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