#sheriff & the ravels

[bestfrozentreats2]

Sheriff & the Ravels - Shombalor - 1959

https://youtu.be/DYLoXggytOI

'This and the Chips' "Rubber Biscuit" will live forever side-by-side as the two wildest (and finest) examples of doo-wop nonsense. Covered by the Cramps in 1992'

THE CHIPS - ''RUBBER BISCUIT''  (1956) 

https://youtu.be/E_D_mwTcsKk

The Chips were a short-lived New York doo-wop vocal group consisting of teenage friends Charles Johnson (lead vocal), Nathaniel Epps (baritone), Paul Fulton (bass), Sammy Strain and Shedrick Lincoln (tenors). The group's first recording is their most enduring; "Rubber Biscuit" started life as Johnson's answer to the marching rhythms of the Warwick School For Delinquent Teenagers while he was an intern there.  

When Josie Records heard the tune they signed the group and the record was issued in September 1956. Although it did not chart, "Rubber Biscuit" became an instant east coast radio favourite, and saw its performers touring alongside The Dells, Cadillacs and Bo Diddley, but the momentum gained by their debut single was waning and the group broke up at the end of 1957. Only Sammy Strain went on to success in the music industry, as a member of Little Anthony & The Imperials from about 1961 to 1972 when he left to join The O'Jays. Strain left the O'Jays in 1992 to return to The Imperials, where he remained until his retirement in 2004...

[donnerpartyofone]

If you don't have any Songs the Cramps Taught Us compilations, GET THEM ALL.

[duffertube]

▶️ Sheriff And The Ravels - Shombolar (1959)

Source: Internet Archive

[odk-2]

The Cramps - Shombalor (1992) Aki Aleong / Elmore Sheriff Sheriff and The Ravels Cover from: "Blues Fix" (EP)

Personnel: Lux Interior: Vocals Poison Ivy Rorschach: Guitar Slim Chance: Bass Jim Sclavunos: Drums

*** ***

Sheriff and The Ravels - Shombalor (1958): https://tmblr.co/ZoHQpk2RYFTna

[daniellaux429]

Fake Movie Poster: Fantasia 3000 by me!

Here is my fourth in a series of fake movie posters for movies that I personally would LOVE to see made someday! This one also has quite the lengthy explanation....

My favorite movie of all time is Fantasia – it is a masterpiece of filmmaking, animation, music, & most importantly imagination. One aspect I really love about it is that it’s a collection of a whole bunch of different stories, with each one set to a different piece of classical music. In doing this, it creates a formula that can work for future movies that lets the storytellers at Disney unleash their imaginations. Funny enough, that was Walt Disney’s original plan; he wanted Fantasia to be an ongoing series in which new segments would be created every few years or so. But sadly, because of monetary reasons & because of WWII taking place shortly after the original Fantasia’s release, Walt had to scrap this idea…

…That is, until many years later, when the storytellers & animators of the Disney Renaissance learned of this initial plan, & they decided to help make this lost dream of Walt’s a reality. Thus, at the tail end of the Disney Renaissance, they released the follow-up titled Fantasia 2000. While it wasn’t as good as the first film, it was still a solid Disney movie & it proved that the formula I mentioned earlier works. But since Fantasia 2000, Disney hasn’t tried to continue using this formula for great cinematic art. I think they did a few of shorts intended for a future Fantasia project titled Lorenzo, Destino, & The Little Match Girl, but nothing much besides that.

Thus, I have decided that if I ever get the chance to pitch a movie idea to the people at Walt Disney Animation Studios, I would pitch to them a third entry in the Fantasia series for the independent film market. For consistency reasons (even if it is a bit gimmicky), I would call it… Fantasia 3000.

Here is my plan for the movie:

Segment 1: Les Toreadors by Georges Bizet – In keeping with tradition, the opening will be a surreal & beautiful visualization of music. It will involve a square shaped mass with triangular arms conducting an unseen orchestra, all the while the environment shows off various colors, shapes, lights, & other surreal imagery that matches the music & intensity as it plays.

Segment 2: Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens – This segment, more or less, is an adaptation of the original French poem. On a Halloween midnight, the Angel of Death arrives to a graveyard on the back of a grey horse & begins to play a violin. Immediately, ghosts descend down from Heaven & skeletons rise from their graves, & they all perform their dance while the Angel of Death plays. When dawn approaches, all of the dead return to their afterlives & the Angel of Death rides off.

Segment 3: The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II – This segment is one centered on love & romance. In a very dull & colorless enchanted forest, we see a group of fairies hanging out by a pond, & a troop of brownies marching off into the forest. One of the fairies & one of the brownies stumble into each other, & right away there’s an immediate infatuation. As the two of them dance & act playfully with one another, the magic from the fairy’s wand begins bringing color back to the enchanted forest. It ends with the whole forest in bright colors, the other fairies & brownies cheering, & our two leads kissing.

Segment 4: Symphony No. 40 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Instead of bringing the original Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment from the first Fantasia back, I decided to instead tell a new story with Mickey Mouse in the lead. It will star Mickey as the keeper of messenger pigeons in a Medieval castle, & one day he finds a message from an evil wizard threatening to destroy the castle. Mickey goes to warn the king, & after showing the king the message, the queen takes Mickey to a secret room where an enchanted sword is kept, & she gives the sword to Mickey. Right on cue, the evil wizard & his giant stone warriors march through the kingdom (spotted by Donald Duck as a guard with a spyglass), & though the king sends soldiers to fight, they are easily defeated. Soon, the wizard storms into the throne room, but Mickey jumps in to save the day, as the enchanted sword deflects the wizard’s magic & destroys the stone warriors. After an intense showdown, the wizard’s staff is destroyed, he is turned to ashes, & shortly afterwards Mickey is knighted by the king & queen.

Segment 5: Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson – This is a shorter segment that illustrates a tradition that takes place in Europe every Christmas. It shows Saint Nicholas riding a sleigh pulled by a reindeer through a winter forest decorated with Christmas lights & candles, until he eventually arrives in a European village where he is greeted by the townsfolk, makes his way to the town square where a big Christmas tree is waiting for him, & he delivers toys to the children.

Segment 6: Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 by George Enescu – This is a segment that’s essentially a condensed retelling of my future book The White Elephant. It tells the story of a big elephant in the jungle of India who, despite his friendly nature, is ostracized by the other snootier jungle animals. But then he comes across a clumsy crane who fell from the sky, & after reviving it, the two of them become friends & do all sorts of fun activities together like eating fruit, playing in flower petals, splashing around in a waterhole, & so on. Eventually, a small fire breaks out in the jungle, & it’s up to the elephant & crane to save the day, which they thankfully do & are hailed as heroes.

Segment 7: Bolero by Maurice Ravel – This segment, inspired by the robot artwork of Matt Dixon, tells the story of a robot who is dropped onto an alien planet, & goes around exploring all the different alien biomes & coming across various alien species along the way, until the robot eventually finds an abandoned shelter on a mountainside & makes it a new home.

Segment 8: The Scott Joplin Medley (Bethena, The Entertainer, & Maple Leaf Rag) – In this segment set during the 1920’s, we see an African American man & a beautiful Irish immigrant woman going about their morning & their jobs, until they both come across a flyer on a fence asking for vaudeville performers. The night of the show, at first they’re billed as solo performances, but soon the two of them decide to do an act together, & they succeed in winning over the crowd.

Segment 9: The New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák – This segment, which will probably be the longest, tells the story of a little girl with a sad school life who suffers from social rejection & bullying. But then one day, she arrives home to see a present from her godmother waiting for her, & it ends up being a plush leopard. Immediately, she loves it! The next day, she imagines the leopard is alive & real, & it of course shows great love & affection for her. Then, they go outside & imagine themselves playing all sorts of grand adventures together that include time traveling to see dinosaurs, being sheriffs in the old west, being superheroes who fight bad guys, & even doing other fun things like taking pictures of each other & eating cookies together. At the very end, we see the little girl’s mother watching from the window, as she sees her daughter playing with the stuffed leopard, & she smiles. As you can see, this is based very heavily on the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson, & if I could, I would’ve made this an adaptation of the comic. But because Watterson is extremely protective of his work, the only thing I can do is make up a new story using heavy inspiration.

Segment 10: Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – For the final segment, the story starts with some mighty dragons flying above the mountains. Then it goes to a baby dragon witnessing all of this, & with its mothers help, it learns to fly in the sky, until eventually seeing a great big valley & all sorts of different dragons doing various different things.

Of course, in between every segment, we’ll have ONE celebrity master of ceremonies discussing each segment in as dignified & classy as possible, with Mickey Mouse himself showing up before & after his segment. As you can see, my poster is sort of a mish-mash - the visual aesthetic of the conductor on the podium is taken straight from the original Fantasia, while each image representing each segment is based on the design for the original poster for Fantasia 2000. The tagline is "The encore begins, the legacy continues", emphasizing its spot as part of a grander film series. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fake poster, & hopefully someday it will become a real movie!

[ch-dld-bft-brit-omm]

VEE-JAY~306 - Sheriff & The Ravels - Shombalor

Shombalor - The Cramps (Sheriff and the Ravels' cover)

[lavender-lotion]

Top Five Fav Fics of 2017

These are my top five favourite fics that I have personally written in 2017.

5. Come See Me

“John.” Stiles said on a sob, his hiccuping getting worse. “Stiles? Baby? What is it?” John demanded, switching to his serious Sheriff voice. Normally it would take Stiles laugh, but it just made him cry harder. “C-can you co-come up-p?” Stiles said through hiccups. He can hear John already moving around on the other end of the phone, probably already packing a bag, “I just wanna spend the week-we-end-d with yo-ou.” “Oh course baby, I’ll be there in about three hours okay?” This one is a little bit older, back from July! I just - ah, I love these two boys. I don’t have a particular reason as to why, exactly I adore this fic, I just do! Mostly, I just love writing Stilinskicest, and I love this pairing with all my heart, and it was the first one I had put considerable thought into! I think it really drew me further into this pairing, and I have yet to be able to find my way out!

4. We Match! It’s not as though Stiles actually told anyone. Because he didn’t. Well, he told his dad, but he’s pretty sure his dad didn’t sell him out to some skeevy news outlet. Yeah, not his dad. I could arguably be said that his dad liked his boyfriend more than him, in fact. or; stiles is dating thor. that's it. this fic has NO plot This one is here because it was incredibly fun to write! I loved working on it, and although the idea came out of nowhere I really enjoyed running with it! I would have never thought about these two as a couple (like really, it is so, so random) but I just - gah, love it. I really, really want to write more for this series as well, give it substance and backbone and evolve it into something more! Just everytime I see this one I smile!

3. A Few Times Stiles Is Kidnapped and The One Time The Pack Finds Out Stiles gets kidnapped a lot. Really, it's not a big deal. He always calls Peter after, usually has Peter pick him up and generally they have sex the next morning. It's a system. or: three times stiles is kidnapped and the one time the pack notices! I have a lot I can say about this story. I wrote it ages ago, all the way back in May and it is my most popular one-shot. Around 800 kudos, this thing has gotten more response than nearly any of my other fics. I loved it, I loved writing it, but I never thought it would take off like this. It still surprises me, because I’ll go back and read it and notice mistakes, and can’t believe that so many people enjoyed the story as much as they all did. It’s amazing.

2. Let Me Hold You, Forever It was too much. To loud and too quiet and too, too much. He had to get out, to get away and just be somewhere different. He couldn’t - he couldn’t keep watching her like that, watching her lay there as she did. He needed a break. And he found it, with Peter Hale. Peter who was scarred skin and blank eyes. Peter who he sat with for hours a day, reading and ranting and just being with. Peter, who over four years he fell in love with. This one is here because it holds a special place in my heart. I think I will always love it, just a little bit. I put so much thought into it, planned the story out and had a past at writing it. I also just love how I evolved their relationship, made it into something solid and sweet and careful. GAH, this fic gives me feels!

1. Daddy's Night Stiles tries to remain optimistic the first time he goes to a club. He goes a town over, wears the best ‘clubbing’ clothes he can think of, and really, really tries to keep an open mind. When he finds out he stumbled upon ‘Daddy’s Night’ at the Forest, he thought his night was ruined. His night was not ruined. Only his underwear were. This one holds a special please in my heart as my first real go at writing smut. I had written a few orgasms here and there, but this was my first trying to write something, like, actively dirty. Also, I loved it! I love, love how it came out. This fic has helped me to become increasingly more comfortable writing sex, and it really helped me move forward as a writer and I love it for that.

Other Honourable Mentions

First one shot over 10k:  Across Your Skin, My Love - 12,169 words, whoa! Before then, I had never written a one-shot so long, and I felt so, so proud of myself!  Stiles knew he had a soulmate - had gotten his mark when he was fourteen like everyone else. He just - he just didn’t think he would meet the man for years to come. he knew the statics, knew that most people didn’t meet their bonded until their early-mid twenties. So he was really not been expecting to his name on the arm of his hot new English heater. He had to admit it turned out pretty amazing, though.

First real soulmate AU: It Is You - This was a prompt done for a very loyal commenter, and one I had a great time writing. I’m not huge into Soulmate AU’s - which is weird since I love reading them - but this was my first time really writing one! Their pack was strong. Peter wore his Alpha power beautifully, bringing together their ragtag pack and making it into some strong. They protected Beacon Hills fiercely, Stiles Guardian of the preserve. That's exactly what their doing when the Spark meets the soulmate he didn't know he still had.

WIPs I Adore:  I Built My Home, Inside Of You - This was my first time writing Thorki, and while I have yet to finish, I adored it! I want to come back to it all the time, and I have such large plans for this story, that I cannot wait to write writing. It is a pleasure to work on, and one I really, really hope I can work on again soon! (ignore spelling mistakes in the summary lol) It wasn't as though Loki hated his life. Because he didn't. He wax smart and he was a great dancer. He was rich as he was pretty and his parents didn't participate in any part of his life. Whatever. He had Ashley and yeah she was his cleaning lady but also the closest thing he had to family.Introduce Thor, Mr. I Am All Of Your Dreams In One Hot Package and Loki's carefully crafted routine comes raveling apart. It's for the better though or: the human au that's essentially all gross fluff.. like that's it. this fic is giant ice cream sundae with a very very smalls sprinkling of occasional angst.

Give Me Family - GAH, this thing. I have a huge, huge list of shit I want this story to have, Jesus. The plans I have are insane, and I am, so excited to write them all at some point, LOL! I just really, really enjoy this story! Stiles Stilinski watched his mother die while holding her restrained hand and watched her death bring what he had always thought to be a great man to his knees.He lost his mother to dementia and his father to Jack Daniels. Stiles is intimately aware of what being alone feels life. Admittedly Stiles was actually pretty sure neglect was a form of abuse. And well, abuse became pretty typical for Stiles. Whatever. He could handle it.Until, well, until he couldn't. Next thing he knows he's living in New York in the Avengers Tower and life is certainly a lot better when you have people who care about you. or; the fic where stiles life in beacon hills SUCKS, gerard is even more of an asSHOLe than in cannon, phil coulson is his uncle-turned-dad and stiles sort-of-maybe-kind-of-a-little becomes an avenger. mostly.

And of course, this WIP: With You, I Belong - I have been writing this fic for ages, and it just holds a very special place in my heart. I love it, I can’t wait to finish it. Despite Stiles doing all he can to help 'his' pack, they continue to toss him to the side. They undervalue and under appreciate him, and honestly, Stiles respects himself too much to let it continue. So he leaves. Well, technically he's kicked out - but still. But then the Alpha Pack shows up, and Deucalion is a constant presence by his side, and maybe, just maybe, they aren't all that evil after all.

[bestfrozentreats2]

Sheriff & The Ravels - Shombalor (Vee-Jay 306)

Insane 1959 vocal group rocker. Co-written by Aki Aleong.

[ryuunosenshi]

@ravelle replied to your post “Ive been watching dekaranger and i think it might top abaranger as my...”

Scrolling by and I saw this... I'm in the middle of Dekaranger and it is reallyyy good! You really should watch it.

@arcadequartermaster replied to your post

“Ive been watching dekaranger and i think it might top abaranger as my...”

Dekaranger is in many ways a love letter to the space sheriff metal heroes, down to the robots and big guns. A must watch!

thank you both for your recommendations! ;) 

One day, hopefully, I’ll have time to watch it xD

[irinacat]

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

By Oscar Wilde, published 1898

I He did not wear his scarlet coat,  For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands  When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom he loved,  And murdered in her bed. He walked amongst the Trial Men  In a suit of shabby grey; A cricket cap was on his head,  And his step seemed light and gay; But I never saw a man who looked  So wistfully at the day. I never saw a man who looked  With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue  Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went  With sails of silver by. I walked, with other souls in pain,  Within another ring, And was wondering if the man had done  A great or little thing, When a voice behind me whispered low,  "That fellow's got to swing." Dear Christ! the very prison walls  Suddenly seemed to reel, And the sky above my head became  Like a casque of scorching steel; And, though I was a soul in pain,  My pain I could not feel. I only knew what hunted thought  Quickened his step, and why He looked upon the garish day  With such a wistful eye; The man had killed the thing he loved  And so he had to die. Yet each man kills the thing he loves  By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look,  Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss,  The brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young,  And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust,  Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because  The dead so soon grow cold. Some love too little, some too long,  Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears,  And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves,  Yet each man does not die. He does not die a death of shame  On a day of dark disgrace, Nor have a noose about his neck,  Nor a cloth upon his face, Nor drop feet foremost through the floor  Into an empty place He does not sit with silent men  Who watch him night and day; Who watch him when he tries to weep,  And when he tries to pray; Who watch him lest himself should rob  The prison of its prey. He does not wake at dawn to see  Dread figures throng his room, The shivering Chaplain robed in white,  The Sheriff stern with gloom, And the Governor all in shiny black,  With the yellow face of Doom. He does not rise in piteous haste  To put on convict-clothes, While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes  Each new and nerve-twitched pose, Fingering a watch whose little ticks  Are like horrible hammer-blows. He does not know that sickening thirst  That sands one's throat, before The hangman with his gardener's gloves  Slips through the padded door, And binds one with three leathern thongs,  That the throat may thirst no more. He does not bend his head to hear  The Burial Office read, Nor, while the terror of his soul  Tells him he is not dead, Cross his own coffin, as he moves  Into the hideous shed. He does not stare upon the air  Through a little roof of glass; He does not pray with lips of clay  For his agony to pass; Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek  The kiss of Caiaphas. II Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,  In a suit of shabby grey: His cricket cap was on his head,  And his step seemed light and gay, But I never saw a man who looked  So wistfully at the day. I never saw a man who looked  With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue  Which prisoners call the sky, And at every wandering cloud that trailed  Its raveled fleeces by. He did not wring his hands, as do  Those witless men who dare To try to rear the changeling Hope  In the cave of black Despair: He only looked upon the sun,  And drank the morning air. He did not wring his hands nor weep,  Nor did he peek or pine, But he drank the air as though it held  Some healthful anodyne; With open mouth he drank the sun  As though it had been wine! And I and all the souls in pain,  Who tramped the other ring, Forgot if we ourselves had done  A great or little thing, And watched with gaze of dull amaze  The man who had to swing. And strange it was to see him pass  With a step so light and gay, And strange it was to see him look  So wistfully at the day, And strange it was to think that he  Had such a debt to pay. For oak and elm have pleasant leaves  That in the spring-time shoot: But grim to see is the gallows-tree,  With its adder-bitten root, And, green or dry, a man must die  Before it bears its fruit! The loftiest place is that seat of grace  For which all worldlings try: But who would stand in hempen band  Upon a scaffold high, And through a murderer's collar take  His last look at the sky? It is sweet to dance to violins  When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes  Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet  To dance upon the air! So with curious eyes and sick surmise  We watched him day by day, And wondered if each one of us  Would end the self-same way, For none can tell to what red Hell  His sightless soul may stray. At last the dead man walked no more  Amongst the Trial Men, And I knew that he was standing up  In the black dock's dreadful pen, And that never would I see his face  In God's sweet world again. Like two doomed ships that pass in storm  We had crossed each other's way: But we made no sign, we said no word,  We had no word to say; For we did not meet in the holy night,  But in the shameful day. A prison wall was round us both,  Two outcast men were we: The world had thrust us from its heart,  And God from out His care: And the iron gin that waits for Sin  Had caught us in its snare. III In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,  And the dripping wall is high, So it was there he took the air  Beneath the leaden sky, And by each side a Warder walked,  For fear the man might die. Or else he sat with those who watched  His anguish night and day; Who watched him when he rose to weep,  And when he crouched to pray; Who watched him lest himself should rob  Their scaffold of its prey. The Governor was strong upon  The Regulations Act: The Doctor said that Death was but  A scientific fact: And twice a day the Chaplain called  And left a little tract. And twice a day he smoked his pipe,  And drank his quart of beer: His soul was resolute, and held  No hiding-place for fear; He often said that he was glad  The hangman's hands were near. But why he said so strange a thing  No Warder dared to ask: For he to whom a watcher's doom  Is given as his task, Must set a lock upon his lips,  And make his face a mask. Or else he might be moved, and try  To comfort or console: And what should Human Pity do  Pent up in Murderers' Hole? What word of grace in such a place  Could help a brother's soul? With slouch and swing around the ring  We trod the Fool's Parade! We did not care: we knew we were  The Devil's Own Brigade: And shaven head and feet of lead  Make a merry masquerade. We tore the tarry rope to shreds  With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,  And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,  And clattered with the pails. We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,  We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,  And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man  Terror was lying still. So still it lay that every day  Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: And we forgot the bitter lot  That waits for fool and knave, Till once, as we tramped in from work,  We passed an open grave. With yawning mouth the yellow hole  Gaped for a living thing; The very mud cried out for blood  To the thirsty asphalte ring: And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair  Some prisoner had to swing. Right in we went, with soul intent  On Death and Dread and Doom: The hangman, with his little bag,  Went shuffling through the gloom And each man trembled as he crept  Into his numbered tomb. That night the empty corridors  Were full of forms of Fear, And up and down the iron town  Stole feet we could not hear, And through the bars that hide the stars  White faces seemed to peer. He lay as one who lies and dreams  In a pleasant meadow-land, The watcher watched him as he slept,  And could not understand How one could sleep so sweet a sleep  With a hangman close at hand? But there is no sleep when men must weep  Who never yet have wept: So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—  That endless vigil kept, And through each brain on hands of pain  Another's terror crept. Alas! it is a fearful thing  To feel another's guilt! For, right within, the sword of Sin  Pierced to its poisoned hilt, And as molten lead were the tears we shed  For the blood we had not spilt. The Warders with their shoes of felt  Crept by each padlocked door, And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,  Grey figures on the floor, And wondered why men knelt to pray  Who never prayed before. All through the night we knelt and prayed,  Mad mourners of a corpse! The troubled plumes of midnight were  The plumes upon a hearse: And bitter wine upon a sponge  Was the savior of Remorse. The cock crew, the red cock crew,  But never came the day: And crooked shape of Terror crouched,  In the corners where we lay: And each evil sprite that walks by night  Before us seemed to play. They glided past, they glided fast,  Like travelers through a mist: They mocked the moon in a rigadoon  Of delicate turn and twist, And with formal pace and loathsome grace  The phantoms kept their tryst. With mop and mow, we saw them go,  Slim shadows hand in hand: About, about, in ghostly rout  They trod a saraband: And the damned grotesques made arabesques,  Like the wind upon the sand! With the pirouettes of marionettes,  They tripped on pointed tread: But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,  As their grisly masque they led, And loud they sang, and loud they sang,  For they sang to wake the dead. "Oho!" they cried, "The world is wide,  But fettered limbs go lame! And once, or twice, to throw the dice  Is a gentlemanly game, But he does not win who plays with Sin  In the secret House of Shame." No things of air these antics were  That frolicked with such glee: To men whose lives were held in gyves,  And whose feet might not go free, Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,  Most terrible to see. Around, around, they waltzed and wound;  Some wheeled in smirking pairs: With the mincing step of demirep  Some sidled up the stairs: And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,  Each helped us at our prayers. The morning wind began to moan,  But still the night went on: Through its giant loom the web of gloom  Crept till each thread was spun: And, as we prayed, we grew afraid  Of the Justice of the Sun. The moaning wind went wandering round  The weeping prison-wall: Till like a wheel of turning-steel  We felt the minutes crawl: O moaning wind! what had we done  To have such a seneschal? At last I saw the shadowed bars  Like a lattice wrought in lead, Move right across the whitewashed wall  That faced my three-plank bed, And I knew that somewhere in the world  God's dreadful dawn was red. At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,  At seven all was still, But the sough and swing of a mighty wing  The prison seemed to fill, For the Lord of Death with icy breath  Had entered in to kill. He did not pass in purple pomp,  Nor ride a moon-white steed. Three yards of cord and a sliding board  Are all the gallows' need: So with rope of shame the Herald came  To do the secret deed. We were as men who through a fen  Of filthy darkness grope: We did not dare to breathe a prayer,  Or give our anguish scope: Something was dead in each of us,  And what was dead was Hope. For Man's grim Justice goes its way,  And will not swerve aside: It slays the weak, it slays the strong,  It has a deadly stride: With iron heel it slays the strong,  The monstrous parricide! We waited for the stroke of eight:  Each tongue was thick with thirst: For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate  That makes a man accursed, And Fate will use a running noose  For the best man and the worst. We had no other thing to do,  Save to wait for the sign to come: So, like things of stone in a valley lone,  Quiet we sat and dumb: But each man's heart beat thick and quick  Like a madman on a drum! With sudden shock the prison-clock  Smote on the shivering air, And from all the gaol rose up a wail  Of impotent despair, Like the sound that frightened marshes hear  From a leper in his lair. And as one sees most fearful things  In the crystal of a dream, We saw the greasy hempen rope  Hooked to the blackened beam, And heard the prayer the hangman's snare  Strangled into a scream. And all the woe that moved him so  That he gave that bitter cry, And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,  None knew so well as I: For he who lives more lives than one  More deaths than one must die. IV There is no chapel on the day  On which they hang a man: The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,  Or his face is far too wan, Or there is that written in his eyes  Which none should look upon. So they kept us close till nigh on noon,  And then they rang the bell, And the Warders with their jingling keys  Opened each listening cell, And down the iron stair we tramped,  Each from his separate Hell. Out into God's sweet air we went,  But not in wonted way, For this man's face was white with fear,  And that man's face was grey, And I never saw sad men who looked  So wistfully at the day. I never saw sad men who looked  With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue  We prisoners called the sky, And at every careless cloud that passed  In happy freedom by. But there were those amongst us all  Who walked with downcast head, And knew that, had each got his due,  They should have died instead: He had but killed a thing that lived  Whilst they had killed the dead. For he who sins a second time  Wakes a dead soul to pain, And draws it from its spotted shroud,  And makes it bleed again, And makes it bleed great gouts of blood  And makes it bleed in vain! Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb  With crooked arrows starred, Silently we went round and round  The slippery asphalte yard; Silently we went round and round,  And no man spoke a word. Silently we went round and round,  And through each hollow mind The memory of dreadful things  Rushed like a dreadful wind, And Horror stalked before each man,  And terror crept behind. The Warders strutted up and down,  And kept their herd of brutes, Their uniforms were spick and span,  And they wore their Sunday suits, But we knew the work they had been at  By the quicklime on their boots. For where a grave had opened wide,  There was no grave at all: Only a stretch of mud and sand  By the hideous prison-wall, And a little heap of burning lime,  That the man should have his pall. For he has a pall, this wretched man,  Such as few men can claim: Deep down below a prison-yard,  Naked for greater shame, He lies, with fetters on each foot,  Wrapt in a sheet of flame! And all the while the burning lime  Eats flesh and bone away, It eats the brittle bone by night,  And the soft flesh by the day, It eats the flesh and bones by turns,  But it eats the heart alway. For three long years they will not sow  Or root or seedling there: For three long years the unblessed spot  Will sterile be and bare, And look upon the wondering sky  With unreproachful stare. They think a murderer's heart would taint  Each simple seed they sow. It is not true! God's kindly earth  Is kindlier than men know, And the red rose would but blow more red,  The white rose whiter blow. Out of his mouth a red, red rose!  Out of his heart a white! For who can say by what strange way,  Christ brings his will to light, Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore  Bloomed in the great Pope's sight? But neither milk-white rose nor red  May bloom in prison air; The shard, the pebble, and the flint,  Are what they give us there: For flowers have been known to heal  A common man's despair. So never will wine-red rose or white,  Petal by petal, fall On that stretch of mud and sand that lies  By the hideous prison-wall, To tell the men who tramp the yard  That God's Son died for all. Yet though the hideous prison-wall  Still hems him round and round, And a spirit man not walk by night  That is with fetters bound, And a spirit may not weep that lies  In such unholy ground, He is at peace—this wretched man—  At peace, or will be soon: There is no thing to make him mad,  Nor does Terror walk at noon, For the lampless Earth in which he lies  Has neither Sun nor Moon. They hanged him as a beast is hanged:  They did not even toll A reguiem that might have brought  Rest to his startled soul, But hurriedly they took him out,  And hid him in a hole. They stripped him of his canvas clothes,  And gave him to the flies; They mocked the swollen purple throat  And the stark and staring eyes: And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud  In which their convict lies. The Chaplain would not kneel to pray  By his dishonored grave: Nor mark it with that blessed Cross  That Christ for sinners gave, Because the man was one of those  Whom Christ came down to save. Yet all is well; he has but passed  To Life's appointed bourne: And alien tears will fill for him  Pity's long-broken urn, For his mourner will be outcast men,  And outcasts always mourn. V I know not whether Laws be right,  Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol  Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year,  A year whose days are long. But this I know, that every Law  That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life,  And the sad world began, But straws the wheat and saves the chaff  With a most evil fan. This too I know—and wise it were  If each could know the same— That every prison that men build  Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see  How men their brothers maim. With bars they blur the gracious moon,  And blind the goodly sun: And they do well to hide their Hell,  For in it things are done That Son of God nor son of Man  Ever should look upon! The vilest deeds like poison weeds  Bloom well in prison-air: It is only what is good in Man  That wastes and withers there: Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,  And the Warder is Despair For they starve the little frightened child  Till it weeps both night and day: And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,  And gibe the old and grey, And some grow mad, and all grow bad, And none a word may say. Each narrow cell in which we dwell  Is foul and dark latrine, And the fetid breath of living Death  Chokes up each grated screen, And all, but Lust, is turned to dust  In Humanity's machine. The brackish water that we drink  Creeps with a loathsome slime, And the bitter bread they weigh in scales  Is full of chalk and lime, And Sleep will not lie down, but walks  Wild-eyed and cries to Time. But though lean Hunger and green Thirst  Like asp with adder fight, We have little care of prison fare,  For what chills and kills outright Is that every stone one lifts by day  Becomes one's heart by night. With midnight always in one's heart,  And twilight in one's cell, We turn the crank, or tear the rope,  Each in his separate Hell, And the silence is more awful far  Than the sound of a brazen bell. And never a human voice comes near  To speak a gentle word: And the eye that watches through the door  Is pitiless and hard: And by all forgot, we rot and rot,  With soul and body marred. And thus we rust Life's iron chain  Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep,  And some men make no moan: But God's eternal Laws are kind  And break the heart of stone. And every human heart that breaks,  In prison-cell or yard, Is as that broken box that gave  Its treasure to the Lord, And filled the unclean leper's house  With the scent of costliest nard. Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break  And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan  And cleanse his soul from Sin? How else but through a broken heart  May Lord Christ enter in? And he of the swollen purple throat.  And the stark and staring eyes, Waits for the holy hands that took  The Thief to Paradise; And a broken and a contrite heart  The Lord will not despise. The man in red who reads the Law  Gave him three weeks of life, Three little weeks in which to heal  His soul of his soul's strife, And cleanse from every blot of blood  The hand that held the knife. And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,  The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood,  And only tears can heal: And the crimson stain that was of Cain  Became Christ's snow-white seal. VI In Reading gaol by Reading town  There is a pit of shame, And in it lies a wretched man  Eaten by teeth of flame, In burning winding-sheet he lies,  And his grave has got no name. And there, till Christ call forth the dead,  In silence let him lie: No need to waste the foolish tear,  Or heave the windy sigh: The man had killed the thing he loved,  And so he had to die. And all men kill the thing they love,  By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look,  Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss,  The brave man with a sword!

[tremolo]

The Cramps - Blues Fix [UK Single]

01. Hard Workin' Man [1] [2] 02. It's Mighty Crazy [3] 03. Jelly Roll Rock [4] 04. Shombalor [5]

[1] Jack Nitzsche Orchestra Cover [2] Featuring Captain Beefheart [3] Lightnin' Slim Cover [4] Walter Brown & The Alleycats Cover [5] Sheriff & The Ravels Cover

[odk-2]

Sheriff and The Ravels - Shombalor (1958) Aki Aleong / Elmore Sheriff from: "Shombalor" / "Lonely One"

Produced by Aki Aleong

[7r0773r]

Engine Empire: Poems by Cathy Park Hong

BALLAD OF OUR JIM (excerpts)

Ballad of Unbidding

Our Jim’s gone deadmouthed, won’t respond to our bit, his head’s a petrified den tree— and some ursine beast from tarnation  is holed up inside it.

For nothing, he blows out a retired lawman, gunfanning buck nun sheriffs who ramble in from dried out towns to sniff out fortune.

Ghosts weed out their bodies,  whispering into sun’s paling twilight, glazing into clouds and glass needled rain shatters the dusted tundra, 

He slays them before they breed to corps. Still they come, an eternal train of settlers, chapels of ruby coppered hills flattened by the agate ants of strangers.

***

Ballad in I

Sing in this blinking twilight, in this mining district filling with wild Irish striking it rich, spinning Christ, swigging spirits, rigging spits,

picking fights, swinging fists, slitting twitching skin in livid fits, crippling limbs, spitting kinnikinnick, filling trim tins with hissing piss.

His mind’s still spiting, knifing with skill, his victimizing intrinsic within his mind, grinding within his skin, Jim sings: I’m tiring, I’m tiring.

His grim instinct wilting. Dispiriting Jim, climbing hill’s hilt, drifting Jim, sighing in this lilting, sinking light.

SHANGDU, MY AFTFUL BOOMTOWN! (excerpt)

Aubade

I long for harmine morning to lift me from my hisshurled life but my hellwhelmed county of harsh scruffed crops is marooned, my plow a beached whale’s browbone on morose miles of moor. Heft heft. I cry to my ox but no hint of green wort. Just midges to torment my ox. You intone forego lament, willingly forfeit the ai-ai. so I slaughter my ox. So hi-hi! I am ready in my plaidwhelmed puffpuff golf hat. Ready to be whelmed by a petstore cacophony of crickets shirruping in their cage balls, juddering slam of hammering jack, humming sussurations of catamarans, aerosol striations of welder’s firecrack, then a caracas of fist cracks after workers slurp off their goggled specs to a bassooning fog horn hooning so spooning lovers know when to return to their dawn shift, tuning cymbals for toy baboons who clap clap, Hail the Industrial Age, hail!

THE WORLD CLOUD (excerpt)

A Visitation

You are at home. You are wearing bicycle shorts though you don’t own a bike. Outside your window, you see a flower you don’t recognize. The voice of Gregory Peck booms: Honey Suckle. You don’t know anything anymore. You remember an old trivia show you watched when you were young. The contestant went to Stanford. You remember his name: Stan Chan. The first question was always absurdly easy, almost as if it was testing your listening skills. The host asked Stan Chan what a nectarine was closest to: a. orange, b. peach, c. banana, d. grape. Stan chuckled: Well, I think I should know this one. It’s a. orange. You remember the host’s expression. You look at the toaster and think taco. An ad pops up in the air for a trip to Cabo San Lucas. The snow is still beta. You feel the smart snow monitoring you, uploading your mind so anyone can access your content. Circuits cross and you hear a one-sided chat: Da! Da! Da! You tap in the air for the volume control and listen to Ravel. You refresh your feed. Nothing from him. It is too hot here. You hate this satellite Californian town near the satellite tech campus where you and your husband used to work as data scanners. When they laid both of you off, you tried work as freelancers from your home offices. You used to chirp at each other like demented birds. Another chime. It’s a real chime. A man delivering your groceries: a dozen cantaloupes. He looks like your husband. You think of inviting him in. Why did you order a dozen cantaloupes? You hear a woman crying. Lately, you’ve been fascinated by a user-generated hologram: an ethnically ambiguous boy who pretends to drop dead from a shoot-out. The boy wakes up when his mother comes home. She scolds him and turns off the camera. You blink to go offline. It is like all the quiet Sundays of your childhood. You think you hear your husband sigh but he’s only breathing. He used to stare into the middle distance for weeks until you lugged him to bed. You tucked him in.

[theshameisontheotherside]

The Ballad Of Reading Gaol -Oscar Wilde

(In memoriam C. T. W. Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire July 7, 1896) I He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed. He walked amongst the Trial Men In a suit of shabby grey; A cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay; But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day. I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by. I walked, with other souls in pain, Within another ring, And was wondering if the man had done A great or little thing, When a voice behind me whispered low, 'THAT FELLOW'S GOT TO SWING.' Dear Christ! the very prison walls Suddenly seemed to reel, And the sky above my head became Like a casque of scorching steel; And, though I was a soul in pain, My pain I could not feel. I only knew what hunted thought Quickened his step, and why He looked upon the garish day With such a wistful eye; The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die. Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold. Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die. He does not die a death of shame On a day of dark disgrace, Nor have a noose about his neck, Nor a cloth upon his face, Nor drop feet foremost through the floor Into an empty space. He does not sit with silent men Who watch him night and day; Who watch him when he tries to weep, And when he tries to pray; Who watch him lest himself should rob The prison of its prey. He does not wake at dawn to see Dread figures throng his room, The shivering Chaplain robed in white, The Sheriff stern with gloom, And the Governor all in shiny black, With the yellow face of Doom. He does not rise in piteous haste To put on convict-clothes, While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes Each new and nerve-twitched pose, Fingering a watch whose little ticks Are like horrible hammer-blows. He does not know that sickening thirst That sands one's throat, before The hangman with his gardener's gloves Slips through the padded door, And binds one with three leathern thongs, That the throat may thirst no more. He does not bend his head to hear The Burial Office read, Nor, while the terror of his soul Tells him he is not dead, Cross his own coffin, as he moves Into the hideous shed. He does not stare upon the air Through a little roof of glass: He does not pray with lips of clay For his agony to pass; Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek The kiss of Caiaphas. II Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard, In the suit of shabby grey: His cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay, But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day. I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every wandering cloud that trailed Its ravelled fleeces by. He did not wring his hands, as do Those witless men who dare To try to rear the changeling Hope In the cave of black Despair: He only looked upon the sun, And drank the morning air. He did not wring his hands nor weep, Nor did he peek or pine, But he drank the air as though it held Some healthful anodyne; With open mouth he drank the sun As though it had been wine! And I and all the souls in pain, Who tramped the other ring, Forgot if we ourselves had done A great or little thing, And watched with gaze of dull amaze The man who had to swing. And strange it was to see him pass With a step so light and gay, And strange it was to see him look So wistfully at the day, And strange it was to think that he Had such a debt to pay. For oak and elm have pleasant leaves That in the springtime shoot: But grim to see is the gallows-tree, With its adder-bitten root, And, green or dry, a man must die Before it bears its fruit! The loftiest place is that seat of grace For which all worldlings try: But who would stand in hempen band Upon a scaffold high, And through a murderer's collar take His last look at the sky? It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air! So with curious eyes and sick surmise We watched him day by day, And wondered if each one of us Would end the self-same way, For none can tell to what red Hell His sightless soul may stray. At last the dead man walked no more Amongst the Trial Men, And I knew that he was standing up In the black dock's dreadful pen, And that never would I see his face In God's sweet world again. Like two doomed ships that pass in storm We had crossed each other's way: But we made no sign, we said no word, We had no word to say; For we did not meet in the holy night, But in the shameful day. A prison wall was round us both, Two outcast men we were: The world had thrust us from its heart, And God from out His care: And the iron gin that waits for Sin Had caught us in its snare. III In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard, And the dripping wall is high, So it was there he took the air Beneath the leaden sky, And by each side a Warder walked, For fear the man might die. Or else he sat with those who watched His anguish night and day; Who watched him when he rose to weep, And when he crouched to pray; Who watched him lest himself should rob Their scaffold of its prey. The Governor was strong upon The Regulations Act: The Doctor said that Death was but A scientific fact: And twice a day the Chaplain called, And left a little tract. And twice a day he smoked his pipe, And drank his quart of beer: His soul was resolute, and held No hiding-place for fear; He often said that he was glad The hangman's hands were near. But why he said so strange a thing No Warder dared to ask: For he to whom a watcher's doom Is given as his task, Must set a lock upon his lips, And make his face a mask. Or else he might be moved, and try To comfort or console: And what should Human Pity do Pent up in Murderers' Hole? What word of grace in such a place Could help a brother's soul? With slouch and swing around the ring We trod the Fools' Parade! We did not care: we knew we were The Devil's Own Brigade: And shaven head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade. We tore the tarry rope to shreds With blunt and bleeding nails; We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, And cleaned the shining rails: And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, And clattered with the pails. We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still. So still it lay that every day Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: And we forgot the bitter lot That waits for fool and knave, Till once, as we tramped in from work, We passed an open grave. With yawning mouth the yellow hole Gaped for a living thing; The very mud cried out for blood To the thirsty asphalte ring: And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair Some prisoner had to swing. Right in we went, with soul intent On Death and Dread and Doom: The hangman, with his little bag, Went shuffling through the gloom: And each man trembled as he crept Into his numbered tomb. That night the empty corridors Were full of forms of Fear, And up and down the iron town Stole feet we could not hear, And through the bars that hide the stars White faces seemed to peer. He lay as one who lies and dreams In a pleasant meadow-land, The watchers watched him as he slept, And could not understand How one could sleep so sweet a sleep With a hangman close at hand. But there is no sleep when men must weep Who never yet have wept: So we - the fool, the fraud, the knave - That endless vigil kept, And through each brain on hands of pain Another's terror crept. Alas! it is a fearful thing To feel another's guilt! For, right within, the sword of Sin Pierced to its poisoned hilt, And as molten lead were the tears we shed For the blood we had not spilt. The Warders with their shoes of felt Crept by each padlocked door, And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, Grey figures on the floor, And wondered why men knelt to pray Who never prayed before. All through the night we knelt and prayed, Mad mourners of a corse! The troubled plumes of midnight were The plumes upon a hearse: And bitter wine upon a sponge Was the savour of Remorse. The grey cock crew, the red cock crew, But never came the day: And crooked shapes of Terror crouched, In the corners where we lay: And each evil sprite that walks by night Before us seemed to play. They glided past, they glided fast, Like travellers through a mist: They mocked the moon in a rigadoon Of delicate turn and twist, And with formal pace and loathsome grace The phantoms kept their tryst. With mop and mow, we saw them go, Slim shadows hand in hand: About, about, in ghostly rout They trod a saraband: And the damned grotesques made arabesques, Like the wind upon the sand! With the pirouettes of marionettes, They tripped on pointed tread: But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, As their grisly masque they led, And loud they sang, and long they sang, For they sang to wake the dead. 'Oho!' they cried, 'The world is wide, But fettered limbs go lame! And once, or twice, to throw the dice Is a gentlemanly game, But he does not win who plays with Sin In the secret House of Shame.' No things of air these antics were, That frolicked with such glee: To men whose lives were held in gyves, And whose feet might not go free, Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things, Most terrible to see. Around, around, they waltzed and wound; Some wheeled in smirking pairs; With the mincing step of a demirep Some sidled up the stairs: And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer, Each helped us at our prayers. The morning wind began to moan, But still the night went on: Through its giant loom the web of gloom Crept till each thread was spun: And, as we prayed, we grew afraid Of the Justice of the Sun. The moaning wind went wandering round The weeping prison-wall: Till like a wheel of turning steel We felt the minutes crawl: O moaning wind! what had we done To have such a seneschal? At last I saw the shadowed bars, Like a lattice wrought in lead, Move right across the whitewashed wall That faced my three-plank bed, And I knew that somewhere in the world God's dreadful dawn was red. At six o'clock we cleaned our cells, At seven all was still, But the sough and swing of a mighty wing The prison seemed to fill, For the Lord of Death with icy breath Had entered in to kill. He did not pass in purple pomp, Nor ride a moon-white steed. Three yards of cord and a sliding board Are all the gallows' need: So with rope of shame the Herald came To do the secret deed. We were as men who through a fen Of filthy darkness grope: We did not dare to breathe a prayer, Or to give our anguish scope: Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope. For Man's grim Justice goes its way, And will not swerve aside: It slays the weak, it slays the strong, It has a deadly stride: With iron heel it slays the strong, The monstrous parricide! We waited for the stroke of eight: Each tongue was thick with thirst: For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate That makes a man accursed, And Fate will use a running noose For the best man and the worst. We had no other thing to do, Save to wait for the sign to come: So, like things of stone in a valley lone, Quiet we sat and dumb: But each man's heart beat thick and quick, Like a madman on a drum! With sudden shock the prison-clock Smote on the shivering air, And from all the gaol rose up a wail Of impotent despair, Like the sound that frightened marshes hear From some leper in his lair. And as one sees most fearful things In the crystal of a dream, We saw the greasy hempen rope Hooked to the blackened beam, And heard the prayer the hangman's snare Strangled into a scream. And all the woe that moved him so That he gave that bitter cry, And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I: For he who lives more lives than one More deaths than one must die. IV There is no chapel on the day On which they hang a man: The Chaplain's heart is far too sick, Or his face is far too wan, Or there is that written in his eyes Which none should look upon. So they kept us close till nigh on noon, And then they rang the bell, And the Warders with their jingling keys Opened each listening cell, And down the iron stair we tramped, Each from his separate Hell. Out into God's sweet air we went, But not in wonted way, For this man's face was white with fear, And that man's face was grey, And I never saw sad men who looked So wistfully at the day. I never saw sad men who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue We prisoners called the sky, And at every careless cloud that passed In happy freedom by. But there were those amongst us all Who walked with downcast head, And knew that, had each got his due, They should have died instead: He had but killed a thing that lived, Whilst they had killed the dead. For he who sins a second time Wakes a dead soul to pain, And draws it from its spotted shroud, And makes it bleed again, And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, And makes it bleed in vain! Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb With crooked arrows starred, Silently we went round and round The slippery asphalte yard; Silently we went round and round, And no man spoke a word. Silently we went round and round, And through each hollow mind The Memory of dreadful things Rushed like a dreadful wind, And Horror stalked before each man, And Terror crept behind. The Warders strutted up and down, And kept their herd of brutes, Their uniforms were spick and span, And they wore their Sunday suits, But we knew the work they had been at, By the quicklime on their boots. For where a grave had opened wide, There was no grave at all: Only a stretch of mud and sand By the hideous prison-wall, And a little heap of burning lime, That the man should have his pall. For he has a pall, this wretched man, Such as few men can claim: Deep down below a prison-yard, Naked for greater shame, He lies, with fetters on each foot, Wrapt in a sheet of flame! And all the while the burning lime Eats flesh and bone away, It eats the brittle bone by night, And the soft flesh by day, It eats the flesh and bone by turns, But it eats the heart alway. For three long years they will not sow Or root or seedling there: For three long years the unblessed spot Will sterile be and bare, And look upon the wondering sky With unreproachful stare. They think a murderer's heart would taint Each simple seed they sow. It is not true! God's kindly earth Is kindlier than men know, And the red rose would but blow more red, The white rose whiter blow. Out of his mouth a red, red rose! Out of his heart a white! For who can say by what strange way, Christ brings His will to light, Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore Bloomed in the great Pope's sight? But neither milk-white rose nor red May bloom in prison-air; The shard, the pebble, and the flint, Are what they give us there: For flowers have been known to heal A common man's despair. So never will wine-red rose or white, Petal by petal, fall On that stretch of mud and sand that lies By the hideous prison-wall, To tell the men who tramp the yard That God's Son died for all. Yet though the hideous prison-wall Still hems him round and round, And a spirit may not walk by night That is with fetters bound, And a spirit may but weep that lies In such unholy ground, He is at peace - this wretched man - At peace, or will be soon: There is no thing to make him mad, Nor does Terror walk at noon, For the lampless Earth in which he lies Has neither Sun nor Moon. They hanged him as a beast is hanged: They did not even toll A requiem that might have brought Rest to his startled soul, But hurriedly they took him out, And hid him in a hole. They stripped him of his canvas clothes, And gave him to the flies: They mocked the swollen purple throat, And the stark and staring eyes: And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud In which their convict lies. The Chaplain would not kneel to pray By his dishonoured grave: Nor mark it with that blessed Cross That Christ for sinners gave, Because the man was one of those Whom Christ came down to save. Yet all is well; he has but passed To Life's appointed bourne: And alien tears will fill for him Pity's long-broken urn, For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn V I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long. But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life, And the sad world began, But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan. This too I know - and wise it were If each could know the same - That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim. With bars they blur the gracious moon, And blind the goodly sun: And they do well to hide their Hell, For in it things are done That Son of God nor son of Man Ever should look upon! The vilest deeds like poison weeds, Bloom well in prison-air; It is only what is good in Man That wastes and withers there: Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, And the Warder is Despair. For they starve the little frightened child Till it weeps both night and day: And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, And gibe the old and grey, And some grow mad, and all grow bad, And none a word may say. Each narrow cell in which we dwell Is a foul and dark latrine, And the fetid breath of living Death Chokes up each grated screen, And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity's machine. The brackish water that we drink Creeps with a loathsome slime, And the bitter bread they weigh in scales Is full of chalk and lime, And Sleep will not lie down, but walks Wild-eyed, and cries to Time. But though lean Hunger and green Thirst Like asp with adder fight, We have little care of prison fare, For what chills and kills outright Is that every stone one lifts by day Becomes one's heart by night. With midnight always in one's heart, And twilight in one's cell, We turn the crank, or tear the rope, Each in his separate Hell, And the silence is more awful far Than the sound of a brazen bell. And never a human voice comes near To speak a gentle word: And the eye that watches through the door Is pitiless and hard: And by all forgot, we rot and rot, With soul and body marred. And thus we rust Life's iron chain Degraded and alone: And some men curse, and some men weep, And some men make no moan: But God's eternal Laws are kind And break the heart of stone. And every human heart that breaks, In prison-cell or yard, Is as that broken box that gave Its treasure to the Lord, And filled the unclean leper's house With the scent of costliest nard. Ah! happy they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win! How else may man make straight his plan And cleanse his soul from Sin? How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in? And he of the swollen purple throat, And the stark and staring eyes, Waits for the holy hands that took The Thief to Paradise; And a broken and a contrite heart The Lord will not despise. The man in red who reads the Law Gave him three weeks of life, Three little weeks in which to heal His soul of his soul's strife, And cleanse from every blot of blood The hand that held the knife. And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, The hand that held the steel: For only blood can wipe out blood, And only tears can heal: And the crimson stain that was of Cain Became Christ's snow-white seal. VI In Reading gaol by Reading town There is a pit of shame, And in it lies a wretched man Eaten by teeth of flame, In a burning winding-sheet he lies, And his grave has got no name. And there, till Christ call forth the dead, In silence let him lie: No need to waste the foolish tear, Or heave the windy sigh: The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die. And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

[wonderwomancharacter]

Day 372: George Zenko

Retired military man and naturally friend of Steve Trevors, George Zenko was a first generation immigrant who came to the country and settled into a small town down south, getting a job as a short order cook at 'Sams eat bar' a place which serves both alchohol, and food palatable to people who are drunk.

However one day, Steve Trevor received a note from George, asking for help and talking about how he has been harassed over the past few weeks and feared for his life. Concerned, Steve declared he would take a week off but before he could head for a train, he was met by Wonder Woman who carrying him under her arm, leaped up into the air and grabbed the ladder of her invisible plane, flying off to visit George Zenko!

When they arrived at the small town, they discovered Etta Candy and the Holliday girls doing battle with a gang of men in green sweaters and white hoods who declared that people who don't look like them must die, along with those who support them!

Landing, Wonder Woman saw the gang had George Zenko and his employer Sam tied up to a flag pole, attempting to hang them to death! Getting Steves attention as she waded her way through the savage mob, she left it to Steve Trevor to shoot down the nooses while Wonder Woman caught the pair, and moved them away from the scuffle as Etta Candy and the Holliday girl strung up the lot of them.

However a handful of men on horse back seeing this, ran in and throwing lassos around Wonder Woman, began galloping off in four directions, intending to kill Wonder Woman! However instead, Wonder Woman simply stood in place with a smile on her face and when they reached the end of their ropes, the four men cried out as they were unhorsed, having to tight a grip on the rope, followed by Wonder Woman spinning in circles, raveling the four men to her before breaking the ropes, and capturing the four men.

Shortly after the last of them were strung up, the town sheriff arrived and declared that he would take the lot of them to jail, with Wonder Woman none the wiser that the sheriff upon getting a few blocks away from the scene, simply let the lot of them go and warned them to lay low for a bit.

With the fiends seemingly dealt with, Wonder Woman met with Steve who was getting the story from George. He explained that a man by the name of Doctor Frenzi had come into the area last year and had been declaring that all of the woes and problems people have had over the course of their lives was the vault of immigrants and people who were different from them, who ruined their lives by being different. That Doctor Frenzi was driving people into a frenzy claiming that they were stealing jobs from 'honest hard working americans' and that the lot of them needed to be killed for the good of the community'

When Sam refused to fire George, Doctor Frenzi ordered his followers to kill the both of them, which they would have done if Etta and the Holliday girls hadn't happened along on one of their excurions around the world and fended them off long enough for Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor to save the day.

Wonder Woman not about to stand by while bigots preyed on the innocent, declared she would put an end to Doctor Frenzis genocidal schemes.

[bestfrozentreats2]

Sheriff & The Ravels - Shombalor (Vee-Jay 306) with the Lyrics

In 1958 Sheriff and the Revels recorded a song based on an African work chant which as been delighting listeners since. Peter Stampfel did a terrific translation of the song lyrics which I have presented here in my video. Originally came out on VJ Records.