The Passing World

untitled (acrylic/ink) 42 x 56 cm by Karin Goeppert

OLD POET

                                For Jack Gilbert

Wrestling with austerities

in thorny, bare spaces. Smooth and

congenial as cactus, you cast yourself out.

All the crimes of a life—did you ever

injure a man, damage a woman?—you presented

quietly, in dry image, no obvious shame, rhetoric

not too richly seasoned, just a sprinkle 

of rosemary or sage on a lamb chop.

You talked to God but didn’t believe in Him.

You blamed the Devil for spreading pain

then thanked Him for Palladian moonlight,

for roasted goat meat on a mountainside   

in Greece. Romantic, Modernist, Individualist.

Experts said that you were the end of all these things:

what a luxury not being post whatever: being just

an inch before the after. Pleasure you damned faintly   

for not lasting long enough, for demanding renewal,      

and yet you delighted in appetite. And suffering

was as much to be enjoyed as the texture

of a woman’s skin, as the aroma of ripe tomatoes   

in Umbrian summer. Beaten on by the sun and by the wind, in    

exile even at home, feral hearted, you were wary of comfort,   

of growing mild in old age: you need not have worried about that. 

 

Remember Shakti

John McLaughlin/Zakir Hussain and guests

The White Stripes and the Thirty Year War

untitled 50 x 64 cm oil/ink/oilpastel

AS IF…

                                                         for Heinrich Heine                

As if we were on stage together     

with Jack White and a recently resur-

rected Jimmi Hendrix and were strumming

some strange tandem guitar-like thing  

as Jimmi and Jack struggled to keep up  

an assortment of groupies oiled and ready 

and sandwiches and cold beer awaiting us                                                                       

backstage the entire retinue impossibly high

as if the morning were like a girl on

one of those vast expensive sidewalks

in the Kurfürstendamm and mounted

atop a stack of pallets she’s munching

strawberries in voluptuous slow-mo

as if she were all alone in the world

as if we were all alone in the world as

if five of your best enemies were hanging  

from various fruit trees in the front yard

as if the aftermath of a battle fought  

in the Thirty Years War had taken up exactly  

half of your property as if your neighbors were   

scandalized by all this unexpected mayhem    

as if what they thought mattered anyway.

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

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

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