Walk on the Wild Side

Red Triptych 40 x 120 cm mixed media on self-stretched canvas c/o Karin Goeppert

THE PROMISE

Let’s assume it was Oscar Night

and that she was totally without clothes

posing for a selfie on a red, toe

cosseting carpet. You would think the

King of Bushair had just offered her

a bag of musk. Later, beneath a peacock

feathered canopy, she lays out a novel version

of the Four Noble Truths as an eight-fold

path to post-industrial post-Freudian postman

bent over, scratching his butt, ready to deliver

final notice to anyone who has exceeded

their allotted time. You who are menacingly stupid—

he’d like to say—should know your place

or at least the address. What’s wrong with you people?

Just look how the sky shifts from bluish tinge

to rash pink to the Velvet Underground

station in London, a dozen pinpricks hanging out

on a hot night fitting tighter than a hawk’s hood

the texture, moody turnovers and smoky switchbacks

of what, for the moment anyway, we call life. Need I

go on? For your sake, dear reader, I won’t. I’ll leave you

with a promise of peace, a little elegance and a good joke  

shared with someone okay plus the rare instant 

the King of Bushair offers us two bags of musk.