*Barbarians at the Gates*

They are gone now, former *Sun* editor Doug Ray, or going--editorial page
editor Nathan Crabbe.  Their mentor Ron Cunningham also recognizes that
journalism’s horse & buggy days are over. So I no longer will run for
public office, or contribute guest columns and letters to the editor.

They leave behind these words:  Ray: “When telling the news is not
enough…..Journalism gets us nowhere if we don’t engage honestly and
directly with the communities we serve.”  Crabbe: “We sometimes can’t seem
to get our act together as a community, squabbling over minor issues rather
than focusing on larger goals. People too often seem more interested in
protecting their own turf rather than collaborating on common interests.”

“It breaks my heart to see *The Sun* and other newspapers opt out of the
‘argument of daily life;’ by reducing or eliminating editorial and op-ed
pages. The only other ‘public forum’ out there is a social media jungle
that is as deceptive as it is treacherous,” Ron Cunningham.

*Three Hollow Men*

Mistah Ray, he gone.

                    Going now. Nathan Crabbe.

They are two hollow men
They are two stuffed men
    leaning together
    headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    their dried voices, when
    they whispered together
    were quiet and meaningless
    as wind in dry grass
    or rats' feet over broken glass
    in our sick city.


    Shape without form, shade without color,
    paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

They double crossed
    with senseless “I’s,  in life’s wordy Kingdom,
    to be remembered-if at all-not as lost
    tortured souls, but only
    as two hollow men
    two stuffed men.

They, we dare not meet in dreams
    in life’s dark kingdom
    nor  let them appear
    here; their “I”s are
    dim lit on an old news column.
    Theirs is a lie swinging
    between voices
    in the wind's singing
    more distant now less solemn
    than a fading star.
    Let me be no nearer
    to their dark kingdom;
    let me also wear
    such deliberate disguises--
    rat's coat, black skin, cross-eyed,
    In a field
    behaving as the wind behaves--
    No nearer-

     No last final  meeting
    In some twilight kingdom.

    Theirs is the dead land;
    Theirs is prickly land.
    Here their false images
    are praised, here they receive
    the supplication of a cunning man,
    under the twinkle of a fading star.
    Is it like this
    in life’s other kingdom,
    waking alone
    at the hour when we are
    trembling with meaningless
    tips which always miss,
    prayers formed to broken gods?

    Their “I’s  are not here;
    There are no “I”s here
    in this valley of dying stars,
    in this hollow city
    with broken jaws, in their lost kingdom.

   In this last of meeting places,
    they grope together
    and avoid speech
    gathered on an edge of this stagnant swamp.

     Sightless, unless
    the “I’s  reappear
    as the perpetual stars
    multifoliate rose
    in life’s twilight kingdom--
    the hope only
    of empty men.
    *Here we go round Sun’s prickly pair,*


*     Prickly pair, prickly pair.     Here we go round the prickly pair,
  at five o'clock in the morning.*

    Between the idea
    And the reality
    Between the motion
    And the act
    Falls the Shadow
                                    *For Theirs is the false life.*


    Between the conception
    And the creation
    Between the emotion
    And the response
    Falls the Shadow
                                    *Life is very long*

    Between the desire
    And the spasm
    Between the potency
    And the existence
    Between the essence
    And the descent
    Falls the Shadow
                                    *For Theirs is the false life.*

    For Theirs  is
    the Lie,
    For Truth is wha?

    *Theirs is the way the world ends*


*     Theirs is the way the world ends     Theirs  is the way the world
ends     Not with a bang but a whimper.*

*Fare thee well. (600 words).*

*Gabe Kaimowitz, Esq., a Gainesville resident.*

*The third Hollow Man is Sun’s retired editorial page editor Ron
Cunningham, referred to in the modified poem as “cunning man.”  This poem
credits the late T. S. Eliot with the original version of the Hollow Men,
as updated and applied through the eyes of H. G. Kaimowitz*

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