Voyage to South of Nowhere

Hagebutte IV - Rose Hip IV 39 x 39 cm Pastel by Karin Goeppert

NOMAD ROMANCE

I’ve got you pinned to a wall.

There’s a strong smell of sage somewhere

in Spain or amid remnants of old Provence,

troubadours, broken stone, or in one of those wild corners  

of the Peloponnese, white-washed walls thick with pink light,

octopuses hanging from clothesline near the water

which is ripple of blue silk rinsed with gold.

I’ve got you pinned to a wall and you’re okay with that,

or making out in a corner of the one tavern in this village, above us

a photo of Hemingway posing with some very large very dead fish.

Maybe it’s not Hemingway, but a local hero instead, Juan or Christos

or Francois, some guy with a beard, anyway, gloating over the catch of his life.

Do we care if we offend? Probably not. Two shafts of broken light,

two shafts of crooked light, joined precariously

at the waist in old Pelop’s  

Spanish kingdom, south of nowhere, getting hotter every day.

Voyage Voyage - Desireless

Amorphous

Amorph - Amorphous 39 x 39 cm

BOURGEOIS COMPLAINT

Obscure whispers from waves

and tree-tops confess their restless spirit;

then, as if to prove their point, depart. You contemplate

the Eight Sorrows plus their off-spring which

adds up to a total of sixteen. Numbers, though often oppressive,

enable you to grasp a nutshell’s infinite space. You’re

at home in theory, as they say; theory takes you for a ride

in a 1965 Galaxy 500 convertible, out on Fish Ranch Road

in the hills just above Berkeley, and dumps

you on your ass in the dust, near the rattle snakes

and joggers, laughing the whole time. So much for research.

If you must visit that white city perched

amid olive trees and citrus groves and hyperactive goats,

then go on, get out; we know

that your mind works differently from ours…

how does your mind work?

(Rumor has it that the rebels will seize the airport any day now;

trains have stopped running; food and clean water

are in short supply.) Rumor has it

that it doesn’t work at all, never has.

The White Stripes - In the cold cold night

Five Minutes in Kreuzberg

Hagebutte III - Dog Rose III by Karin Goeppert

FIVE MINUTES IN KREUZBERG

The lunatic’s howling in the street again. He loses his shit

two or three times a week, right around

dusk, whose ambiguous border-line is his full moon.

If it were an optical event, some kind of structure or series

of colors, his anger might be visible from space, like the Great Wall,

like a million large female bottoms mooning the moon,

like a carnival of mayhem on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Yesterday afternoon a woman making banshee noises, demanding  

equal time. Not in trouble, troubled. Maybe she and the howling man take turns.

I’ve read that Saul Bellow, presumably on the advice

of his shrink, used to march out into the woods

for a little primal roaring after lunch. A fashion in psycho-analytic

circles of the day: dozens of writers, painters, poets out in the forests

of Connecticut or Vermont screaming their shrunken heads off.

In Europe the intelligentsia would drink a digestive after

a heavy meal and take a nap or have sex with mistress/lover/spouse. Progress, anyone?

Vacation finally peters out as I run back

into the arms of my routine, a marathoner, falling across the I’m finished line.

Imagine the Stockholm Syndrome applied to daily life. We embrace

our captors—i.e., ourselves—identify with their struggle to keep us on schedule.

You’re not as time-managed as a digitalized metronome? You must be a sociopath.

A Thracian wedding has spilled over into the street: dancing to

wild music, music Orpheus might have been torn apart to, the bride

gift-wrapped and smiling while males in double-breasted

pin-striped suits, sensitive to the sinuosities of the music,  

execute delicate steps and clap their hands. Does the prospect of good food—

e.g., sumptuous Levantine wedding banquet food—bring out the Dionysian

in people? Possibly, but who cares, because I’m

hungry for a kebab (deepest Anatolia). Or Scharwama (succulent).

Or gyros in pita bread (Greek). Mango sauce and creamy yogurt (fattening). A fistful

of onions, cumin, tart herbal sprinklings (everything). Dragon breath garlic too: do I

offend thee by breathing in thy face? Please deal with it (thank you). I must be (crazy). 

Imaginary Traveler by Omar Faruk Tekbilek

States of Mind

Herbstbusch - Autumn Bush 50 x 60 cm Acryl/Oilsticks/Oilpastel

AIRBORNE

We’re not even airborne yet

and they offer us a sedative—a mix

of white wine and carbonated water.

Eighty-three passengers are pretending 

they don’t have to burp,

whispering excuse me every 20 seconds

through tightly clenched fists. Please

raise that plastic shutter, thank you, and while you’re

at it could you give me a massage? Absolutely nothing

would agree with me more right now 

than a strong shot of uncomplicated pleasure

and as fast as possible. Such was Thailand.

On the beach. A roofless palm-thatched hut.

Slicked with coconut oil and pulled up to

heaven by the shaft of life. Amen. And now?

There’s a lump in my throat, and it’s difficult to swallow

air, saliva, anything. Just sit back and feel free, a voice advises, 

to feel the snake of feeling that coils around your neck

till you can’t breathe anymore, till you can’t even tell

you’re not breathing anymore, till some exhausted intern

in an understaffed urban emergency room

pronounces me dead, and who, when he turns his

slump-shouldered back, I give the slip

and live to die another day. Numbers call us to air.

Distractions: behind every smile—plots, puzzles,

a tiny nest of deceit. Believe nothing. The girl who

spills her wine spritzer in your lap? She smiles; but instead

of paranoia—a vicious plot to get you wet, or mere accident?—

in your heart

there wells up a great wave of peace,

plenitude and delusion. Believe everything. Shit, why not?

And we’re not even airborne yet. 

One - Aimee Mann

Misty Mountain

Hagebutte II - Dog Rose (Rose Hip) II - 39 x 39 cm

IN BAYERISCHZELL

There’s something archaic

about this, not old fashioned,

cold foggy air, mist, always

moving, wearing a spicy

tannenbaum fragrance, mixed with pine

it’s not like shopping or office work

and if I ever see another fucking computer

and something else, undefinable, a twinge

at the back of the mind, or down lower

where the hypothalamus talks lizard

to an uppity but all too impressionable

cerebral cortex, you’d think, and this, as we

are hiking the rim of valley and mountain’s

foothill, the long lonely way down, my big toes hurt

and even before we can discuss, label, file them  

certain feelings flare up and then die out, hardly felt at all

and sometimes we spot through the shredded clouds

the wood-balconied inn in whose antlered hall

I will eat Zwiebelrostbraten and fried potatoes

and drink at least two glasses of beer, and Karin

will dine on fish and potato salad, the light

of our candle flaring out while I observe a

woman absently staring back at her husband’s

absent stare, the long

lonely way down, a waitress bending her rosy shoulders,

clean blond head and plump cleavage

forward, like a serving girl

in a genre painting, to re-light our candle. 

4 Non Blondes - Misty Mountain Hop