Give me a reason to love you

  

I didn't have a Thing to Wear 40x30x3 cm - mixed media and collage on MDF

 

 

BEAUTY TRAP

 

There we were, snaking over the surface of things, down

the cracked fresco, up the prickly pear. It was

impossible to process so much beauty at one time.

It was like being too drunk to enjoy a Brunello.

Like Stendhal, besotted aesthete, toppling in

some Duomo, we had to take a lot of naps.

But it’s all part of the job: poets have to deal with beauty.

 

The landlord kept certain family secrets

buried just outside our bedroom window.

Or was it a barely submerged septic tank?

Down in the village, a woman, with a cutting edge  

haircut, sliced thin cuts of Parma ham for our sandwiches.

 

We met a self-proclaimed humanist at the Stazione bar

whose primary credential was four years

of high school Latin. He looked like a

hipster Machiavelli. “In Vino Veritas,” he slurred dryly

while hitting on our waitress. Working one summer

in a Santa Fe convenience store he met a man who had

done a photo-essay on Sophia Loren. “He said

she was gorgeous of course but had the hands of a peasant.”

Why the “but?”

 

I hate to confess this but I wouldn’t know a peasant’s hands

If, for the mere fun of it, they slapped me across the face. 

 

 

Interlunar Rendevous

Interlunar Rendevous 80 x 80 cm mixed media on canvas c/o Karin Goeppert

THE PERILS OF PLEASURE RELOADED

What does dürum mean, Mister Answer Man?

Well, Tiny Curious One, it means

a Turkish tortilla filled with thin slices of kebab,

onions, tomatoes, crisp lettuce, a garlic

herbal sauce, its trip south occasionally

facilitated by streams of cold beer. What’s

heartburn and garlic-scented breath measured

against such a delicious combo of ingredients?

It’s time to gather the right equipment and substances,

just me and a glass of some toxic brew, thoughts

not at all rigorous after a couple of bong hits, ears   

tuned-in to the correct channel as I make out

through static and buzz, not only an exquisite

piece by Portishead, but the sound of a young woman’s voice

muttering something but nothing I want to hear

while she fidgets and searches through her bag  

for a way out, answering my “where do you live?” with  

“exactly three hours from Louisiana,” and I have to admire

if grudgingly and with some regret and rising resentment

the way she indicates who knows we’ll see but I have my doubts

with a shoulder shrug, barely fighting back a yawn, hatching

the exit strategy I am fated to be a victim of.

What came next

Calluna 1 42 x 56 cm acryl/dispersion color/oil pastel on paper

WHAT CAME NEXT

                                             Bright gods and Tuscan…

                                             … and the clouds bowe over the lake.

                                                                   Ezra Pound, from CANTO III

Getting tired of the city, rats playing

In the garbage, the self-conscious rudeness

of  people trying too hard to be ugly. In my writing

I’d like to put gods in the trees and nymphs, etc., but

down in the basement, where the pit bull is chained,

a handful of maenads are smoking crystal. Hopelessly urban.  

Meanwhile in Italy Poggio still makes wine in his frescoed villa

near the river Arno as if there were no modern world

or post-modern or any which way you prefer to   

label what seems to be happening right now. I’m thinking of

doing a reboot that will have me walking through a vineyard

of my own.  Wearing a straw hat and baggy white linen suit.

It’s too bad the thin gurgling of water in the cistern has to

remind me that everything is running out. Bills are due. Hammock’s broken.

In the deep cool shadows of the front porch Karin

is painting my state of mind. It’s part of a

series, each picture a little bit better than the last. I break

into a two-step, attempt a pirouette. I hear paint hitting canvas.  

Blue

Schmerz - Pain 29,5 x 21 cm

BLUE RONDO A LA PARAMOUR

I’ll take a slab of roast veal in olive oil

per favore with some lemon and rosemary

sprinkled on; and did I mention the vino rosso

something alla magnifico whatever

guaranteed to the hilt of its coat of arms

while on a windy Etruscan hillside

in the midst of several self-abusive hallucinations

cavorting among themselves near the dappled compost

heap, I, or someone like me, enthroned upon an African chair,

spot a tall naked girl, vibrantly unreal, her skin

all honey and olives in the white light as she saunters across

the desiccated grass. But she’s not your run of the mill

   pagan apparition. No.

In fact, it’s not difficult to imagine her

with a rolled up Elle or Vogue in her fist

swaying fiercely in the middle of a sagging bed

smashing against the white washed walls

   of our cheap pensione

the whining succubi of Italian night.

 

Portishead - Sour Times

Roseland New York

We have decided to start our own blog and share with you what we love.

This will be a journey in the unknown for, hopefully fun and interesting! 

We will be posting Karin's paintings - all paintings are pastel paintings if not specified otherwise - and work of other painters we like. We will also be sharing poetry by Ken and music we both like.

Morning in Uffing 23,5 x 29,5 cm

LOOKING THE OTHER WAY IN BERLIN

A beautiful, stiff-shouldered

girl crosses the street, and we have

a parade of isolation and indifference

on two legs

hot wet wind ruffling four or five shades

of green in the park she’s walking through. Not a touch

of sway in those shoulders, wearing a skirt and a large

white bandage, gauze, I think, just below her right knee,

everything about her tightly packaged, seemingly

under control, every future decision

already made, so that in a sense she could 

check out of her life temporarily

slip away body and soul

to a garlic festival in California

or a camel race in Marrakesh

and nobody would notice, everything going as planned,

and through it all her blonde hair hanging straight as a Wasserfall.

She looks up, this simulacra, only to catch me

looking the other way.

As if in retribution for my lack of courage

or surplus of discretion or whatever it was

and always a sucker for the vaguely karmic

signals that chance loves to torment us with

a cyclist tries to run me over.

A broad street, plenty of room, and as I run for the gutter

he homes in on me, no other traffic in sight. I feel like

I’m in Pamplona, fending off bulls with a rolled up newspaper.

One or two minutes after avoiding collision

I wonder what the man and woman on their second floor balcony

are thinking eating their breakfast ignoring my stare,

ignoring my shock and outrage, witnesses

to something that almost happened, just minding their own business.

The man, probably a retired cop or taxi driver, wearing a white

tank-top, and the woman, in some flimsy thing

with yellow and pink flowers on it, a dressing gown, and who

once worked in a department store, I’m sure of this, and was rude

to customers for nearly thirty-five years. People here

don’t mind being viewed half-dressed on their

little balconies drinking strong black coffee,

eating three minute eggs, looking the other way when it suits them.

Kenneth Burns

Portishead: Roads