Ausstellung - Exhibition

Ich möchte Sie gerne zu meiner Vernissage am 18.04. in Berlin einladen. Wenn Sie Zeit und Lust haben - kommen Sie doch vorbei, ich würde mich sehr freuen!

If you happen to be in Berlin on April 18 I would be happy to welcome you at my vernissage.

Summerfield

Sommerfeld - Summerfield 38,5x28,5 cm pastel/watercolour

ODE TO AN ETERNAL WINTER

      You know that feeling

in February when you can’t remember

how you felt in June or the sweet

and sour sort of tropical languor of July,

the sweat and bitchery of it all, how you’ve

forgotten that too, concupiscent interactions,

slow nights of drinking beer on

a sidewalk outside the old elementary school, even the thought

of inadvertently touching a stranger’s slippery skin

an absolute no go, and now here’s a perfect day  

dream reminiscent of a cartoon in the 

New Yorker or Playboy, circa 1970s, in which some poor

slob’s crawling toward a mirage of breasts and palm

leaves, a very tall drink chilling out on a poolside table

next to the girl, girls, many girls everywhere

each as compliant as a politician at a fund raiser

and that’s you, dude, you’re the one sipping gin tonic

in this insipid little fantasy when outside ice crunches

beneath strangers’ boots—in March no less. Tiny violets,

premature, fragile as infants, smothered in a bed of instant snow,

radiator dead, hot water thing busted: can summer be far behind?

The Window

Das Fenster - The Window 60 x 60 cm oil painting by Karin Goeppert

“LEARN CHESS FROM 3-TIME U.S. CHAMP!”

The plots of dreams are tedious. I prefer the salient detail:

a party of nuns, say, munching grapes in a snow storm;

   or “Butterball Turkey” uttered repeatedly,

the way it sounds better than it tastes.

Which isn’t like butter at all.

Such attractive little deceptions worked into the weave.

Dreams are not really a phase of sleep, if you think about it,

but a form of sacred reflection, and if you believe that 

   you will believe anything, which a lot of people do. So you’re

awake and reaching for that thing to read, write, grabbing for

the girl who’s dreaming: if those kids don’t quiet down I’ll kill ‘em,

   and who wakes up to say

it’s Sunday morning, for Christ’s sake, take your hands off me.

Now outside the world is all radio, and there’s that recurring phrase

yet again: “Learn chess from 3-time U.S. champ!”  O what price self-improvement.

The Perils of Globalization

Sehnsucht nach Stille - Longing for Silence 38,5 x 48,5 cm pastel by Karin Goeppert

THE PERILS OF GLOBALIZATION

I’ve read in the Wall Street Journal 

recently that ever increasing chunks of me

are being outsourced to a number of

service providers situated somewhere

in the Nile Delta. A suburb of Calcutta. Even a

cave in a Pakistani tribal area inhabited by

white-clad religious enthusiasts (to put it mildly)

is equipped with components taken from yours truly.

I was wondering about the sudden weight loss. If anyone

knows where missing parts (departments, entire divisions)

can be located please contact me ASAP. You can

find me at the game arcade “dining” on sloppy Joes.

Just step inside and give a holler. If there’s

no answer to my name, however, have the

decency to leave at once, remembering

I never existed anyway, and that you, under the spell

of rapacious, inexplicable appetite, will soon be

slumped in a corner, near a row of exploding  

video games, eating a chili-dog, licking your fingers, knowing

that you’re soon going to need a shot of Fernet-Branca

or some baking powder in water, anything to ease that burning

overstuffed feeling. That burden of self. Happens every time.