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.  

Send me no doctor

Continental Drift 25 x 30 cm acryl painting by Karin Goeppert

SOME PEOPLE I’VE SEEN

Yesterday, for example, saw a woman

whose face went back and forth

between fear and bewilderment.

I’ll never know her troubles,

I thought. And what could I offer, if I did?

“Sex,” whispered the male imperative, psychopathically

serene as ever. Then enlightened self-interest slash good manners     

kicked in with: “Don’t stare, it’s rude. Mind your own business.”

When I looked at her again, she was smiling, on the verge of laughter.                                           

                                        And what’s up with the 

man who camps out in the park most nights? I’ll never

get close enough to figure him out. An exchange   

of words though might be like slithering face-up under

miles of barbed wire. No way out. However if you    

are living in a park, psychology no doubt’s been stripped

down to finding shelter, a bite to eat. But what about those

potentially reflective moments when he’s smoking 

a cigarette beneath his favorite tree? For his sake I hope

he mainly thinks about supply issues. Where his next 

smoke is coming from. Bottle of lager. And not cause & effect.

                                            One bright June day last year 

I spotted a pretty girl seated atop a stack of pallets on a Berlin  

sidewalk. A fashionable boulevard. And there she was eating 

from a carton of strawberries with the abandon of a voluptuary,

a libertine of fruit. But slowly, with care, every bite deeply

enjoyed, as if nothing else in the world mattered. I couldn’t stop looking.

I put a spell on you

On the Road (Adventure Trip Series) 56 x 42 cm - mixed media

THE BODY, THE VOICE, THE PHANTOM TOUCH

                                                                         “Gudrun lay wide awake,

                                                           destroyed into perfect consciousness.”

                                                                                  D.H. Lawrence, “Women in Love.”                      

It was her body that carried you off like an ambulance.

Left you feeling hollow and full at the same time,  

the heat of your nerves maxed out, melting down

the mind to its ultimate core—not like Gudrun,

but rebirthed in imperfect unconsciousness—a long look

deep into his eyes got it started. The body’s embellishments,

its choreography and subterranean fragrance

did the rest.

For the first time in your life you move through

the world as if a malign deity had her hands around your heart,

squeezing until the pressure’s intolerable,

necessary, a beautiful anfractuous annihilation. In 

such a moment you are not the subject of this poem, you  

are the poem. Sonata of raw need; thousand page 

suburban blockbuster; break-dance of the reckless heart.