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.  

Illusion of Order in the Shopping Mall

Illusion of Order 25 x 30 cm acryl on canvas

ELVIS/ TUPELO,  MISSISSIPPI

Avatar of cool breaking the law

just because it’s, like, there

(Marlon Brando’s character

in the “Wild One” who when asked

by a village elder what he’s rebelling against

says, “Whatdaya got?”)

and the rock n’ roll

heard on a sidewalk

in Tupelo, Miss., for twenty

some years   

named the most

American city in

America (which on

many levels seems

totally bizarre to me. As if Bayonne

were deemed the “Frenchest” city in France

length of baguettes, rankness of cheese

at issue among other things, etc.);  

criteria?

Two shopping malls

in stores of which assault weapons stand

tall, oiled, erect, shining in their racks;

a universal love of football and fried food,

the natives as supersized as what they  

feed on—pizza burger hot-dog pop corn

chocolate chip raspberry ice-cream, etc.—

drifting through the malls chewing

shuffling along draped in the oversized

football jerseys of their favorite teams,

mouth breathers, too, plus the occasional

meth head and white supremacist,

God fearing native born Americans

looking for some air-conditioned fun,

a spectacle that seems to have

no historical precedence. T.

Town the birthplace of

the man with the magic hips:

people everywhere

erecting altars to the “King”

in their trailer homes

reporting sightings of that royal personage

wiggling his fat butt in a Vegas parking lot, etc.

What have we learned?

That lovers in whom we’ve

foolishly placed our hopes

turn out at the end of

a sticky day in the Mississippi Delta

to be hound dogs after all?

Maybe.

Tupelo, Mississippi

where the heat, like Elvis, is always

making a comeback. Today

a pleasant seventy-five, by

Friday we will be swimming through

the high nineties.

I feel vaguely

Malaysian or Bengali  

nodding off

in my rickshaw

waiting for

the monsoon

and the only Elvis I’d listen to now ( Elvis

von Tupelo I mean)

would be his basement tapes of classical Indian ragas.  

(FYI: the last surviving Elvis lives in Canada

which, on a number of levels, is totally bizarre to me.)     

Anybody? Out there somewhere?

Brennendes Feld - Burning Field 30 x 25 cm acryl on canvas

OUT THERE SOMEWHERE AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY

Call it a road trip, if you prefer,

we’re passing through Iowa now,

Illinois or Indiana, I’m not sure which,

the infamous fat lands anyway

spread out like an ample woman on the sofa

watching Oprah and daytime reality

a small town in the corner of a corn field

and that is where two lovely girls

are dancing barefoot on a dirty carpet

in the lobby of the local massage parlor—

something on the radio by the Doobie Brothers—

but by the time all of this has registered

we’re in Santa Cruz dabbling in hands-on  

surf board technology, smoking reefer beneath

the boardwalk roller coaster, yet suffering 

wave envy whenever we think of L.A. The police

ask a few questions, then literally throw us out of town. There’s

a brawl in Tijuana, a chair used as a club,

a number of busted cue-sticks.  At some point

we are strolling through a Tuscan hill town, the ramparts of which

just before sunset emit that warm golden

light of freshly baked bread; later we eat wild boar

and drink a jug of Vino Rustico; and we wonder, yes we do, how we

got here, together, still alive, smiling through broken teeth.  

You got mud on your Face

 

You got mud on your Face 56 x 42 cm acryl on paper by Karin Goeppert

EMPIRE OF THE SENSES

A day of wandering thoughts; the next  

one not a thought per se

but a dream of old Europe 

shot in the supple light of a Zeffirelli romance,

a little kitschy, I admit, but there’s

—don’t ask me why—a baroque

component as well: counterpoint, fetishistic wigs,

a maze of etiquette turning me into a

brocaded moralist: J.S. Bach in the organ loft

while Ludwig the Upteenth

has his way with a slightly damp chamber maid.

But right this instant, half past seven in Kreuzberg,

Berlin, a gang of fiddlers on the side-walk, sounding

like Serbian gypsies out to hustle the al fresco 

fork and knife crowd, those eaters of Italian desserts

who think maybe they’ve achieved happiness

for once and hope it will stick around at least until coffee—

that’s how it’s apportioned, happiness, in mouthfuls and sips,

the weather about to change, and the music

moving indoors, where it belongs anyway,

where we belong, but not always,

nature calling sometimes

even when we need her. 

Adventure Trip

 

Tumbling Dice (Adventure Trip Series) 56 x 42 cm mixed media on canvas by Karin Goeppert

TUDORIAL

Glass tower, castle

holding pattern riveted

to sky, dominant, cock

like in which a cohort of courtiers

crunched by numbers, drunk on work

glances ceiling-ward as if sixth  

century monks wondering what God is 

up to in His corner office. Down the street

and tucked deeper than you can take  

in between wedges of sushi and 

designer doodads a delightfully 

frigid martini attached to a girl’s hand

sweats. A bar of soap smells like sex

and the squash court is essence of fake musk

a headhunter’s gooey patter the patois

on toast today. “You’re toast, sucker.”

Stuck in the middle of traffic far as the eye   

can detect is red. Green is not the color of money

by the wayward. Green does not mean Go

at all: get a new passport, hopscotch over to Mexico

and from there on to parts less known: that’s what it means.

Better: unless you have jail in mind don’t do it

bro lest the chopping block be thy head’s final rest.