STANDING UNDER A FALLING BOMB
.
I will allow myself to post a quote from
David Jones' work (whether novel or epic poem)
"In Parenthesis" on the First World War about which I
wrote yesterday. This from the end of the second of its
seven sections. John Ball is listening to his sergeant and...
"He looked straight at Sergeant Snell
enquiringly-whose eyes changed queerly, who ducked in
under the low entry. John Ball would have followed, but
stood fixed and alone in the little yard-his senses highly
alert, his body incapable of movement or response. The
exact disposition of small things-the precise shapes of
trees, the tilt of a bucket, the movement of a straw, the
disappearing right boot of Sergeant Snell-all minute
noises, separate and distinct, in a stillness charged through
with some approaching violence-registered not by the ear
nor any single faculty-an on-rushing pervasion, saturating
all existence; with exactitude, logarithmic, dial-timed,
millesimal, of calculated velocity, some mean chemist’s
contrivance, a stinking physicist’s destroying toy.
He stood alone on the stones, his mess-tin spilled at his
feet. Out of the vortex, rifling the air it came-bright,
brass-shod, Pandoran; with all-filling screaming the howl-
ing crescendo’s up-piling snapt. The universal world,
breath held, one half second, a bludgeoned stillness. Then
the pent violence released a consummation of all burst-
ings out; all sudden up-rendings and rivings-through-all
taking-out of vents-all barrier-breaking-all unmaking.
Pernitric begetting-the dissolving and splitting of solid
things. In which unearthing aftermath, John Ball picked up
his mess-tin and hurried within; ashen, huddled, waited in
the dismal straw. Behind ‘E’ Battery, fifty yards down the
road, a great many mangolds, uprooted, pulped, congealed
with chemical earth, spattered and made slippery the rigid
boards leading to the emplacement. The sap of vegetables
slobbered the spotless breech-block of No. 3 gun."
David Jones "In Parenthesis"
Perhaps that is a moment of literature worth reading and
having read that one may not quickly forget. so sharing
with you ...
.
I will allow myself to post a quote from
David Jones' work (whether novel or epic poem)
"In Parenthesis" on the First World War about which I
wrote yesterday. This from the end of the second of its
seven sections. John Ball is listening to his sergeant and...
"He looked straight at Sergeant Snell
enquiringly-whose eyes changed queerly, who ducked in
under the low entry. John Ball would have followed, but
stood fixed and alone in the little yard-his senses highly
alert, his body incapable of movement or response. The
exact disposition of small things-the precise shapes of
trees, the tilt of a bucket, the movement of a straw, the
disappearing right boot of Sergeant Snell-all minute
noises, separate and distinct, in a stillness charged through
with some approaching violence-registered not by the ear
nor any single faculty-an on-rushing pervasion, saturating
all existence; with exactitude, logarithmic, dial-timed,
millesimal, of calculated velocity, some mean chemist’s
contrivance, a stinking physicist’s destroying toy.
He stood alone on the stones, his mess-tin spilled at his
feet. Out of the vortex, rifling the air it came-bright,
brass-shod, Pandoran; with all-filling screaming the howl-
ing crescendo’s up-piling snapt. The universal world,
breath held, one half second, a bludgeoned stillness. Then
the pent violence released a consummation of all burst-
ings out; all sudden up-rendings and rivings-through-all
taking-out of vents-all barrier-breaking-all unmaking.
Pernitric begetting-the dissolving and splitting of solid
things. In which unearthing aftermath, John Ball picked up
his mess-tin and hurried within; ashen, huddled, waited in
the dismal straw. Behind ‘E’ Battery, fifty yards down the
road, a great many mangolds, uprooted, pulped, congealed
with chemical earth, spattered and made slippery the rigid
boards leading to the emplacement. The sap of vegetables
slobbered the spotless breech-block of No. 3 gun."
David Jones "In Parenthesis"
Perhaps that is a moment of literature worth reading and
having read that one may not quickly forget. so sharing
with you ...
.