Old Poets Remembered

One happier look on your kind, suffering face,
And all my sky is domed with cloudless blue;
Eternal summer in a moment’s space
Breathes with sweet air and glows and warms me through.

One droop of your dear mouth, one tear of yours,
One gasp of Faith half-strangled by its foe,
And down through a waste world of slag and sewers
And hammering and loud wheels once more I go.

Thus, what old poets told me about love
(Tristram’s obedience, Isoud’s sovereignty…)
Turns true in a dread mode I dreamed not of,

—What once I studied, now I learn to be;
Taught, oh how late! in anguish, the response
I might have made with exultation once.

As the Ruin Falls

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love—a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

Legion

Lord, hear my voice, my present voice I mean,
Not that which may be speaking an hour hence
(For I am Legion) in an opposite sense,
And not by show of hands decide between
The multiple factions which my state has seen
Or will see. Condescend to the pretence
That what speaks now is I; in its defence
Dissolve my parliament and intervene.

Thou wilt not, though we asked it, quite recall
Free will once given. Yet to this moment’s choice
Give unfair weight. Hold me to this. Oh strain
A point—use legal fictions; for if all
My quarrelling selves must bear an equal voice,
Farewell, thou hast created me in vain.

The Apologist’s Evening Prayer

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

Footnote to All Prayers

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

Poems (1964), ed. Walter Hooper, pp. 109, 109f, 119, 129, 129.

Since the last blog post some things have happened:

1.  My roommate Pamela Merwin decided to move to Boston

2.  I moved to Midtown KC (34th and Baltimore) to a rather large turn-of-the-century home inhabited by 4 other ladies.  (How charming does GoogleMaps make my home look?)

3. I graciously accepted the offer to become a full-time, salaried STUDIO MANAGER of Blue Bouquet

4.  I have decided not to go to Regent College next Fall

5. I have enrolled in JCCC Art History classes in order to be prepared for next year’s admission process

Through all of this, I am still interning at a wonderful not-for-profit arts organization called the Charlotte Street Foundation.  I have been working a few days a week at CSF for the past 7ish months and it has been an incredibly fruitful, informative experience.  CSF was created 13 years ago to cultivate and foster a place for artists in Kansas City.  Since the organization’s inception, KC has become and educated population that values her arts community and supports artists on many levels.  I cannot say enough about the incredible impact CSF’s efforts have had on Kansas City’s cultural climate.  KC is becoming a city of note in the nationwide arts community primarily due to the amazing work that CSF has encouraged.

Some of the projects:

Two fully functioning art spaces located in the heart of downtown Kansas City that feature continually-rotating exhibits year-round.

A fully-equipped performing arts space that can be used in for many different medias and forms.

These three spaces are part of Urban Culture Project, which is a CSF incentive to generate cultural activities in areas of the city that were once void of community engagement.  The properties acquired with a mission to restore vitality to the area surrounding them.  So far, the experiment is working!  La Esquina, the performing arts space, has become the base for an annual Westside block party, that includes vendors/artists unique to the locality of the space.  Other businesses have moved close to our galleries as well, generating a greater presence in the community.

Annually, CSF recognizes a few spectacular visual and performing artists through their fellowship awards programs.  Past recipients have used this award to springboard their careers into nationwide recognition and acclaim.  In fact, three such recepients will be in dialouge with a freelance curator/art critic from NY on March 28th at the Nelson.  I would HIGHLY suggest attending this!

Peregrine Honig

David Ford

Elijah Gowin

All GREAT.

This past semester, my work focused on the Art Through Architecture program, which links Architects, businesses looking to build, and local artists to facilitate integration of artworks into future building projects, as well as stimulate a collecting business community.  Great stuff.

We also have ample studio space that is awarded to visual and generative performing artists annually.  I actually helped this past month to build a stage for three dance companies that share our performing space.

All in all, there are some really exciting things happening in the KC arts community and I am overjoyed to be a part of it.  Hopefully I will continue to share the work of great local artists on this blog in the future.

Gardening-

So I can create a home that looks like this:

I would also like to learn to sew:

So I can make things like this for me:

and like this for my little girls:

That’s all for my skill set today.

a plein-air dining space

Flowers and light

old things with fresh things:

Ottoman – $6 at 2nd Chance Thrift:

Textile Warehouse where I found the upholstery for $5:

The process:

The finished:

Estate sale purchase – $20:

I painted this with our leftover wall paint, used starch to put 50 cent fabric on the front, and splurged on the hardware at Anthropologie:

Estate sale chairs – $5 each:

Reupholstered with $5 fabric:

.50 frame backed with a .50 doilie becomes an earring holder:

Fun at the thrift with Alyson: