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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’

A Matter of Degrees?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 29, 2024| 8 Comments »

To the Main Road
At West End Gallery

I have been thinking about the difference between our highs and lows, between those times when we feel on top of the world and those times when we feel as though we are in an abyss. It’s a typical holiday theme for me, when such contrasts seem to stand out among so many people, including myself.

I wonder what it is in an individual that makes them swing one way or the other, high or low. Is it a massive difference in circumstance and perception between these people?

Or is it just matter of degrees? Could it be that there are times when we only feel 51% positive about everything but that is enough to swing us to what feels like a high point?  And could there be other times when we are only feeling 51% gloomy but that tips the scales enough so that we feel as though the bottom has dropped out on one’s life? 

It seems plausible, given how quickly these swings can shift. But maybe that’s just me. I don’t know, of course. Just thinking out loud. Actually, this thought came after coming across the post below from four years back where the poet Maggie Smith (not the wonderful British actress who we lost this past year) described life as at least fifty percent terrible. Made me think of things in matter of degrees and what is entailed in shifting those the balance one way or the other. I would really like to know.

At the very bottom, I have added this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s Superstar from the Carpenters, the brother-sister duo that I never shared here before. Probably because I wasn’t a fan when I was kid and they were everywhere, constantly on the radio and TV. You couldn’t flip on a variety show back then without seeing the two. But over the years, I came to truly appreciate them, especially the glorious tone of Karen Carpenter‘s voice. Her voice seldom fails to provoke a response within me. That would have been a shock to the 12-year-old me back in the day.

But I made the choice of this song not only because it is beautifully written (Leon Russell wrote it with singer Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney & Bonnie), arranged, and performed, but because Karen Carpenter knew more than a little about living a life of shifting degrees. Give a listen and be thankful if you’re seeing the world at least 51% positive today.

GOOD BONES/ by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

I came across this 2016 poem from American poet Maggie Smith very early this morning and it really struck a chord. 

We all want things right now, want them to be complete and perfect. Move in ready. But things are seldom that way. It requires imagination and desire to see the potential that things hold. And hard work and determination to reach that potential.

“This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”

Indeed.

I had never seen or heard this poem but it is quite well known. It has been read and published around the world and Maggie Smith is often asked to read it at events. She calls it her Freebird, which is quite a funny line.

It was written in the aftermath of the 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people. Its popularity was maintained through the momentous 2016 elections here and in the UK –it was called “Official Poem of 2016” by the BBC/Public Radio International— and has continuously popped up throughout the past four years as folks to try to maintain optimism in the dark atmosphere that has marked this era.

I somehow missed it until about 5:30 this morning. Always late to the dance.

But I imagine that this poem will remain popular because, as she points out, the world is at least fifty percent terrible and will no doubt remain so. It will always require plenty of imagination, desire, determination — and throw in loads of blood, sweat and tears– to overcome the awfulness that resides side-by-side with us in this world so that we can make it into that perfect home we all dream of for ourselves.

“This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”

Indeed.

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The Things We Dare Not Tell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Archaeology- Déjà Vu sm

Archaeology: Déjà Vu— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell

— The Things We Dare Not Tell, Henry Lawson (1867-1922)

A video for this poem popped up in my YouTube feed for some algorithmic reason I can’t comprehend. I am glad it did.

I first encountered the Australian writer Henry Lawson (1867-1922) a few years back when I stumbled across a poem of his, The Wander-Light, that I shared here. It has been a pretty popular post, receiving a number of views on a daily basis. Doing some research back then, I found that Lawson is an Australian icon, considered to be perhaps the country’s greatest poet and short story writer.  He was a brilliant writer and storyteller but struggled with alcoholism and mental illness for much of his life until dying at the relatively young age of 55 from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Watching the reading of the poem below, I began to think about the secrets we all carry. Oh, we may claim or attempt to be transparent, but we all maintain words and deeds and beliefs that we share with no one. Some we don’t share because, to be honest, they are things nobody would care to hear. Some are too shameful or painful or embarrassing to release from our grip.

I probably share too much here and in my talks. More than most. Mainly because I believe that transparency has a liberating effect. But even so, there are things that will no doubt go unshared to my grave. Well, that is, if I ever decide to die. If I don’t, I might break my silence in a couple of hundred years or so.

It makes me wonder what secret things others will carry to their graves, the good and the bad. Will they ever reveal themselves to some future archaeologist or researcher? Are they hidden somewhere, like one of the artifacts in the Archaeology piece at the top, waiting to be unearthed then put together like a strange and wonderful jigsaw puzzle? Small bits that together tell a bigger story?

The other thing that comes to mind is the one line in Lawson’s poem that resonated most with me:

Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!

I believe it but wonder if that is true. Do secrets keep us apart? Would revelation of all things hidden somehow bring us together?

I don’t know the answer. My lack of answers is no secret, that’s for sure.

Maybe we need those secret things just to maintain that feeling of mystery that comes with not knowing everything about everyone. 

Might that mystery be the thing that drives all types of creativity?

Could be. I don’t really know.

Okay, got to run. I have secrets waiting to be buried as well as some to be shared. It’s the sorting out that counts.

Here’s the poem from Henry Lawson along with the whole poem below it.

The Things We Dare Not Tell

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

There’s the old love wronged ere the new was won, there’s the light of long ago;
There’s the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we’re doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.

We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.

— Henry Lawson

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A Small Volcano

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- On the Blue Side 2024

On the Blue Side— At the West End Gallery

Poetic power is great, strong as a primitive instinct; it has its own unyielding rhythms in itself and breaks out as out of mountains.

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters toa Young Poet

The line above from Rilke has been translated a couple of different ways. This is an abridged version that omits any reference to the subject, a German poet, who Rilke was describing in his letter. This version becomes only about poetic power. This is the version you will mainly see quoted today.

The original version was a direct reference to Richard Dehmel, a German poet who died in 1920 from injuries sustained in WW I. Dehmel was an influential poet in Germany in the pre-war years, his verse considered very rhythmic. It was a favorite among popular composers of that era– Richard Strauss, Carl Orff, and Kurt Weill, for examples–who regularly set his poetry to their music. He is best known for his work that was strongly sexual in nature, so much so that he faced obscenity charges several times.

The original line is at the end of a paragraph where Rilke writes about his admiration for the beauty of Dehmel’s work as well as his concern that he sometimes went beyond the prevailing accepted levels of decency of that era. The original line:

His poetic strength is great and as powerful as primal instinct; it has its own relentless rhythms within, and explodes from him like a volcano.

It wasn’t changed that much actually, mainly keeping a direct reference to Dehmel and using the explosive nature of a volcano instead of breaks out as out of mountains.

I know this is not of much interest to anyone, but I only mention it because the original made me think of the Red Tree in some of my paintings as a sort of small volcanic explosion. I had never thought of them in this way and it intrigued me. It gave them a new dimension.

I can definitely see this in the painting at the top, On the Blue Side, which is at the West End Gallery. The Red Tree here has a feel of released energy, as though it is exploding from the earth. Maybe trees and everything springing from the earth is a small volcano, a bursting eruption of energy? I don’t know but I like the idea.

Hmm….

Here’s a song that is about mountains in a way. This is Remember the Mountain Bed, another favorite from Mermaid Avenue, the Wilco/Billy Bragg collaboration where they composed music for the unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics. Good stuff.

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Biding Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 19, 2024| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Biding Time 2007

Biding Time, 2007

Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end.
What is there to be or do?
What’s become of me or you?
Are we kind or are we true?
Sitting two and two, boys, waiting for the end.

–William Empson, Just a Smack at Auden

I feel like we are in a period of waiting right now. I don’t know what exactly, but it feels like we are kind of frozen in place as we wait for something to happen that will put everything into motion, for better or worse. Like we are waiting for someone to push over that first teetering domino.

Maybe it’s just me in feeling this way. Maybe it’s just the time of the year as we enter the holiday season and I am reminded of the intolerable waiting for Christmas’ arrival when I was a kid.  I am not quite so eager for whatever surprise is in store for us to arrive as I was then.

But whatever it is or isn’t, we– or maybe just me– remain somewhat frozen in place, biding our time. Finding a way to get through this waiting period is all we– or I– can do.

That brings me to the painting at the top, an older piece from 2007 that is titled Biding Time. I used to periodically paint pieces like this that were extremely simple and quiet. I viewed them then and now as meditations, as a means to finding stillness amidst the surrounding chaos. I haven’t painted one in quite some time for reasons I can’t determine which is odd because I always found most of them quietly effective., remaining in my mind for long periods of time.

This particular piece has not been shown publicly in many years and I thought it was time for it to make an appearance once again. The time seems right. It is headed to the West End Gallery tomorrow, in time for their annual Deck the Walls holiday show.

FYI– The verse at the top is from William Empson, a friend and colleague of poet W.H. Auden. In the poem Empson both pays homage and pokes a bit of fun at Auden while capturing the anxiety of post-WW II Europe that was struggling to gain its bearings amidst the nuclear threat that had risen.

Let’s have a song to go with such waiting.  Here’s a favorite, Waitin’ Around to Die from the late Townes Van Zandt.  This is from the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways, a film that captured the beginnings of the alt-country movement of that time.  This clip features Townes singing to his girlfriend and his neighbor Uncle Seymour Washington, a retired blacksmith born to ex-slaves.

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The Song of Wandering Aengus

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 30, 2024| 1 Comment »

GC Myers-- Follow the River sm

Follow the River— At Principle Gallery

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

—William Butler Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus

The last Wednesday before a most important election here in the US. Let’s set politics aside for the day and focus on things of beauty, of mystery, of wonder. Those things that make this life more than tolerable. Things that deepen our existence here on this spinning rock we call home.

A fine example, in my mind, is the wonderful poem above from a favorite poet, William Butler Yeats. Perhaps we’re all a bit like Wandering Aengus, silently seeking something forever elusive.

Some of us might know what we seek. Some may not.

It probably doesn’t matter so long as we continue to seek whatever it might be that tugs at our soul. I think we all need that in some form or another. Until time and times are done…

Here’s Donovan with his version of the poem in the form of a song. Lovely.

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Old Man River

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 19, 2024| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- And the River Flows 2024

And the River Flows– At the West End Gallery

That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.

–Gwendolyn Brooks, Paul Robeson

I had come across part of the poem above from Gwendolyn Brooks before, those last three lines: …we are each other’s harvest: we are each other’s business: we are each other’s magnitude and bond. These are strong lines, sentiments that always speak loudly to me, ones that I hope will more people would realize and take to heart.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t taken the time to search out where it had come from in her work.  I was pleased when I finally came across the whole poem and found that it was titled Paul Robeson, about someone who I consider one of the most fascinating people of the last century.

Paul Robeson (1898-1976) was a star athlete, a lead actor and headlining singer– the bright light in any sky in which his star appeared. He was also a scholar– valedictorian for the 1919 class at Rutgers where he was the only black student. He went on to graduate from Columbia Law School and worked for a time as lawyer. But his performing talents were undeniable and they brought him worldwide acclaim. But beyond all this, Robeson was throughout his life a ceaseless champion of the labor and civil rights movements, here and abroad. If you don’t know much about Robeson, please look him up.

He is best known to most folks for his performance of Old Man River in the musical Showboat. I thought the song would be a fitting companion to the painting at the top, And the River Flows. It’s a piece that keeps drawing me back to look a little deeper. I feel there’s something beyond the surface, a message or story in the river rolling by or in a lit room in one of those buildings that overlook it. I might never know that message or hear those stories but just knowing that the river keeps rolling it good enough this morning.

All I need to know…

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Autumn Leaves

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Georgia O'Keeffe Autumn Leaves

Georgia O’Keeffe- Autumn Leaves, 1924

October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.

–Henry David Thoreau

An October morning. I have nothing to say this morning. Well, that’s not true. I have things to say but don’t want to say them or, at least, don’t want to make the effort. Too interested in watching the light begin to show through the bones of the trees that have become more visible as the leaves have fallen. In the semi-dark. I am listening to Cannonball Adderley and his version of Autumn Leaves, with his all-star band featuring Miles Davis on trumpet. There are a wide range of takes on this song from many artists and most are wonderful. It’s that good a composition. But this remains a favorite for me.

Good stuff for an autumn morning…

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The People, Yes, Fours Years Later

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 7, 2024| 2 Comments »

“Approaching Storm”

The post below is from four years ago, in the runup to the 2020 presidential elections. It was a time at the end of an administration that had buffeted the American people for nearly four years of continuous lies and divisive hate-filled rhetoric. It culminated in the events of January 6, 2021. It’s four years later and the person responsible for that division and violence is frantically operating at an even greater magnitude of darkness in his appeal to his followers. Tomorrow, we will be a mere four weeks from Election Day. The same person who stoked the storm that was January 6 is desperate and is once again attempting to set a whirlwind upon us that he hopes will tear us apart so that he might once more take power.

I thought this post was appropriate to this time, as it was four years before and as it was in 1936. Be mindful, my friends, for there are perilous weeks ahead of us.

Lately, I have been reading bits and pieces from a book of Carl Sandburg poems called The People, Yes. Published in 1936, It is a broad work that attempts to span the multitudes, much like Whitman and his Leaves of Grass. It is a deep reflection on the American people at that time, in the midst of the upheaval of the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism and Naziism in Europe.

As I say, I have been reading it piecemeal, picking it up at loose moments. Each time I am struck how relative it is to this time even though it is nearly 90 years old. For all the technological and societal changes that have occurred, for all the progress and sophistication we assume took place, we are still pretty much the same and pretty much in the same place. Still maintaining many of the same conceptions and misconceptions, still as biased and still as vulnerable to being manipulated.

One verse from this book that I keep coming back to is shown above, at least its beginning, #102.

It begins with bits from President Lincoln’s July 4, 1861 speech to Congress, one in which he justified his actions in the aftermath of the Confederate’s attack on Fort Sumter. In it, he outlined how the leaders of the Southern rebellion stoked the enthusiasm for conflict among the people living there through the dispersal of misinformation and fallacies. Some things never change, eh?

Reading Sandburg’s take on this is a bit scary. It seems to reflect what has happened here so well. The public has been barraged with lies and hateful, divisive rhetoric for the last four [now eight] years to the point that we are without moorings. Many of us have lost the ability to discern truth from the lie and right from wrong. And now, in this unsteady state, we are experiencing the convergence of events that have been precipitated by these actions.

We are reaping the whirlwind.

And, unfortunately, the man and his accomplices who have done this, who have unleashed this awful power, can no longer control its direction or the scope and range of its destructive power.

As Sandburg put it:

Is there a time to repeat,
“The living passions of millions can rise
into a whirlwind: the storm once loose
who can ride it? You? Or you? Or you?
only history, only tomorrow, knows
for every revolution breaks
as a child of its own convulsive hour
shooting patterns never told of beforehand”?

As I say, some things never change. There will always be those who try to benefit from inciting chaos and division upon the people. But, as it has always been, these devious people have never been able to reliably predict or control the whirlwind they let loose.

The public mind generally has the final word in such matters.

And it is speaking now.

Let us hope the people answer the call in the coming four weeks…

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In Cool Air/ No Road

Posted in Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , on July 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- In Cool Air rev sm

“In Cool Air“– Now at the West End Gallery

Drafting a world where no such road will run
From you to me;
To watch that world come up like a cold sun,
Rewarding others, is my liberty.
Not to prevent it is my will’s fulfillment.
Willing it, my ailment.

— No Road, Philip Larkin

There’s a lot to do this morning plus my computer is a little glitchy this morning so I won’t say much. I thought I’d pair the small piece above from my current West End Gallery show, In Cool Air, with a reading by Tom O’Bedlam of No Road from poet Philip Larkin. Not sure that they fully mesh in terms of tone and message but I am a sucker for Larkin’s verse with its sometimes cynical and slightly misanthropic viewpoint.

I especially like the final stanza shown above. There’s something to it that I can somewhat equate with what I do.

Or not. Who knows, really?

All I know that on a busy morning, these lines and this small painting felt like a small respite.

Good enough for me.

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Day Reborn

Posted in Philosophy, Poetry, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on July 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Day Reborn sm

“Day Reborn“– Now at the West End Gallery, Corning, NY

I am dead because I lack desire,
I lack desire because I think I possess,
I think I possess because I do not try to give,
In trying to give, you see that you have nothing,
Seeing that you have nothing, you try to give of yourself,
Trying to give of yourself, you see that you are nothing,
Seeing that you are nothing, you desire to become,
In desiring to become, you begin to live.

― Rene Daumal

In desiring to become, you begin to live…

I wasn’t sure what to put up with the new painting at the top, Day Reborn, now hanging at the West End Gallery as part of my solo show opening there this coming Friday, July 16. I came across the poem above from Rene Daumal who was a French poet and a “spiritual para-surrealist“– I don’t know what that means either– who died from tuberculosis in 1944 at the age of 36. This poem was part of his last letter to his wife just before his death, saying that it summed up what he wished to convey to those who had worked with him.

It has a nice circular pattern that matches well with the circular nature of this painting as I see it, with every night passing into the rebirth of a new day. In that new day there is the potential for living and becoming something more, the possibility to gain a bit of wisdom and to give of yourself to the world.

Every new rising of the sun is a small miracle, illuminating the many gifts this world has to offer. It is sometimes difficult to recognize these gifts when we lose ourselves in negative actions and reactions, falling prey to envy, greed, prejudice and so many more of the other darker traits. 

There’s a tone in this painting that I think expresses the sense of possibility that accompanies the new day. It is forward looking but content to exist in the moment, to simply be alive in the moment.

Not desiring more from this world but desiring to be here.

That’s my take, anyway. It makes sense at 6 AM. We’ll see how it holds up at 6 PM.

Through the Trees is currently hanging and ready to be seen. The show officially opens Friday, July 16, with an opening reception that runs from 4-7 PM at the West End Gallery on historic Market Street in Corning, NY. Unless something changes, I plan on being in attendance.

The painting shown at the top, Day Reborn, is 24″ by 24″ and is painted on an aluminum panel.

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