Caught myself playing around with a Diebenkorn landscape painting.
Oops!
Pearl Thusi as Queen Sono in a still shot from the crime series Queen Sono (2020) set in Africa
While this spy series, a Netflix production, has a few plot holes, it is definitely suspenseful and holds special interest for its setting in several African countries and portrayal of social and political events.
The wicker chair holds the door back –
it might close from the wind made by the fan
The whirr of the fan fills the room
but there are occasional scrapes
and steps from below
where the cleaning man is doing his job
Not much else is happening today –
I’m glad, it goes with my almost immobile
stupor not long after breakfast out
at C’era una volta il caffè,
where they were playing The Boss’
mellow I’m on fire
Yes, that’s the kind of fire I’m on
in this torpid Roman morning heat
– Johannes Beilharz (© 2013)
Note
Another poem originally published in 2013 by the long defunct Writers Asylum.
The way you talked of Cézanne
and Paula Modersohn
we kids expected them
to walk in any time and
join us for lunch, tea or dinner.
It took us a few years
of growing up to realize
they were long dead.
I’m not sure now
what is more alive
to my sister and me –
the naive image of
these artists as friends
we simply had not yet seen
or the paintings
we saw later in books
and museums.
– Johannes Beilharz (© 2013)
Note
This poem was initially published in 2013 by Writers Asylum, an excellent online publication that ceased to exist – without explanation – around 2015.
Warum sind da Fliegen auf dem Boden
im Februar, warum vermatscht sich der Schnee draußen,
warum schlafen die Katzen?
Weil du zurückgekommen bist
aus Paris, um deine Rückkehr zu feiern.
[2.2.1966]
– Frank O’Hara
Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Johannes Beilharz.
