A Day in the Park

Ein Tag im Park - A Day in the Park 80 x 80 cm c/o Karin Goeppert

DIVA

In a better world,

yes, in the world of our betters

Diva’s robes are as blue as a starless night 

   coercing an uneasy elite

lit by moonlight on putting irons

into a pattern of progress then back again

to the pleasures of John Cheever ( phalanx

of whisky breathed    trust-fund dipshits    dressed in Lacoste

           shod sockless in loafers)    hints of

white collar indiscretion wedged between

                                   a suburban mansion’s mossy cracks.

Equipped with miles of floss the Feds ride in

with their Siren: strawberry blond, brooding Monica Vitti

fresh from Sorrento (circa 1966) has most of our undivided lust.

“Fuck with me,” she whispers hoarsely, “I WILL kick your ass.”

Which makes some of us rethink our initial fantasy

involving a pink motel beneath palm trees and drinks

           on the terrace, etc.

In the old days she. Are those plateaus or platforms? Go, girl

whimpers the past as she pistol whips it into submission.

I’d love to introduce her to Lisbeth as played by Roony Mara.

Pour myself a drink. Set up the sub-titles. Put all calls on hold.  

So what?

 

Der Duft des Sommers - The Scent of Summer 3 x 10 x 10 cm - acryl/shellack ink on canvas - available!

AN UNATURAL HISTORY OF PROGRESS

There’s jazz in the courtyard, moonlight espresso, grandma

issuing dire warnings in archaic dialect, grandpa

sneaking off to the boiler room, to conspire with tobacco.

The streets are without porn.

Bump and grind if you can find it, yes, but no porn.

A manhole hissing fiercely nearby. Kids playing stickball, but gingerly,

for it is Sunday, and they are wearing their best.

Plague germinating on rotting hulks in Sythian ports,

sailing on to Naples and Palermo, devastating Rome,

depopulating Florence, shutting down theatres in London.

Peasant and lord scarfing raw garlic and, as if longing

for their bacterial beginnings, washing neither bodies nor garments,

a mad flurry of Ostrogoths or Visigoths

spilling over city walls, smashing monasteries, no one bathing

for hundreds of years, Donald Trump always

coming back to take more, castor oil, chemo therapy

which just kills you more slowly than cancer, it seems,

public executions family reunions Hitler and his Huns

Bush #2 and his version thereof, chronology a side issue at best—

   shit just keeps happening—

until: a shriveled, oily hot dog in a soft bun at Woolworth’s

on a Saturday afternoon, circa 1968, Concord, California

one hundred degrees outside, not much cooler inside,

the air salty and dark, an odor of rancid butter

coming from the pop corn maker, add to that a

purloined copy of “Ring” magazine,

George Chuvalo and Buster Mathis

pounding each other on its front cover,

snug and damp beneath t-shirt and jeans, and I feel

well-fed, with half my “dog” in hand, and as cunning as a gangster:

thus progress makes its belated appearance in human affairs.