Kali in the Suburbs

 

The Grasp, acrylic on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, c/o Karin Goeppert

 

 

 

KALI IN THE SUBURBS

 

I adore afternoons that have the feel

of a violent crescendo, building slowly. There’s an

aren’t-we-all-having-fun American tension

in the air so thick one can chop it  

with a machete. It’s hot, we’re all eating shrimp.

Florida humidity, mosquitoes feasting, the animal

empire striking back. A fat uncle smoking his Cuban stogie,

and not one bug bothered by its odorous cloud.

 

Live dangerously is my motto. In this country it’s hard not to.

I love to stumble giddy and half-naked out my lover’s

backdoor, headlights flashing on family portraits and on a  

gleaming row of weaponry in its glass-fronted case.

 

I know you feel uneasy around me. Ever so lightly stressed.

I smell evil the way you smell pheromones…

or the scent of any self-enlarging enterprise…or a whiff of vaporized

weed drifting in from your oldest boy’s

birthday bash. So here I stand in a corner of your living room,    

 

glowing like a pile of toxic debris. Imagine none other than me  

at the perfect wedding, posting photos of the ravaged

cake, the drunken groom. You don’t want to know me,

not really, nor yourself, nor how shitfaced that frat boy

son of yours was before taking the Jag

out that evening that ended so badly.

 

 

Man-Size

 

Pink Lady 50 x 50 cm - mixed media on canvas c/o Karin Goeppert

 

 

NEW, TENDER, QUICK

 

If you don’t like the cobblestones, if they seize your

needle thin heels when you walk across them,

then get thee to Euro Disney. Some women here

look like gothic statues in an East German church.

Beautiful mothers, in sandals and white socks. There’s

a classic photo of one of them, a “golden hair Margarete,”

sitting on a curbside, blowing a bubble, wondering

if there’s fresh fruit in the stores. Hayrick. Manure ditch.   

Skin head revels. Where, in the thought experiment  

of a NAZI BRAIN, a rich lefty is nailed to a swastika,

his Tesla smashed by a detachment of the Waffen-SS.    

Later that day, I read in a letter written by Elizabeth Bishop

“My outlook is pessimistic. I think we are

still barbarians, barbarians who commit a hundred indecencies

every day of our lives…” my nostrils flaring   

to cooking odors from a nearby food stand. And presto, life smells  

like curry sausage and fries. Could be worse. Also, life can smell

shall we say interesting as I rise past the locked doors

of drinking associates and insignificant others. Also, fugitive thoughts 

cowering in a manure ditch. Hayrick under which evil lurks

knee-deep in blood

“…but I think we should

be gay in spite of it, sometimes even giddy—to make life endurable

and to keep ourselves “new, tender, quick,” (George Herbert).”

Near the river’s edge, a black lab rolling in sand. Two boys and three girls

emerge from brown water. Happy, watchful. Light in their hair.  

 

Jane Austen

 

Mayflowers III 40 x 30 cm acrylic on canvas

 

 

 

JANE AUSTEN

 

The neighbors’ kid drops an ounce bag in the stairwell.

For his own good you and I smoke it to fine ash.

And even with that tiny shard of hypocrisy lodged

in our sore throats (the shit’s harsh) we continue to thrive.

A day later a delivery of bottled water’s swiped from our door mat.   

 

As the philosopher said, payback’s a motherfucker. What philosopher? you ask.

 

But the kid, whom I call KING OF THE SLOTHS, is shockingly proactive.  

There’s Mega Death Metal coming down at two in the morning.

Sleep becoming yet another essential we can’t afford.

Raises the question: how did he know it was us?

 

Wolfing down a dripping kebab at midnight, a little snack

after two liters of beer. My specs are in the shop, thus

from a distance mail boxes look a lot like the brainless heads,

mounted on spikes, of our treacherous neighbors. Drifting to us

from across the street, a girl’s voice: “Bellini. BELLINI? It’s not a

painter, dude, it’s a drink!” And then, straight out of another century,

 

CIVILITY GRACE STYLE are rolling down our street in a coach-

and-four. The scene gives off an aura of countrified elegance: always a 

pleasure when lady Jane pays a call. Would it be rude of me to ask 

her to sign relevant DVDs? Or pose questions about hygiene issues  

in 19^thcentury England, or why the Napoleonic wars never figure

in her stories? Or should I just keep my mouth shut? For once in my life.

 

 

 

3 Scoops

 

3 Scoops 70 x 50 x 2 cm - c/o Karin Goeppert

 

WHAT HAPPENS?

 

Facing a urinal in Naples, Italy, and just as you unzip    

the dude next to you starts to play with      

his dick while peeking at yours. Dark blue suit, glossy long-

toe shoes, soft leather brief case. Christian Democrat  

with wife and two bambini at home? Instead of asking

you cope by closing your eyes, meditating on the

delicious factoid that pizza was invented in Naples.

Meanwhile I consider the body

horror in Dante’s Inferno which I think

reemerges catholically enough in Francis Bacon’s

fantasias of violence. At the Guggenheim Venice

a predaceous chimpanzee crouches atop a coffin-like box.   

His job in hell: crushing skulls like walnuts. Bacon, no doubt  

like the Christian Democrat standing at your side,  

was into conservative politics AND public latrines. Small world.

Have you ever read any of Mary Gaitskill’s tales

of sexual lunacy? Desire twisted like barbed wire. Nobody nice.

Pain the only game in town. She seems to be saying

“This is a part of life, people, deal with it.” By the way,  

the dancers up there on stage are making me

a little nervous as they carry out their rite of spring.  

Is it because they’re sacrificing a virgin

in a forest clearing? Or is it their beauty and strength? And behind

my wife’s tears—produced by a miracle

of colors conjured up by Joan Mitchell—a smile of gratitude.

 

 

Gouge Away

 

Almost Under Control 40 x 40 x 4 cm

 

ALTERNATE FACTS

 

Strolling under a jeweled sky was once

upon a time a small festival.

Not much else going down.

Nightingale solo. A few crows

bothering the corn. Drafty castle

in the far north of nowhere

in particular. Sheep in the distance.

The First Family on the ramparts

waiting for the Duke of Earl, replete

with slaughter, to return home.

Stoical duchess, blooming daughter,

pimpled heir apparent. In that cold tower,

full of life even though death pressed upon

them everywhere, pestilence, rusty nail,   

the chopping block. Just waking up

was a feast day. Today at work you were in

a meeting in which tiddlywinks and a burping

contest might have fit on the agenda.

Why not, what else, who cares?

Waking up to just another day.