Flow Chart

Flow Chart 60 x 80 cm - acryl on board

THE LUNATIC IS ON THE GRASS

Which is a good place for anyone

to be--it’s so hot--beneath the trees, dozing

in some dreamless void of foliage and dirt,

dealers pacing the shadows

and grinning full of hope.

A raw whiff of garlic something

or other from Bardolino’s open kitchen

window reeks of the good life,

a fishing village, say, in southern Italy

animal eyed people with white smiles

gesticulating all over the place.

The pink domes under which they seem to live.

Limestone, olives, a fiasco of counterfeit

Chianti and lots of time to drink it.

Go on tell us one more time how summer

can only mean Pink Floyd live in the Stadt-

park, Hamburg, you and I drinking beer

on our new balcony, eating take-out

chicken curry, getting off on all that

lunatic music for free. I think

the primroses were a dusty pink—you like to say—

the lilacs just about kaput. So was it summer,

or late spring? The sun flaming out behind the trees.

The music clear as a fount.

Pink Floyd - Time

Forest Reflections

Waldgeschmack - Forest Flavour 60 x 80 cm mixed media on multi media board

REFLECTIONS, SHARDS, FRAGMENTS

At first you reminded

me of someone I should avoid.

Someone rough or merely

too energetic, like three power plants

hooked up to a weapon of mass destruction.

In the evening pale glitter

luster of frozen sequins

and morning dress as somber as

a priest’s raiment. Ten thousand days

till spring till spring till fucking spring.

Let me ease your troubled mind

a shrink said to me from his peeling stoop,

sounding like the lyric of a Simon and Garfunkel song.

Standing up straight, he looked better,

cleaner, more qualified. All of a sudden!

But he still wore that wild blond afro.

Nonetheless, I was intrigued.

Never had I had pigeon pie before.

I slowly began to connect it up

to an ethnic identity thing. An “issue.”

Her eyes were full of that challenge. I cracked through its crust.

Hips. Thighs. Breasts. Hair. Of child-

bearing breadth. A slight twitch of muscle

beneath downy skin. Present but not

overly insistent, the tips of which seeking air

however and lips. Every day a good one.

I knew he was in trouble when he started tap dancing.

I knew I was in trouble because he looked just like Fred Astaire.

Look, Fred, I said, I’ve never been much of a fan.

Likewise, he said, but my name’s Gene, asshole, not Fred.

Winter is a drained snow cone.

Spring is pollen dusted jogging shoes.

Summer is sweat. All the time.

Fall is just a variation on autumn.

Shards of pigeon pie. Pinot Grigio spilled in her lap.

Outside the trees whisper to each other, peer

through the window, gossip fitfully.

Wind clutches at us all. Yokes common misunderstandings together.

Who should repair the light switch? Flash the stones?

Take me to the shore is all I ask. A place to bask, soak, dissolve.

America

Simon and Garfunkel

A Few Things That Make Life Worth Living

Fluchtversuch - Trying to Escape 33 x 39 cm Acryl on wooden board

A FEW THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING

A fugue multiplying its diversions,

changing its mind all the time but never forgetting

what it wants to sing. The pictures of which it cannot

be said where form stops and color begins.

The sexy woman suggesting with a glance

that she might easily

eat us for breakfast lunch and dinner

followed by espresso, a warm brandy

and—some clichés should not be resisted—a French cigarette.

Please check:

a) platinum light glancing off the splendid palms of Mallorca,

b) a plate of tapas, white wine, beneath an old plane tree,

c) a lingering, lazy kiss at dusk,

d) all of the above.

Let’s do it again.

Only different this time: viewing the Brancacci Chapel

while slightly high; a crowd free morning  

spent with certain mosaics in Athens; a hot dog heaped  

with sauerkraut, eaten in Central Park, yes, that’s it,

only this time followed by a schnapps chaser

which is known in some parts as “ burping the baby.”

The speechless stare that becometh blind oration.

Die Grosse Fuge - Beethoven
NDR Sinfonie-Orchester
Christoph von Dohnányi, conductor

La Grange in Buddha Land

Tulpen - Tulips 35 x 30 cm - Soft Pastel and acrylics on cotton/linen primed with fine sand gesso

FROM A PILGRIM’S JOURNAL

Do you remember how later that evening

the hot winds chafed us, how meditation

was so boring we fell asleep? All that time

trying to think about nothing. My knees hurt.

What exactly or not exactly were we doing

in loose garments, sandals, soft-spoken, humble?

Monks were kicking coconuts on the beach

and all I wanted to do was put my fist through a wall:

there is no “I”, they say, just a dream of self, some stickers—

“been there, done that” — on a steamer trunk, nothing inside

was what they asked us to meditate on. Plenum void.

Who was this nothing meditating on nothingness?

No one would say. They only smiled.

Mornings we swept the palm leaves into piles

of platonic perfection—concentrate! No task is unimportant!—

raked sand, swept out the kitchen, the afternoons smoky with

fires the monks and a few bored guests had ignited  

at the water’s edge; we listened to the soft waves—

sotto voce, semi-subliminal—waited for 

the magic to kick in. Way deep into the night I was almost sure

we had bodies, my love, but not a soul between us. 

La Grange - ZZ Top

Waiting for Thunder

Warten auf Donner - Waiting for Thunder 50 x 70 cm

WAITING FOR THUNDER

I can barely conceal my contempt, boredom,

and a creeping self-pity not so much

shameless as triumphant. Dinner guests I’ve known,

I feel, since the latter days of the Roman Empire

are partly responsible for this. The air is thunder

heavy and the thermometer’s about to have a heart attack

and I have a strange need to break out in archaic verse

O Iseult, shave thy body of excess hair/ And toss

thy pelt upon the soft evening air, etc.

Even violence seems an option as I 

wait for that perfect implement of destruction

to find its way into my hands. It’s eighty-degrees

in the bed room. The world has forgotten how to breathe.

The cats are door mats made of fur. Clouds pressing down 

so close there’s no oxygen left. If rain does come, I swear  

I just might blossom. Talk about Flowers of Evil! Then you,

Iseult, will have no choice   

but to stick me into a leaky   

Moroccan vase the color of Saharan sand and inside which 

I will cool my toes, dreaming of windy, sane mornings in September. 

 Leider hat uns Blogger gestern einen Strich durch die Rechnung gemacht und wir konnten unseren post nur "leer" veröffentlichen. Bitte entschuldigt!

Sorry for the empty posts yesterday. Blogger was unable to send it out correctly.

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter