Merry Christmas

Barnaba de Modena - Madonna and Child

We wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Thank you for having shown interest in our small blog.

We really appreciate it!

Karin and Ken

Self Improvement

Floral Passion 27,5 x 18,5 cm

SELF IMPROVEMENT

You meet someone who after a few drinks can shatter a life.

The kind of person only a Werner Herzog

would have the balls to open up to. Dennis Hopper

smile and David Crosby mustache. Amiable x-rayer of souls.

“I’ll tell you why you’re fucked up, man, just listen to me.”

Jungle boots and bush hat. Looks like he’s

just come in from patrol: long range

recon killer in full ambush mode. Calling every

bluff, exposing every subterfuge.

You feel you are up to it, however, you can deal.

So you speak to him of credit card debt, the girlfriend

who’s left you for a mysterious traveler in the carpet

trade who’s either a spook or merely a guy with a secret; that

you have given up on truth, that pleasure is what counts

now, and as cheap as possible. A six-pack of cold on a humid night

in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A stranger pressing ice-cubes 

to the back of your neck. Grace in defeat, a rare

moment of perfect coherence before the fog sets in again.

David Crosby - Almost cut my Hair

Crucible

Before you see art, read poetry and listen to music we would like to point out a link which explains very comprehensively the new rules on Facebook with regard to their pages. This is very important for artists marketing their art on their Facebook-pages. It seems that it might not be a good idea to promote other artists, yourself of course as well as ask others to like your page - which I personally find a bit iffy anyway.....

The English artist and blogger Katherine Tyrrell wrote extensively about these changes and for all of you who happen to have a Facebook page it might be a good idea to look at her post.

You will be able to find it here: Making a Mark

Zusammenkunft - Crucible 50 x 40 cm

WORKER’S PARADISE

                                                        Meet the new boss/same as the old boss.

                                                                                                                           Pete Townshend

Hand grenade rolling toward a bespectacled

junior officer’s “hootch,” Mekong Delta, circa ’68,

   going off when said officer emerges through the flaps

   yawning, stretching

sending pieces of him flying,

   private whomever executed at Leavenworth

for “fragging” his platoon leader, or further back  

second century slave revolt in Sicily, thousands nailed to crosses

on the road to Syracuse, i.e., the man 

   who lives in the “big house” always wins

and yet some hard hat in Richmond, C.A.

   hears a warm splashing sound in the bathroom

that has him squeezing his crotch in anticipation, “Baby,

   that you?” she asks through the steam, so enjoy

Scranton, what’s left of it, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, Green Bay,

   the low

   ceilinged dwellings edging around the county dump, seagulls diving,

the way mansions edge around a country club’s 9 holes,

odors informing every stratagem of escape, a six of “Talls”

   an ounce of Mexican a little dab of crystal meth

for those sans strategy, the grandiosities of wrestling on TV, how workers

   and ball players look pretty much the same, broken down and gimpy

by the time they hit—smash into—50, and take the

fall, the punch, the bullet, proudly stoic

yeomanly as they get, and when somebody asks you

   how you’re doing, just shrug

and say “workin’” which means you’re fortunate to have work,

   so enjoy that warm sound of splashing in the bathroom,  

cowboy, inspiring hope that your girlfriend has you on

   her list of things to do today. There’s reefer on the nightstand

and a song out there you have to hear this second or

   life won’t seem worth living anymore.   

  The Who - Won't get fooled again

A Warm Day in Iowa

untitled ca. 19 x 17 cm - after a photograph by Susan Mitchell

A WARM DAY IN IOWA

(miles and miles of corn)

listening to the irritating squeak

of the porch swing

swing to Mingus and Miles

Davis in daylight savings time, the swishing

of sprinklers bending backwards

then forwards

skinned knees, suburban malaise

(which is just being tired of things)

and a surprising amount of similar nonsense

in a limited, coffee table edition

printed by Oxnard Press.

Can the fridge

still be plundered of midnight victuals? She laughs, then writes

“I am leane with seeing others eate.”

Then:

“This is the time of the assassins.”

Charles Mingus - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

Voyage to South of Nowhere

Hagebutte IV - Rose Hip IV 39 x 39 cm Pastel by Karin Goeppert

NOMAD ROMANCE

I’ve got you pinned to a wall.

There’s a strong smell of sage somewhere

in Spain or amid remnants of old Provence,

troubadours, broken stone, or in one of those wild corners  

of the Peloponnese, white-washed walls thick with pink light,

octopuses hanging from clothesline near the water

which is ripple of blue silk rinsed with gold.

I’ve got you pinned to a wall and you’re okay with that,

or making out in a corner of the one tavern in this village, above us

a photo of Hemingway posing with some very large very dead fish.

Maybe it’s not Hemingway, but a local hero instead, Juan or Christos

or Francois, some guy with a beard, anyway, gloating over the catch of his life.

Do we care if we offend? Probably not. Two shafts of broken light,

two shafts of crooked light, joined precariously

at the waist in old Pelop’s  

Spanish kingdom, south of nowhere, getting hotter every day.

Voyage Voyage - Desireless

Amorphous

Amorph - Amorphous 39 x 39 cm

BOURGEOIS COMPLAINT

Obscure whispers from waves

and tree-tops confess their restless spirit;

then, as if to prove their point, depart. You contemplate

the Eight Sorrows plus their off-spring which

adds up to a total of sixteen. Numbers, though often oppressive,

enable you to grasp a nutshell’s infinite space. You’re

at home in theory, as they say; theory takes you for a ride

in a 1965 Galaxy 500 convertible, out on Fish Ranch Road

in the hills just above Berkeley, and dumps

you on your ass in the dust, near the rattle snakes

and joggers, laughing the whole time. So much for research.

If you must visit that white city perched

amid olive trees and citrus groves and hyperactive goats,

then go on, get out; we know

that your mind works differently from ours…

how does your mind work?

(Rumor has it that the rebels will seize the airport any day now;

trains have stopped running; food and clean water

are in short supply.) Rumor has it

that it doesn’t work at all, never has.

The White Stripes - In the cold cold night