In this blog we will share with you our vision of beauty, balance, harmony.

As Mark Leach writes in his book Raw Colour with Pastels: “Sound is all around us, and it is musicians who refine that sound into something of beauty. As a painter, I have always felt that my purpose is to craft colour in a similar way, to see through the confusion and seek harmony and beauty.”

And we add: Words, fragments of sentences, spoken noise is all around us, and Ken arranges words in such a way as to capture beauty in the accidental, the ambient soundtrack of life.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Green and Gold


Grün und Gold/Green and Gold 30 x 24 cm mixed media on canvas





MINISTER OF URBAN AFFAIRS

It can begin here in this weed-thickened
night. The light of a thousand lamps
bouncing off the canal. The grass is alive—
pungent, spicy—with cannabis and curry sausage.
A girl passes us, talking to herself, jogging
at a safe, conversational pace; another girl
stomps by in motorcycle boots, pale fierce little face
saying nothing, body language however expressing 
FUCK OFF & DIE. Further on is what passes for a theatre
in our district. But no, it’s a café, but no—if we honor
the patron’s preferred nomenclature—it’s a “bistro,”
and why not? Meanwhile I’d better “liaise” or “interface”
with a urinal cake “asap.” Funny, innit (as I stand here,
splashing away), how time of life can be measured
   by states of mind musically speaking.
And even funnier that no composer has ever
thought of that. Consider the stuttering oboe sonata (that 30ish experience
of fear and loathing in the workplace), the chuckle of a bassoon
( easy, resigned humor of late middle age), the squawk
of saxophones ( youthful depravity), and so on. Amazing
the thoughts that come to us through this doily filtered light.




Sunday, November 20, 2016

We Haven't Turned Around



 




THE CRITIC NEXT DOOR DROPS IN FOR A VISIT

Just thought I’d let you know   
that you have a mind like Time magazine.
It’s always: “on the other hand…
and yet…I’m sure
there’s another side to the story.”
I don’t mean
that in a bad way, but.  
Is it true you’re working
on something in a language
that literally nobody reads or speaks anymore,
sacred texts or whatnot?
A project similar, say, to climbing Goat Fuck
Mountain in Eastern Albania,
a place you can’t find on a map,
probably because it doesn’t exist.
By the way, we missed you
at the party yesterday.
It was the whole block, you know,
but who’s hung up on exclusiveness?
People say you were with someone
who’s dying, offering solace,
compassion, the resources of your charm and wit. Anyone
we know? Anyone we’ll miss?
Did you see the sunset yesterday?
And the day before? A deep golden rusty pink
is how I would describe it.
Gaudy, a pretty mess. Would
no doubt be sticky
if we could touch it.
If there is a God
at least we know  
now what His favorite colors are
and that His taste really sucks.   




Sunday, November 13, 2016

Y e s



 
he asked me 30 x 24 cm acryl on canvas c/o Karin Goeppert



IS IT THEM, OR AM I JUST PARANOID?

Sometimes they look at me as if I were an alien. Like I might
nip off a few choice body parts, remove one or two vital
organs without spilling a drop of blood, then send it all
off to be examined by a Higher Intelligence.

I think they overrate themselves. Some of them are nearly
exquisite, true, but I don’t think anyone of more than
middling intelligence would find them worthy of study.
One could imagine, though barely, the diversions of a field trip—
as it were—but as objects of scholarly desire? I don’t think so.

Last week during dictation one girl must have thought
it was vampire hour. She thrust a crucifix the size of two
large fork tines in my face and muttered some heart-felt if
rudimentary Latin formula. The hysteria began to spread.

Another girl—a blond from Argentina, not averse to tangoing
into glass twenty or so minutes late—tried to rub a sliver of garlic
over one of my paper cuts. I was forced to punish her. I won’t
reveal how, but you can trust me, it will have no lasting effect on her behavior.

During lunch the girls started hammering together a scaffold.
At least they’ve learned something in wood shop. Besides,
they prefer hanging to burning. Fire ordinance? I have to
admire them. They’ve figured out the system. If you play
by the “rules,” you can get away with anything.

Who will write my epitaph? My wife for sure not. I peel back a
layer of bread. Mustard. Lots of it. She knows I detest the stuff.
Or was it my untrustworthy daughter? Or one of her pointlessly
malicious school friends? She has so many of late.




Sunday, November 6, 2016

A Whiter Shade Of Pale



 
Gentian 50 x 70 cm mixed media on canvas




CONSOLATION PRIZE

His breath smells like women.
There’s a hint of clubs in his pallor.
Let’s click to his favorite apparition—
tall girl splashed with sumptuous perfume
in her cleavage possessing two of those
green eyelids in a Klimt. Bending her back
pressing his nose deep in her damp corsage
he longs to rip the ribbons from historic  
treaties and tie each one to
a naked thigh. But she doesn’t have one.

Nudity as concept or reality is strictly forbidden
here in the heart of the heart of homeland security.
Yet who doesn’t wish for one last fling
beneath wedding cake ceilings, a twirl
across floors of polished parquet?
(If that doesn’t materialize you will have to be satisfied
   with this trivial batch of
words steaming like clams in iridescent dreck.)