. Mais abaixo a resposta de mãe ao piloto.

É o teu filho. Eu sei que você não pode me perdoar. Eu matei ele. Mas eu quero que você saiba que ele não sofreu. O fim veio rapido. Ele foi muito corajoso. Ele deve também ter sido muito bom. Ele tinha sua foto no bolso. Eu estou a mandando de volta, embora gostaria de mante-la comigo. Suponho que sou seu inimigo, entretanto eu não sinto assim. Daria minha vida para devolver a dele. Não pensei nele ou em você quando atirei em seu avião. Ele era um inimigo espionando nossas tropas. Não poderia deixar ele voltar e entregar suas informações. Isso significaria a morte para muitos de nossas tropas. Foi uma manobra inteligente. Nos estavamos camuflados. Ele teve que vir muito baixo para conseguir nos avistar e o fez bravamente. Ele quase escapou de mim. Pilotava magnificamente. Pensei como gostaria de voar com ele. Mas ele era o inimigo e deveria ser destruido. Eu disparei. Tudo acabou em segundos. Um choque frontal quando o avião bateu no solo. Sua face não mostrava sofrimento algum, apenas excitação. Seus olhos brilhantes e sem medo. Eu sei que você deve ama-lo. Minha mãe morreu quando eu era um garotinho. Mas eu sei o que ela teria sentido se eu tivesse morrido. A guerra não é justa com as mulheres. Deus! Como eu gostaria que acabasse! É um pesadelo. Sentia que quando tocasse seu filho, ele acordaria e nós seriamos amigos. Sei que seu corpo é importante para você. Vou cuidar dele e colocar um pequena cruz na sua sepultura. Depois da guerra você poderá leva-lo para casa se quiser. Pela primeira vez na minha vida eu estou quase feliz que minha mãe não esta viva. Ela não suportaria o que fiz. Meu coração esta pesado. Sentia que era meu dever. Mas agora que vejo seu filho sem vida na minha frente e seguro sua foto na minha mão, tudo parece errado. O mundo é sombrio. Ó mãe, seja minha mãe apenas um pouco, e me diga o que fazer.

Hugh

Resposta da mãe do piloto alemão

Meu menino querido: não há o que perdoar. Eu vejo você como você esta, na sua bondade e confusão. Sinto-o vindo a mim como um menino assustado por ter feito algo ruim, quando planejava fazer o bem. Você parece meu filho. Estou feliz que cuidou do meu rapaz. Preferiria você a qualquer outro, para tocar seu corpo. Ele era meu mais novo. Acho que você percebeu sua delicadeza. Sei do tormento no seu coração, desde que você o alvejou. Para as mulheres a irmandade é uma realidade. Todos os homens são nossos filhos. Isso faz da guerra um monstro onde irmão mata irmão. Mas talvez nós mulheres, mais que os homens, sejamos culpadas desta guerra mundial. Nos não pensamos nas crianças do mundo, nossas crianças. A mãozinha do bebê que tocou nossos seios era tão doce, que nós esquecemos das outras centenas de mãozinhas de bebês que se estendem em nossa direção. Mas a terra não esquece, ela é mãe de todos. E agora meu coração chora por arrependimento. Eu desejo tomar-te nos braços e deitar sua cabeça no meu seio para faze-lo sentir através de mim, toda a sua afinidade com a terra. Me ajude meu filho, eu preciso de você. Seja a sua visão a minha visão. Espalhe o sonho de unidade e amor pela terra. Quando a guerra acabar venha até mim. Estou esperando por você.

Sua Mãe.

Oil And Cordite

2008-10-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

Oh I have slipped the surely bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings.
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun split clouds
and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of,
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.

Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind aloft
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up up the long delirious burning blue,
I've topped the wind swept heights with easy grace
where neither lark nor eagle flew.

And there with silent lifting mind
I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

by John Gillespie Magee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee,_Jr.

Only being a boy one would understand aviation

I feel sorry for you, kid

2008-09-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

What's this war in the heart of nature ?
Why does nature vie with itself?
The land contend with the sea?
Is there an avenging power in nature?
Not one power, but two?

We.
We together.
One being.
Flow together like water,
till l can't tell you from me.
I drink you.
Now... Now.
You're my light.
My guide.

I feel sorry for you, kid.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, a little.
This army's gonna kill you.
If you were smart, you'd take care of yourself.
There's nothing you can do for anybody else.
You're just running into a burning house
where nobody can be saved.
What difference do you think you can make?
One single man in all this madness.
If you die, it's gonna be for nothing.
There's not some other world out there
where everything's gonna be OK.

There's just this one.
Just this rock.

Mała Moskwa

2008-09-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

Mała Moskwa ("Pequena Moscou"): Filme polonês que se passa na cidade onde estava o quartel general do Exército Soviético na Polônia, Legnica. Baseado em uma história real, mostra a relação de uma russa (interpretada por uma atriz russa, Svetlana Hodchenkova) com um piloto polonês.

Where's it come from?

2008-09-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

This great evil.
Where's it come from?
How'd it steal into the world?
What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who's doing this?
Who's killing us?
Robbing us of life and light.
Mocking us with the sight of what we might have known.
Does our ruin benefit the Earth?
Does it help the grass to grow
or the sun to shine?
ls this darkness in you, too?
Have you passed through this night?

The Warrior - The Power of Myth

2008-09-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

(video made by Toni Novak)

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

by Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

Some notes about this video

The video starts with the sequence of the galloping horses, the meaning here are the many associated symbols with the horse: the horse may be the unconscious or the whole psyche. A galloping horse may symbolize ecstasy. The next scenes are the German army of the First World War, following the flying over the lake. The lake symbolizes the entering in to the realm of the subconscious, as in a start of a dream, where a lake, the sea or a forest symbolize the subconscious: the world of the symbols and archetypes always present in a dream.

The horses and lake are conjuring the entering in the world of the archetypical warrior, the theme of this movie. The spastic, gyrating hypnotic tribal-like music set the tone for the shamanistic aspects of the many warrior incarnations of various cultures, and the military drums are associated with the modern, western culture, military tradition. Then some shoots from a cavalry charge of the Wing Hussars, polish cavalry of XVII century from the polish movie “Ogniem i Mieczem”. The Polish Hussars are most remembered because of their typical armor embellished with big feather wings, resembling the figure of an angel. The next scenes are displays of American soldiers returning from Word War II and photos of American Indian warrior chiefs. Early films of Thomas Edison, showing the Sioux War Dance are used for all the scenes with dancing Indians to draw a common line of universality of various warrior’s cultures.

Regardless of culture or age, the warrior is, perhaps, the most existentialistic creature: his actions are totally beyond the aspects of the self-preservation, and he assumes total responsibility for those actions in the Sartrian existentialistic way or Kierkegaard’s view of it. Therefore the initial quote of Joseph Campbell was showed: "The warrior's approach to life is to say ‘yes’ to it, ‘yea’to it all". Confronted with the inevitability of his choices the warrior has to cope with the questions of the meaning of the here and now:

"Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life." (Joseph Campbell).

The movie follows on showing the French Legion Légion Étrangère and again the German army in the First World War. Then a sequence of photos intercalated with the Sioux war dance: the majority of the photos are from Ukrainian front from World War II. A picture of an American soldier in Iraq. A small fragment of an Australian movie depicting the cavalry charge of the battle of Beersheba, in 31 October 1917, where 800 horsemen charge the Turkish artillery across 6000 yards of open terrain.

The next scenes showing line up soldiers are from the movie “We were Soldiers”, the scene where Mel Gibson, interpreting the real life Lt. Col. Hal Moore, gave the speech transcribed below, which also emphasize the aspects of the questions the warrior has to face, which are universal and can be found in any warrior’s culture, native-Indian, western, soviet or any other:

"Look around you, in the 7th Cavalry, we got a Captain from the Ukraine, another from Puerto Rico, we got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, Cherokee Indian, Jews and Gentiles, all American. Now here in the States some men in this unit may experience discrimination because of race or creed, but for you and me now, all that is gone. We're moving into the valley of the shadow of death, where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours, and you won't care what color he is or by what name he calls God”

Then again some shoots showing the winged hussars at battle. The next scenes are displays of German army, and after that a sequence of pictures. The famous Capa’s photograph “Death of a loyalist soldier” from the Spanish civil war. Some shoots of the Allied victory parade at the end of the World War II. A picture of the soviet victory parade of the same period. The movie ends with the same sequences of the start, the flying over the lake, and galloping horses at the climax, perhaps depicting the impulsive dynamic subconscious forces driving the warriors of all time.

This much remember of me

2008-09-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

World War I, Battle of the Somme, 1916. A British second lieutenant, Hugh Freston, of the 3rd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, joined his battalion near Albert six days before Christmas 1915. In the trenches facing La Boisselle on 24 january 1916 he was inspecting a dugout that had been heavily shelled, and was talking to some stretcher-bearers, when more shells fell he was killed. He was twenty-four years old. In one of his poems he had written:

After I am dead
And have become part of the soil of France,
This much remember of me:
I was a great sinner, a great lover, and life puzzled me very much.
Ah love! I would have died for love!
Love can do so much, both rightly and wrongly
It remembers mothers, and little children,
And lots of others things.
O men unborn, I go now, my work unfinished!
I pass on the problem to you: the world will hate you: be brave!

Second Lieutenant Freston is buried in Bécourt Military Cemetery on the outskirts of Albert.

Who lit this flame in us?

2008-09-05T16:16:00.001-07:00

My dear wife,you get something twisted out of your insides by all this blood, filth, and noise.
I wanna stay changeless for you.
I wanna come back to you the man I was before.
How do we get to those other shores?
To those blue hills.
Love.
Where does it come from?
Who lit this flame in us?
No war can put it out,conquer it.
I was a prisoner.You set me free.
...
Dear,
I know you can say no,but
Im asking you anyway,
out of the memory of what we had together.
Forgive me.
I just got too lonely
We'll meet again some day.
People who have been as close as we've been
always meet again.
I have no right to speak to you this way.
I cant stop myself.
A habit so strong.
Oh, my friend of all those shining years.
Help me leave you!

Carvão

2008-09-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

Quem é você que vive em tantas formas?
Sua morte alcança tudo
Vocé é, também, a fonte de tudo que vai nascer
Sua Glória,
Piedade,
Paz,
Verdade
Você da calma ao espírito,
Compreensão,
Coragem
O coração satisfeito
Talvez todos tenham uma única alma
que todo mundo faz parte
Todas faces de uma mesma pessoa
Um grande eu
Todos buscando por salvação
Cada um como um carvão,
tirado do fogo

A Man Himself is Nothing / Everything

2008-09-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

Are you righteous?
Kind?
Does your confidence lie in this?
Are you loved by all?
Know that I was, too.
Do you imagine your sufferings will be less because you loved goodness?
Truth?

Where is it that we were together?
Who were you that l lived with?
Walked with?
The brother.
The friend.
Darkness from light.
Strife from love.
Are they the workings of one mind?
The features of the same face?
Oh, my soul,let me be in you now.
Look out through my eyes.
Look out at the things you made.
All things shining.