“Rhino Ritz is an American Mystery: The Classic American Authors are immortal and living happily ever after in Paris recently relocated in San Francisco – when Sherwood Anderson disappears. Ernest (Rhino) Hemingway & F. Scott (Ritz) Fitzgerald open RHINO RITZ DETECTIVE AGENCY to find him. The plot heats up when Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas are abducted by Japanese terrorists , who force Ms. Stein to write their communique – which no one can understand. Finally, our heroes stumble onto a sinister conspiracy involving the future of American Literature.”
I went to a masterclass
the woman said loudly.
Do you know that the singers
- beautiful voices -
didn’t have a clue
what they were singing about?
The stranger across the table from me
frowned in irritation
trying to read the lines
Castor et Pollux synopsis
before the second half
The woman repeated
what she had just said
a little differently, same emphasis
while her friends listened
I poured some sugar
into my Concertgebouw cappuccino
specific, just enough coffee
to finish in time
It’s hard to understand the words
the woman said loudly.
Just think if a French singer
is singing in English
or a Dutch singer
is singing in German
Across the table from me
the stranger sighed
his head bowed
something about twins
could be different fates
it all dependend on
judicious overtitles
and antiquated French
I played the flute and piano
the woman said loudly.
When I was three I sang a song
oh I liked that song we had at home
sang along to the record player
I still have that record
I finished my coffee and sat
waiting for the next assault
on my sensibilities
But my mind wandered off
remembering the man
wearing brand new
black leather trousers
jacket and cap
silver chain glinting
as he pushed his bike up
the bike ramp while I
made my way
down the steps
to the bike stall
underground
and I noted with curiosity
the leek sticking
out of his bike basket
Wee a.m.
the cat sitting on
my right hip bone
kneading my side
heavy voice outside
drunk, in a language
I can’t make out
woman-shriek
pierces the night
dull thumping
shirt on shirt
half asleep I
egg on the fight
atta, go at ‘em go
my organs
under the cat’s
administration
I hear
scuffling
Jog my memories: Eight Stops on the Train from Amsterdam Amstel to Gouda
=
My first year in Holland: I was told that I’d save money if I got off at Amstel and took the metro to the opera house and I can still remember the round face and blues eyes of the person giving me that advice in the Utrecht Conservatory canteen in between sips of bad coffee.
—-
My accountant, who chose not to humor me when I insisted I would buy real estate in Amsterdam’s city center, sitting in his office taking in my next new artistic plan and calculating in his head how much of a tax break that might make me and curious as to how much longer I would insist on keeping up this parade of losses.
——-
The night when Beyoncé nearly blew my eardrums out and I struggled back home, elated to have gone and relieved to be allowed to regain my senses in peace.
—
The day, thirty-five euros richer, I climbed out of an econo-vehicle after a performance in the polder.
———
Where I always wonder what it would be like to have to go to that… what is it – a village- a suburban hell – a jolly place to be inside on a rainy day with an option to muck out a horse stall always on hand – out on some errand/social call/pretense. What on earth will possibly take me there? Of course, I would never resist the invitation…whenever it comes.
————————-
Gamely pushing my old dog in a red stroller over the loose gravel and mud, getting picked up by an econo-vehicle for a rehearsal out in the polder.
—————–
The birthday party for a singing student who was an official government squatter, occupying a whole floor or hundreds of potential cubbyhole spaces, in a 1970’s building on an industrial terrain. Admittedly a tough home to decorate.
———————————-
Yes, look, on the left there’s the house where a friend’s husband physically and emotionally repeatedly attacked her and, on the other side of the tracks, the woods where I took my old dog one day for a treat away from the city and we both ended up peeing in the bushes.
—–
A place where I hardly recognize who I once was and don’t know what to feel anymore, but it is a nice town and my friends tell me they are never going to make it out of there.
On my wall there was a modest space available, large enough for a mirror, but then I thought, no, not a new mirror, better find a secondhand mirror, maybe oval or maybe rectangular. I felt there was an element missing between the paintings hanging on my wall and, besides, the middle part of my studio, the part between the front windows and the back balcony was a bit dark at times. A mirror might help. Did I, and I asked myself this while standing on the Keizersgracht one evening with a small object between my hands, favor this little mirror, poorly wedged into an old chipped frame? Someone had put it out on the street. I thought not.
Months later, I passed by a pile of picture frames and whynotstuff set out on the street for grabs and I thought, hold on, that mirror is exactly what I am looking for. The mirror was vintage, held in place by a painted wooden frame, a color of green that is an old green, favored back in the 1920’s and the frame was unremarkable, made of heavy wood with the heavy piece of glass set into it. The wire attached to the back was sturdy, sensibly placed and ready to use, and the mirror, all in all, was well made and preserved. Turning it over, the top of the frame touched my nose. I noted the wood had a faint odor of chimney smoke. It must have been a very nice little mirror for a hovel back in the day.
Wait, I thought looking down, what’s this between the empty picture frames? A painting. Apples that looked like they, too, were from the 1920’s, encased in a bronze-colored frame that looked like it was from the 1920’s. Maybe 1930’s. Did I like those apples? I decided I did. I took it home and inspected the signature. SPRENGER it said on the bottom. APPELS it said, in Dutch, on the top. (A friend later told me that he thought one of the apples looked more like a quince.) In total, six whole apples and one quarter of an apple are depicted in the painting, an oil painting set behind glass.
Five of the apples are displayed in a grey colored dish and the background is typically Dutch, namely that of an oriental rug, the kind people used to put on top of their tables. I often think it was so citizens could inspect the prized object better than had the rug been used, father down, on the floor. It’s an old-fashioned habit that I rarely see in homes today.
Just who was this apple painter, this Sprenger? A pomologist, a professor of apples who had wanted to become an artist and, unsurprisingly, his 19th century parents did not approve. Instead, the man became a horticultural champion at a university down in the southern region of the Netherlands, a recognized cultivator of fruit, and the hero of apple crops before he was forgotten. He politely named two of his apples after the young royal princesses and further spent a significant amount of time researching economical ways of processing and promoting a thick fruit juice that undoubtedly could be an improvement to any diet (as prescribed by important doctors and then surely all the medical profession at large). Thus, was born of Professor Sprenger a line of juice drinks named Zoete Most that, pre-war, competed with the groundbreaking Swiss products already sold on the European market.
In the weekends Professor A.M. Sprenger painted apples, shutting himself up in his attic. I have no idea how these Appels came to be put out to pasture on a small street in the city center of Amsterdam, but I am charmed to see them now hanging on my wall.
Poems in the Car
I imagine you waiting
in a parking lot for something to happen
for the signal to go, go, go and
you reach down for your phone
mentally spin out off the road
read a poem by Simon
I imagine your blond head bent
in concentration, trying to find
something to report as you anticipate
a familiar occurrence appearing
above the horizon of your dashboard
meanwhile Simon’s slow words,
searching fingers tips, enter your sightline
and explain to you it already happened
sometime ago and you are free
Bartender,
Give me a bottom I want to say
a motherfucking smack the fanny
nectar bleeding pimpled dumpling
doughy dog-haired bruised apple
gooey cheesy pink crackly frosty
yes, the best one on the menu
what I am yakking about here and
hey the futurette is not looking too good,
in a glass.
My doorbell doesn’t work and nor does the buzzer. Hasn’t worked for ages, and I like it that way. People ask me how do you….? For a short while my downstairs neighbor was very obliging. But then she went, like so many have gone before, and now I have a downstairs neighbor who won’t open the street door. I don’t know his first name, but I noticed from the mail in his box that he is the owner of a bike delivery service. Maybe he’ll stick around more than five months. But back to the story, some time ago my downstairs neighbor, then a young exuberant Italian woman with a nose ring, buzzed open the street door.
*
A man stomped up two flights of stairs and started knocking on my door. I heard the knocking, and I asked myself, “Is that someone knocking on my front door?” I happen to live in an area that isn’t really a typical residential area and the residents, the handful of us who are long term, are not out to impress each other. In any way. My area is the kind of area that’s a flow through place. Of course the day I moved in signaled to everyone that artists were and are still a commodity. And most likely this neighborhood will be going upscale, but hopefully not before I hit sixty-five when I will stop singing classical music and merely concentrate on playing my grand piano.
*
What I learned the day I finally opened my door, after a young man determinedly continued knocking, was that it can take some time before artists get the gentrified groove going someplace. It turns out that Herman Brood once lived in my little studio. A photographer had just written a book about his time following Brood around Amsterdam and wanted to film a little promo piece. The photographer and the reporter were amazed at my little studio, a real artist’s studio! It was like Herman was still in situ! They were glad that the place was still in the hands of a Bohemian. It was karma. Herman had celebrated his honeymoon in my flat back in the 80’s and for years now, I’ve celebrated my divorce in my minuscule apartment. All mine, I don’t have to share space, and the neighbors never last.
Eli
on the floor
recovering from yoga
I listen to the marbled glass ceiling light
the waves playing a soundtrack
from a 1980’s cult movie
old world Baba Cool –
Only a handful of people I know
would probably remember that film
and today on
The Other Side of the World
my friend
buried her son.
Biking Mater Nostrae
Plump mound of Venus
Orange lace legs
Toffee colored saddle
Thrusting nose
Denim mini dress
Pregnant belly
High heels pumping
Amsterdam
The Time When I Brought Chengdu Peaches to Singapore
Between my fingers
this poem
not so distant from a peach
Peel it
hang it below one nostril
wok fragrance in other nostril
Have you ever tasted
the swollen peaches of Chengdu?
so much more flavor
than the muzzled fruit of the West
Packed carefully
lucky red box
ready for Singapore landing
friends and family
urgently feast
But at our table
untouched fruit and
your withering question,
“How was China?”
rot then, my gift
It’s a Bagel
Some concept, poem or bagel
garlic versus sesame, makes me
worry openly about longevity.
But I know for either one
the road is a short, seasoned trail.
Just a half dozen or even several thousand
ceremonial bagels and prospecting poems
all dolled up for judgement day
routinely buried with niceties
and a tad of suspicion, gosh -
all those calories.
The pedestrian lobbed A thick gob of spit at the taxi We were on 3rd, up a bit, almost at 34th “Fucking dickhead,” the walker yelled The taxi driver didn’t flinch Twenty six years driving A cab around New York City, His career move from Russia, Some guy in a tee-shirt screaming Profanities at him in the middle Of the street just as he was Heading towards JFK About to get some country air….so…. Anyway Behind the wheel the Russian perked up Seeing that cute white Nissan sportscar Even accelerated a bit, switching lanes To follow a little closer maybe Already forgetting about the traffic ticket He got on Hudson after I climbed in Tardy seat belt maneuver and the cops Watching, nodding at me “Ma’am” As they approached the taxi Pulled over on top of a bunch of white lines, Pretty bracelet around the curb, Requesting a card to charge and the Happy Dragon Early Intervention Center Direct off the Horace Harding Expressway Promising easy access for families The taxi and the Russian In moderate traffic rattling Along the highway Past the miracle churches and Wooden houses with barred windows An hombre in a sombrero on the steps While Grandpa’s Bus Company claimed It had already checked for sleeping children, The sign suckered onto the dirty window.
Last week
I inherited
music from Larry Fishkind.
He was
a one of a kind
tuba player.
Unknown to him
he graciously
bequeathed to me
a short stack of scores
folksongs, Christmas carols
Copeland Americana
All without words.
Socks It's time For new ones A binary orbit Star adventure One foot in tune With the other
