I 

Our home alone midsummer night  party was memorable

as was to be foreseen Eventful even

not only did we have great fun (we also had a quarrel:)

I was delighted to have beloved strangers so close around me

Young Beautiful Humanoids Each One of Them

And some new faces even that were pretty

impressive like the curly artist Hannelore and Leonie.  

an all-round democratic teacher no kiddin

 

(which always makes me violently happy ‘cause I love them

At first sight I fall again and again That makes it always

dangerous and I know full well it is not a good idea

But I can’t help it and I cannot and will not resist it

I resist enough in other things in other branches of the stormy worldtree

But anyway the wind blows we swiftly kick started the party)

 

Alex, the student that can be said to be really free,

came all the way from Germany (Yes from the fairest

of German cities Weimar I discovered to my amazement)

and he made, beside his usual enthusiast remarks, a gorgeous houmous

and Altan was sweet as always a gently tender steering presence

soft spoken almost silent but at the heart of the party

merely merely down the stream of conscience is he

a living proof of what to be a humane human being might mean

Melis was (and is most probably) mysterious as an aristocratic lady

from cosmopolitan Constantinople now deeply buried under Istanbul,

she carries that awareness as an aura she has

not to show off for it speaks for itself

Hristina spontaneously blunt and endearing in her walk and talk

with her deep voice and her volcanic Balkan grace

Discovered the garden and reappeared on the steps

of the terrace in the only snapshot that I have 

 

We did think in passing about the project

The installation to be made on my poetry of incongruities

Leonie, our slender teacher with Egyptian hands

Suggested dancers in the buildings and that was only her first masterstroke

Dancers there will be naked promised in the sublime of building of the ruin

 

Because clothes as second skin hamper the meaning of architecture

As third skin all photography of buildings is always empty

Even if that makes no sense but naked bodies will reveal

The true meaning of architecture: to hide and

harbor the bare life of weak beings in the flesh

 

Everything is architecture stated Hollein

And he wasn’t all wrong

Medium means milieu not means

But that everything is or can and should be poetry

That is rock science just under the waterline

 

[alles is architectuur zei Hollein

En hij had niet helemaal ongelijk

Want medium is milieu geen middel

Maar dat alles poëzie is of kan en moet zijn

Dat staat vast als een paal

Die net niet boven water staat]

 

Then we moved on to a haiku exercise

How to complete the fully finished by now almost well known slogan

(always ascribed to Gramsci but incorrectly for it is not the same

And not entirely his in any case for it is also ascribed to the

Great but forgotten Romain Rolland:)

Pessimism in theory  optimism in practice

I gave my first guess: ambivalence in aesthetics

Then all joined in (with a little help from our friends

Like herbs that inspire better than wine):

female aesthetics was the first of leonie

I rejected not knowing in aesthetics was considered

Unbuilt, androgynous, queer, eccentric, play, negligent

Orgasmic and all that jazz but then I suggested we invert

The thing and suddenly leonie again with an ace

‘Aesthetics in between’

I  was in awe and promise that it will be somehow immortalized

 

But alas a quarrel came from this

For Leonie with the egyptian hands was unhappy

when I said she was obsessed with feminism

(as can be seen from the list above)

so she said she could take me on on this

could she know what a ferocious warrior she was talking to

(light inflammable like all spirited substances choleric hysteric

A terror a true party pooper especially with booze in his guts)    

So when she criticized his library no kidden he lost it and took her on

Guessing that her knowledge of postcolonial studies was maybe also lacking

But that this does by no means mean that she did not take colonialism seriously

 

(Well… what could we do – with such violently happy inhospitable host

For a brief moment we were all a bit lost )

But we more or less got back to business with

the wine and let the dust sink in the barrel

(I heard her whisper she would drop it for this time)

While me explaining that nothing is such good beginning as a good quarrel

That “touch ground” is the best of methods to start as it is always halfway

To true reconciliation or ‘verzoening’, literally ‘rekissing’ as we say

To really meet, get real and become mate and mime

The homerian laughter and embraces of the godforsaken gods

 

So Alex (him again) had the excellent idea

to put on music and I pointed to those contagious

irresistible talking heads so we were burning

dancing down the house before we knew it

The brandnew guests even changed to velvet

dresses to go with my purple jacket

Believe it or not but that was impressive,

that is what taking partying seriously means …

But lo and behold at 11 punktlich all went

like ghosts who heard the bell of twelve

Eleven 11 ELEVEN can you imagine

I thought I go after them and who knows get them red handed

in some café in the city or at least dance off my delight all by myself

At half past I was already ready with cleaning up

But then at 5 to 12 it started pouring cats and dogs

so I happily remained and stayed under my canopy

and thanked the gods and dreamed up this versification

to kill my empty handed nighttime home alone

I had my comeuppance I thought but was in resignation

In joyous transport as Frederick Händel would sing

 

dear dear Leonie, you made a great impression on me

If you are angry still, you are only halfway as we say

Please call again with that marvelous friend of yours

 

We all deserve a second coming for Christ sakes

A redeeming party of that endearing little squadron

that we somehow form a salivating salvaging young

beautiful band of nomads gypsies wanderers and philanderers

(with myself in the preposterous  role of savage messiah

in the gatherings of the stay behind forces

may the force be with you if you cross me:)

 

like a workless Hercules I wrote this tribute

to the utterly useless art of partying

as primordial ritual of all Mankind oops humanity

a fart on the dance floor of the cosmos

legless are we by essence

invaluably flawed infallibly floored

and are were united in our differences

like an unemployed poetaster I sung the praise

I mumbled zegedronken drunk in a midsummernightsdream

(house)(party)(poop)

 

‘and thank you all for coming out’

as Marshall Matters shouts violently

happy at the end of his ranting on Encore

please keep coming even if some unlucky

shots may detonate and risk to ruin it all

for even the gods on the Olympic meal

quarreled a great deal [especially with fresh flesh:]

come on please come again and again

for feasts are momentous rehearsals of faltering fraternity

[and sisterhood, sorority!:] feast are and should be

excruciating rimes and misdemeanors ludicrous

a symposium (Yes, Aristophanes, we are hermaphrodites)

 

feasts are tentative monuments of trance and transience

superbly superfluous in their utmost necessity

Tiny Repetitions for Eternity

 

 

II (the art of metamorphosis)

 

I took pictures of the renmants

Of the primordial houmous Alex made

Almost a week ago so it went crusty

On the rims of the bowl in neo-Aztec Airlines style

Appeared an entire cosmos

 

Metamorphosis is the one thing

That always fascinated me

(I tried to transcribe Arachne

The spider into the tale of Icaros

In one of my first failed masterpieces

 Of too many things at once I tried to talk And that

is still up to the present day my problem)

 

But this time transience turned

into an artwork All by itself 

turning houmous into humus

Seems easy but simplicity

is first and last of any art

Waw what a thaumaturg he is

(Alex that is)

 

taumaturgy beloved students (dear children) is the art of wonders

Like making rain and more of those tricks

Empedocles the philosopher who wrote in verse

was particularly Good at it He made a scandal

he jumped into the crater and the volcano spit out his sandal

wow that was cinematic! But one wonders what he meant

 

Translating everything to everybody

 in all possible languages is my trade

my dammed job and my doom but

do not underestimate my desire

If I am a lover it is of language in the first place

Sayed the schoolmaster but he Went

Mad unfortunately he imitated Diogenes

For Christ’s sake ‘a Socrates gone mad’

as Plato wrote in an apocryphal epigram

to honour him in an oxymoron of reason

 

I hope one day not only to write

But also to speak only in verse

Now That would an image of perfection,

a gesture of ‘epic grandeur’

A living proof of I du no Watt

I do know all allen watts ways of zen 

Shockproof waterproof idiot proof even

Opening again and again uneven

the doors of perception

 

Born to be wild

Raised to be a white knight 

Called to become a barbarian

 

camel, lion, child in eternal return

zarathustra’s or was it zoroaster’s wisdom

It was not for nothing Nietzsche:

first load yourself with luggage Camel

then fight for a cause, move mountains  Lion

finally play in your sandpit and look at the world in wonder child

 

In one of his most beautiful pages Foucault

makes a distinction between the savage

And the barbarbian and it boils

Down more or less to this

The savage is wild by nature and therefore

Innocent The barbarian knows but rejects

culture And is therefore mighty dangerous (Oh Lord)

Help us when the ferocious warriors strike

 

But be blessed when the chief of the natives invites you

To his not so humble hut, his almost palatial tent

Even I you all hate me I all love you

With a passion that scares me too

For an instant for the time window is closing

In the paradox of Russell all sets are united

The set of all sets has bel et bien itself as an element…

 

(As usual the after party ended somewhere in limbo

Came a flat lying laying 8 to symbolize End and Infinity

Mating Einstein’s brains with the guts of a bimbo

The coincidence of opposites lies in synchronicity)

 

III (mail to Melis)

 

Thank you Melis, all that jazz is more or less

nothing less or more than juggling with too many balls

in thin air balancing some beautiful extremes

I simply try to translate everything into verse

a ridiculous attempt to immortalize the futile

As an exercise to amuse myself with a great work (for a while)

How to Turn mud into gold is the way

of the alchemist & poetaster for ever and a day

why I am if I am not versatile? (While it lasts

the entire art consists in living as if in extra time )

 

And may be it all boils down to simply this

Singing brings us to the essence of things

Bathroom songs are echos of our soul

To sing about mere existence is

not much but it is enough for me

 

The old time religion on the other hand never was

Oh dear Mozes why did you steal the idea of the one god

From Achnaton?  You confused the sun with the warrior god

And that his name was forbidden did not help

Pantheism and animism should be restored urgently

In their old glory not to believe it all really but

To relieve us from the curse of one god who is first revengeful

And then all knowing (pretty annoying bad while you have fun in bed)

And in the end All loving (believe that after his hideous crimes

entire cities he destroyed A true terrorist he was

in Egypt with his mass killing of the first born)

 

Jaweh was a bastard and Allach is not that much better.

God is love said the Christian priests and terrorized the children of man some more. All a bit of a bad joke and a tremendous yoke we might never escape

But Atlas unshrugged is a dangerous dream too as we know   

 

Ah what am I ranting against religion and why bore you of all people

With this, I don’t know really but it just came to me because I feel

You feel the same about it maybe. And moreover It is not funny when you realize

That some verses of this preposterous mailbox poem might get me killed. 

 

It goes to show you how dangerous religion really is. Even Hinduism

I fell in love with due to a brahmanian princess Ranjani has now its

Murderous identity extremists who kill Muslims by the dozens

That is why we should get together across cultures in a party

 

Full of culture shocks to prepare for the future shock of globalisation 

A movable feast is the name of game without frontiers  

The slogan could be: Party pigs and bar flies of the world unite

 

The old drunk of my childhood babbled

In the first days we will land, today

in love tomorrow in the coal sacks

That is what he said, that is what he sang.  

 

The mantra of love or whatever we call it

Of commons of sharing and caring

the so called practices of Commoning,

Of coming together and sit and eat and drink and dance

together in a primordial Anthropological gesture

can maybe somehow save the world.