Sleepers Awake

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:17:47 -0800

Gethsemane Series
Inks on hand-made paper
3’ x 4”

Nancy Kiefer

Keeping Quiet A Callarse (Redux)

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:04:00 -0800

Happy New Year!
Once again, this poem by Pablo Neruda surfaces as the most appropriate for another year.

All year I search for the poem that expresses the renewal of the year and this one by Pablo Neruda, written over 50 years ago continues to surface. Both English translation and Spanish original.
Blessings to all--

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), "Keeping Quiet"
Extravagaria (translated by Alastair Reid)
Jonathan Cape, London, 1972, pp.27-29
(original Estravagario, Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1958)

A Callarse
Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.
Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningun idioma,
por un segundo detengamonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.

Seria un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estariamos juntos
en una inquietud instantanea.

Los pescadores del mar frio
no harian danio a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraria sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrian un traje puro
y andarian con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inaccion definitiva:
la vida es solo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unanimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamas
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos ensenie
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contare hasta doce
y tu te callas y me voy.

Extravagaria
Pablo Neruda
1958

Painting Red Stripe by Nancy Kiefer

Danceland Visible Cities

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:12:19 -0700

In response to poet Ryan Collin’s call for submissions to The Visible Cities Project, a mysterious poem appeared on my last blog entry comment site and it is worth a look. Danceland, a cosmic ballroom that could exist anywhere in the universe, was also a fixture in Davenport ,Iowa. The Visible Cities project is a poetic inquiry into the Quad Cities region....

The anonymous author provides only this bio:

“After suffering writer's block as an Aesthetic Monk on an isolated Mississippi River bluff, he traveled the world as an itinerant poet, trading light verse for food and shelter. Finally he settled on a path of Mid-west Gothic mysticism, and is now restoring old houses in his mind. He wanted to submit by writing verse on a Tibetan prayer flag and sending it on the wind but posted it here instead.”

Handy Stardust

Dan had a country western band,
I was a hired gun.
He had a gig three stories up,
A ballroom called Danceland.

Dan could not sing but liked to call
The hired guns his "boys"
We'd not rehearse his country noise
He'd shout the key. that's all.

Old men in tattered suits of plaid
And girdled glamor gals
Would shuffle round the floor like pals,
Lost friends they never had.

Big bands had graced this stage before
In glory days gone by
But now these floor boards creak and sigh
While dancers feet grow sore.

And Dan, his voice is out of key
And echoes in this room
An amplified, distorted boom
Is Danceland's eulogy.

Danceland

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 17:00:50 -0700

The King and Queen of Danceland
Oil on Paper
Nancy Kiefer

From Album The Tavern Closing Down

Temptations

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:59:47 -0700

Rock Island, Illinois, the factory town I grew up in, is sandwiched between Chicago and St. Louis. When I was growing up everything was about soul music in that town. Stax Records came through from Memphis and there was this Philly Sound and Aretha sang on Atlantic and of course Detroit was the city of destination for many wanna be singers. There were these homemade looking labels, too. We played them during lunch on portable record players.

A lot of blues around, too.
But back to soul.

Some of it was groovily sentimental yet it embodied this radiance of the time, a coming to power, the beauty of race, of black people. White girls like me didn’t get all the nuances...but the energy existed. It opened my heart and activism to the Civil Rights Movement. I am grateful I was in a town like that to absorb some of it.

A drawing from about 7th grade. Probably traced from one of my Temptation albums.

A Poem for the End of the Century

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:01:55 -0700

CZESLAW MILOSZ

When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,

I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.

What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.

Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.

Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?

To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."

"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."

To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?

Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.

Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity.

Berkeley

Drawing by Nancy Kiefer
3” x 4”

A Triangle of Cake and Icy Metal

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 17:34:26 -0700

Writer Amy Halloran pays homage to AMERICAN ROMANCES: ESSAYS by Rebecca Brown
(City Lights, 2009)

Rebecca Brown’s newest book, a collection of essays titled
“American Romances” is a gem. A beautiful triangle of cake you can eat and keep. No, an energy bar for the mind studded with the world’s best figs, plump and seedy and full of sexy nutriment. In short, if the USDA assigned values to literature, reading these words would be very, very good
for you.

Read these pieces slowly. Savor them. The way the words and ideas are stacked is astonishing, making an absurd sense I didn’t think a book liked to make. The logic here is indirect. Connections span galaxies, as in the first essay, which links Brian Wilson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Lo
and behold, the leaps work. They work very well.

Hawthorne dots the book, chunks of his writing jump-starting the essays, with nuggets of Gertrude Stein too. The latter is no surprise. Stein seems an apt literary ancestor for Brown, whose prose of shining plainspeak is a wonderful tumble downstream from Stein’s complications. But Hawthorne? The most I know of him lately is how he condemned the mass of women scribblers who threatened to overtake the profession in the mid-nineteenth century. This fact doesn’t seem to bother Brown, who spreads his words out in front of her own, revealing cloth of an ultra-high thread count, texts that shouldn’t be relegated to anything forgotten, or denied because of the anti-woman-writer sentiments Hawthorne harbored and set float on the sea of letters.

This generosity is, I think, a knee-jerk habit of Rebecca Brown’s. I know her and I am an enormous fan of her writing and her life. I am a fan of the way she shares her love of lit, and of writers, in any puddle she stirs. I was lucky enough to live nearly ten years in a city she made bright with booky moments – the Stein-a-thon, the Bronte-saurus, the fab
fundraisers for the now-gone Red and Black Books. I love her as a person and as a writer. Her fiction hurts, like icy metal on a warm tongue. If I could divide my feelings from reading, I think I would still be waxing fantastic about these essays. No one, nay no one, has ever invited me inside her scholarship in such a friendly way. She brings the academy down to earth. For which I feel an awesome thanks.

About Amy Halloran:

Amy Halloran lives in upstate NY with her husband and their two sons, all of whom have the charming characteristics of studious old men.
See more of her writing at www.amyhalloran.net

Anti-Gun Memorial March for Aaron

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 06:47:28 -0700

Aaron John Sullivan was killed in July with a military-issue assault rifle in our Central District neighborhood. He was 18 years old.

HE WAS 18 YEARS OLD!

The Aaron John Sullivan Memorial Anti-Gun Violence March will be held 6:30 PM on Thursday September 10 at Seattle Central Community College on East Pine Street.

Bring a candle. The purpose of the march is to unite with candles on the day Buddhists believe Aaron’s spirit will transition to Enlightenment. It is believed candles will help light his way.

Contact mpjasper@hotmail.com for more information

Lord Buckley’s Lips

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:58:35 -0700

Okay, they’re Man Ray’s.

But here’s what came from Lord Buckley’s lips:

"The Truth, the truth is strange to the ears even wild truth, things that happen, they supercede and carry on beyond the parallel of your practiced credulity."

Gotta love this album cover by Jim Flora from 1955:

For Sally

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:11:34 -0700

Sally, rest in peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wynYMJwEPH8

strawberry tart

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:32:30 -0700

This Is Just To Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Paintings on paper
Nancy Kiefer
Ink and WC

Dalmation House

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:45:35 -0700

Just for fun.
From Freshome.com

Imagine Lennon’s Piano

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:04:57 -0700

“The piano on which John Lennon composed IMAGINE is being photographed at significant locations in the U.S. and the world where horrific acts of violence have taken place in order to bring a message of peace”
Caroline True

Take a look at Caroline True’s site:

http://web.mac.com/caroline.true/lennonpiano/home.html

Labyrinth

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:54:28 -0700

Ariadne gave Theseus the ball of string. Why? And how come the inscription below says “in silence and hope?”

Moon

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:17:42 -0700

te escucho
1” x 2”
ink and gouache

I Scream, you scream, we all scream

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:08:08 -0700

Maybe you wanna some ice cream with your cake?

Clip from Down By Law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rK3s_BP9kE

Onomatopoeia

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:49:33 -0700

From the Greek. Means name-making. Making names from sounds. Plink, crunch, buzz.

Unlike the moon. It is so still. Yet I hear its music too. Hidden behind the hedge.

Be My Cupcake

Sat, 8 Aug 2009 07:28:45 -0700

August is all about cupcakes. My goal is to paint fifty cupcakes and cakes before September.

It is a delight to hang around bakeries and sneak out sketches between sips of coffee. Join me if you can.

Combat Paper Project

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 09:08:10 -0700

Proof that art can be made from all experiences. In this project combat soldiers make paper out of their uniforms and then produce art on the paper. Read more here:

http://www.combatpaper.org/index.html

Vortex by Mike Blake, 2007 Pulp painting on Combat Paper with American flags 

Defeat of the Minotaur

Mon, 3 Aug 2009 20:33:09 -0700

Ten Year Anniversary this month of using the 12 steps to find my way through the continuous labyrinth. Ten years ago I thought it was the labyrinth that would straighten out but now I see it is the walking through that is of value.

Nancy Kiefer
Theseus and the Minotaur
Acryclic on paper
22” x 18”

Stranger than Paradise

Sun, 2 Aug 2009 18:33:16 -0700

Because I Put a Spell on You by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins came on the radio this hot summer evening I remembered this particular Jim Jarmusch movie. Then I thought about all the other movies I love with the word paradise in them and the ones that don’t have the word paradise in them but maybe should and then I thought of the movies I haven’t seen yet that I might love. Because that’s part of paradise too.

And the dress he gives her is kinda ugly. So is that paradise?
Pair of dice? So I’ll bug off and y’all watch this you tube thing if you wanna.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpQ3HrmjjSc

To imagine

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:32:55 -0700

To imagine what is inside the wall.
Oaxaca, Mexico

Photos by D. Baldwin and G. Kono

Listen

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:40:23 -0700

An unfocused cloud in the sky. Who knows what the day will bring? Like the last few days for example.

I am refreshed (and inspired) from a visit to Pt. Hadlock to see my ever -lovin’ creative friend Suzanne Lamon and hang out in her studio where her mysterious horse paintings emerge on canvas in ochre, deep greens, blues, and some combinations of colors not yet named--(umm...”horse mauve-overland-at-dawn” or “deep sea in eye of horse?” I dunno...no real words for her colors come to mind...ach, the limits of language!)

After a four mile walk with her horses Curly and Sis, we ate steak dinners (cooked deliciously by her partner Frank) with asparagus, salad, corn, salad, wine, then the three of us had our usual wacky talk combined with boat watching from the deck, strange animated interludes, goofy stand up comedy and all the while Lucinda Williams and Bob Wills singing and yelping in the background. After a long ferry excursion home I’m off to the DRY part of Washington where the sun always shines and your tennis shoes melt on the sidewalk...

Oh yeah, and this Merwin poem comes to mind. (Thanks, Nan-Mona for sending this)--Somewhere inside of us, very deep, maybe we speak this. Maybe we do.

Listen

by W.S. Merwin

with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

Suzanne and her pals

Wanderlust

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:33:01 -0700

From Brian Evenson
“For now, it is enough for me to travel in company with myself alone, to fix upon the image of myself in my own mind and project it onto the horizon and let this draw me forward and on. I shall watch myself, and lead myself on. I will not blink. I shall not yet despair.”

From Wunderlust by Brian Evenson
http://www.tarpaulinsky.com/Spring07/Evenson.html

Painting
John in the Desert
Nancy Kiefer
Ink on paper

The Limits of Imagination

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:43:15 -0700

As much as I try, I cannot imagine what it must be like to
be a doll riding a kangaroo.