Some Verses

Postindustrial Dysfunction & the Shrine of Perpetual Adoration

I am washed up on the beach in Biloxi
Undertow that tore away all of the
Deep dysfunction clogged internally
The storm a powerful purgative
Rendering in bold relief postindustrial
Scape and scalpel to sliver off your skin
And run you under all over cold
Eternal oaks in the sand scourged off
Casino barged upon the sewaged strand
Money lost and life wrought naked

You come up stripped away coldly clean
And you find in startling certainty that
Death is a strange plunge to take.
It turns all your insides out in red relief

Now I sit here on this clean concrete slab
Where once Perpetual Adoration once was held
Our Lady of the Gulf’s veneration was kept
I am here and stripped away almost clean
What will be contracted within the coming tomorrow?

Postcolonial Dismemberment

The hallowed vestiges of fragmented motherhood
Blown into the armored cars and army saloon
And flesh and blood and strips of clothing
The bitter afterbirth of violent dissolution
Love and loathing and the sterility of state structure
Death-bound fecundity that wasn’t
Shrapnel and force and toggled un-umbilical cord
Is this the new constant of experience?

I Beseech You That I May Not Cease to Hunger For You

And you too, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, do you forget us; how long do you turn your face from us? When will you look upon us, and hear us? When will you enlighten our eyes, and show us your face? When will you restore yourself to us? Look upon us, Lord; hear us, enlighten us, reveal yourself to us. Restore yourself to us, that it may be well with us, --yourself, without whom it is so ill with us. Pity our toilings and strivings toward you since we can do nothing without you. You do invite us; do you help us. I beseech you, O Lord, that I may not lose hope in sighs, but may breathe anew in hope. Lord, my heart is made bitter by its desolation; sweeten you it, I beseech you, with your consolation. Lord, in hunger I began to seek you; I beseech you that I may not cease to hunger for you. In hunger I have come to you; let me not go unfed. I have come in poverty to the Rich, in misery to the Compassionate; let me not return empty and despised. And if, before I eat, I sigh, grant, even after sighs, that which I may eat. Lord, I am bowed down and can only look downward; raise me up that I may look upward. My iniquities have gone over my head; they overwhelm me; and, like a heavy load, they weigh me down. Free me from them; unburden me, that the pit of iniquities may not close over me.

Be it mine to look up to your light, even from afar, even from the depths. Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me, when I seek you, for I cannot seek you, except you teach me, nor find you, except you reveal yourself. Let me seek you in longing, let me long for you in seeking; let me find you in love, and love you in finding. Lord, I acknowledge and I thank you that you has created me in this your image, in order that I may be mindful of you, may conceive of you, and love you; but that image has been so consumed and wasted away by vices, and obscured by the smoke of wrong-doing, that it cannot achieve that for which it was made, except you renew it, and create it anew. I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate your sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, --that unless I believed, I should not understand.

St. Anselm, Proslogium

St. Louis Churches and Such

Traveled up to St. Louis with one of my professors for the express purpose of looking at old churches (old being relative of course- stuff from the late 1800's, early 1900's, but mostly modeled on Gothic and Romanesque churches in Europe). He is also conducting a religious architecture course, of which I am a student; this trip went along with the course, and counted for three hours credit. Which means I aquired credit hours simply for wandering about in old churches and museums. Not bad. The following are a few pictures I took of some of the spots we visited.

The interior of St. Louis Cathedral, which has the largest single concentration of mosaics in the world. Magnificent church.

A view of the cathedral from the back, looking up at the wonderful Byzantine-looking dome.

This is a neo-classical styled Methodist Church, which stands in a section of St. Louis known as Holy Corner due to an unusual concentration of religious entities within a few blocks.

The Old Cathedral down near the Arch.

The interior of St. Ambrose of Milan. Very nice Romanesque church, in the Italian neighborhood, where there are some pretty decent eateries.