V
Once there came a man
Who said,
“Range me all men of the world in rows.”
And instantly
There was terrific clamour among the people
Against being ranged in rows.
There was a loud quarrel, world-wide.
It endured for ages;
And blood was shed
By those who would not stand in rows,
And by those who pined to stand in rows.
Eventually, the man went to death, weeping.
And those who staid in bloody scuffle
Knew not the great simplicity.

XXII
Once I saw mountains angry,
And ranged in battle-front.
Against them stood a little man;
Aye, he was no bigger than my finger.
I laughed, and spoke to one near me,
“Will he prevail?”
“Surely,” replied this other;
“His grandfathers beat them many times.”
Then did I see much virtue in grandfathers –
At least, for the little man
Who stood against the mountains.

XXIV
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never — “

“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.

XXVIII
“Truth,” said a traveller,
“Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
Often have I been to it,
Even to its highest tower,
From whence the world looks black.”

“Truth,” said a traveller,
“Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment.”
And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.

And total vengeance? Nothing!… Even so,
We want it! Industrialists, princes, senates,
Die! Down with power, justice, history!
This is our due. Blood! Blood! The golden flame!

Throw everything into war, vengeance, terror,
My soul! We must spin in those jaws! Republics
Of the known world, wither! Emperors
Out! Regiments, settlers, nations, out! out! out!

Who’ll Stir up the whirlwinds of frenzied fire
If not us and those we call our brothers? Partners
In Romance, our turn has come, we’ll revel in it.
We shall never toil, O waves of fire!

Europe, Asia, America, disappear!
Everything has fallen to our march of revenge -
Cities and hinterlands! – We will be crushed!
Volcanoes will explode! And the ocean stricken…

Oh, my friends! My heart, I know they’re brothers:
Dark strangers, if we once got started! Let’s go! Go!
I can’t! I’m beginning to tremble, the old earth
Is on me – I am more and more yours – the earth melts.

It’s an illusion. I’m here. I’m still here.

The Railroads and other early corporations were simply too big and too technical to be built or insured by the incorporator’s investments alone. When corporations failed, as they often did, the incorporators did not have the wealth to cover the damage. No one did. Thus, a limit was placed on the investor’s liability, on the amount of damage for which they could be held liable.

Limited liability has allowed several generations of corporation owners to economically, psychologically, and legally ignore the limits of toxics, fisheries depletion, debt, and so on.

To expect corporations to function any differently is to engage in make-believe. We may as well expect a clock to cook, a car to give birth, or a gun to plant flowers. The specific and explicit function of for-profit corporations is to amass wealth. The function is not to guarantee that children are raised in environments free of toxic chemicals, nor to respect the autonomy or existence of indigenous peoples, not to protect the vocational or personal integrity of workers, nor to design safe modes of transportation, nor to support life on this planet. Nor is the function to serve communities. It never has been and never will be.

To expect corporations to do anything other than amass wealth is to ignore our culture’s entire history, current practices, current power structure and its system of rewards. It is to ignore everything we know about behavior modification: we reward those investing in or running corporations for what they do, and can therefore expect them to do it again. To expect those who hide behind corporate shields to do otherwise is delusional.

Limited liability corporations are institutions created explicitly to separate humans from the effects of their actions–making them, by definition, inhuman and inhumane. To the degree that we desire to live in a human and humane world–and, really, to the degree that we wish to survive–limited liabilty corporations need to be eliminated.

[This article first appeared in the March 2003 issue of the Ecologist.]

Every character he ever wrote,

Was a soul he met on a riverboat;

As for me,

And the characters I  know,

I met them all,

–Riding on lifts blinded by snow.

The train rattles on through beer, supper, songs, sleep, tea and English breakfast. In the oval engraved mirror of a colonial dining car I actually take notice of my face for the first time in a long while. Action has freed me from self-consciousness, and I am becoming a stranger to my own appearance. It is a very satisfying feeling. I no longer think of people seeing me as I see myself in a mirror. Instead I imagine that people can see directly into my soul. It is as though a screen between me and the world has dropped away.

If you have not been exposed to this book, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Get it. Read it. Then apply to become my friend once more. T.F.C.O.

Mass Embroidery's New Logo

Mass Embroidery's First Job

Mr. Stewart Gray and myself have acquired an embroidery shop. If you would like a customized quote (we do jobs of all sizes) just drop me a line here.

Please excuse the quality of the photograph. My camera phone is very hard to hold still after nine cups of coffee. Thank god Stewart has a steady hand!

Foreign parts are out. I’ll head for the roads round here again, saddled with my vice – the vice that took painful root in my side when I grew up . . . it rakes the sky, batters me, flattens me, drags me on.

The dregs of innocence, the last scrap of reticence. It’s on record. I refuse to carry my loathings and betrayals into the world.

All right then. The slog, the backpack, the desert, tedium and anger.

Who shall I sign up with? Which brute shall I worship? What holy image shall I desecrate? Whose hearts shall I break? What lie shall I espouse? Whose blood shall I trample?

Better to steer clear of the law. – The hard life; pure, mindless drudgery – raise the coffin lid with a shrivelled hand, settle in and expire. That way no growing old, no risks run: terror is unknown to the French.

- Ah but I’m so desolate, I’ll dedicate my drive for perfection to the first divine image that happens along.

What self-denial! What consummate charity! Still stuck here, even so!

De profundis Domine, how foolish can you get?

Read the rest of Rimbaud’s groundbreaking work “A Season In Hell“

Feeling like the world is becoming less friendly? Social theorist Jonathan Zittrain begs to difffer. The Internet, he suggests, is made up of millions of disinterested acts of kindness, curiosity and trust.

Then, the camera killed the eye.

Today; there is elegance in the courage required,

– To simply observe a thing,

Without making a document of it.