Spooniness in Full Force

I was reading an interview by my high school theater teacher. Not only is he a Shakespearean actor, he is also a poet and very interested in Keats. He comes from the similar Judeo-Christian background that I do, but he has adapted some of our common beliefs to suit his own purposes. In doing so, he has only expanded the scope and realm of those beliefs. If you want to know more about what I’m talking about, check the interview out for yourself here:

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/poetry/080222interview.html

Please forgive the format that the article appears in, particularly the ads which are geared towards an LDS community. It is the interview which is really interesting to me. He talks about inspiration. Other authors have discussed how inspiration, how genius, is something more along the demons, a thing that comes and goes. I agree more with Mr. Tanner; it is not a demon that visits us, but inspiration is rather a conduit that can be opened directly to God.

Naturally, I desire to open this conduit. It seems like with many things, however, that it is not to be, try as might. As Mr. Tanner indicates, most people never reach this state. Only after much skill has been acquired, only after much suffering for the sake of craft, only after utter mastery can the craftsmen and craftswomen let go of their training, become vulnerable, open themselves up to God, and become artists. They walk into the dark. This darkness is the light of illumination, of inspiration. We have to lose ourselves in order to find what is bigger than ourselves.

I do not think I have a lack of desire. As I am right now, I lack skill, mastery, and patience, but I know that if I desire this thing to be and put in all my effort, my God will take care of my inadequacies. The following is a poem where I try and overcome my inadequacies, where I try and practice resisting those deficiencies.


“The Violet Hulled Ship”
Liz Lyon

My body lies curled around a
rock like a pillow,
naked and waiting.
A straight vine-line cracks my head,
fractures with images of matchmakers
Oozing onto the cement, playing
their game in amber tones.
The line is heavy, the air is old.

Where I am, it shall not be there also
on this empty shore bereft of all
but the vine-line.

My vision fades, into nothing but
the gray on this abysmal handmade shore.
My heart lacks the pulsing fire, it
has not yet been on the pyre. The refiner,
the purifier’s tinctures will remain unscathing. The heart
made of hardened, hand-packed ash cannot rest
in tomes of flesh or flames of respiration.

I lie curled on this shore, waiting for
the ship with the violet hull
which will never come
to bring to life the small violet buds
of the vine-line.

For the violet-hulled ship has already passed,
lingering no longer amidst
a forlorn and forgotten body that cannot
capture the capability.
Nails grate against the cement,
scraping, perfect points of tendon’s tension,
of bone striving against muscle, of dust against rock.
The ship does not return.

Somewhere, beyond the line and empty shore, two
violet orchids wrap around a fractured ivory skull,
kissing it in the darkness.