Versos sencillos

Was going to listen to I want you
by Bob Dylan

Then was offered Mañana
by Sílvia Pérez Cruz

And that one’s going by my ears
right now

That’s what’s happening thanks to 
electricity, electronics and YouTube

On this fourth day of January in 2025,
a Saturday with time to spend on things

Much more pleasant than work

– Leonardo Blumfeld (© 2024)

Afterword
Guess what’s next? I want you ... so baaad.

Fence & Old & New

 

Rome - southern suburb of Fonte Laurentina

Captured with Vignette for Android on a Xiaomi Redmi 10 telephone.

Any other suggestions?

What should we name the band?

Retards?

Petards, like that old British band?

Or Leetards,

like leotards?

Raise your hands!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes

That came seemingly out of nowhere. I was reading poems by Kenward Elmslie which had nothing to do with music or bands, put the book down, and this minipoem arrived. As I found out slightly later, The Petards was not a British band but a German one, whose lyrics were all in English. The song Lazy Moon above is from 1967.

So one night we did that

Nico and I were walking around in the neighborhood with our cans, around midnight it must have been, looking for a good empty spot to decorate. All we had along that night was white, black, two shades of red and some weird mix of grey and blue. And this is part of what we did on the wall of an open staircase. What's it supposed to mean? Don't know. That's not the point at all. The point is that this ugly grey piece of concrete wall now looks a lot better. Don't you think?

Giacomo – Love For Ever

 

Seven years later, the tattoo was still there, while Giacomo, including her love for him, was long gone. And Jimmy, the new flame, wasn’t too keen on seeing Giacomo around whenever he looked at her arm. Would she really have to have it removed? How long was Jimmy going to last? Frankly, her belief in eternity had been shattered – a bit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes
Photo art courtesy of AI but based on a true story.

Sub

Oh come to me!
What is sub? the Siberian said
(from what I’d understood
before he was from some place
around Lake Baikal, which,
he’d managed to tell me some-
how, was not only the world’s
oldest but also its deepest lake)

In my incorrigible tendency
to speak the many-faceted truth
whenever called for or uncalled
for, I went into the multiple
meanings of sub – and noticed,
after having said about five
words, that this was overkill
and way beyond what was
wanted or needed

I broke it off, but then added:
– could be short for submarine
– could be short for submarine
sandwich, a sandwich resembling
a submarine
– could be short for substitute,
as in subbing for a teacher who
is sick or absent for some other
reason
– could refer to ...

What was I doing? The
look in the Siberian’s face
was half pain, half wonder,
adding up to full incompre-
hension. Sub, I pointed
at the building across,
and mimicked eating.
He said Is good? Upon
which I nodded. That
should be universal
enough, right? Shook
hands and left.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
The prompt was substitutions, so a teacher would give me an F for this. Oh dear, I have been known to ramble occasionally!

The Original Zengela Band (Kenya)

Pamela by the Original Zengela Band

While going through my CD shelf (yes, I still have tons of CDs), I rediscovered an old treasure I hadn't listened to in years - an album by the East African Original Zengela Band I'd bought on eBay in 2003. The album itself dates from 1997 and was distributed by a German company named p&g media service gmbh in Staufen im Breisgau. 

Nothing much can be found about this band on the Internet - it looks like the CD I have is about the only release there is, even though it seems to have been released several times with different covers.

Anyway - it's great music, and I've been listening to the CD over and over again, particularly while running on the treadmill. There's nothing better to make this rather boring act more exciting than the swinging rhythm produced by this marvelous band. Highly recommendable!

Seems like a repeat

Dogs barking in the back alley
for invisible reasons (as if they
ever needed any),

fan whirring, installing a semblance of cool
in here while the immense summer heat
drags on into September.

While I’m trying to keep my cool
as I’m going through rows and rows
of written materials that would most likely
not be missed had they not been written.

But that’s what ya get paid for, me boy.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
This should be blunt enough not to require any explanation.

Part of Weary Outpourings of a Grump Ground Down by Life and Other Things.

Lonely, strong, nearly symmetrical

 

Thinking back to the days when kids
were running around here,
when cows were mooing, roosters
crowing, dogs barking and cats
meowing – life.

Unlike now when there’s only
mechanical clatter of machines – 
sometimes.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
This was written to accompany the photo, which shows a tree next to the remains of what used to be a farm (Lazio, Italy, southeast of Rome).

Momentary account

   

Rome, July 31, 2024

Burning heat, sometimes
crying of children, howling
of dogs, power cuts.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
Razor-edge-of-time reporting from the climate change front.

No respect, no tears good-bye

 

Discarded technology

Title chosen in variation of lyrics by Tom Rush ("no regrets / no tears good-bye").

Once a means of communication, now a piece of high-tech trash carelessly thrown away. Photographed in Rome, but this could be just about anywhere on the planet.

Mrs. A’s sweet dilemma

“Today I have a slight headache – probably overdid it at the Tutta birthday party ... hmmm ... I think the Lamborghini might be the cure for that. Or not? 
Maybe the Rolls because of its softer springing? 
Where do I have to go anyway? – Ah yes, the golf course to meet hubby. 
It’s going to be so hot there! Thank God there’s a highly effective AC in the clubhouse. 
Which one reflects our status more accurately? – Tell me, dear Sher Singh – Italian or British?”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Photo credit
AI - no real people or cars are shown here.

Tiger Shroff in Bade Miyan Chote Miyan

Indian actor Tiger Shroff in a film still from the action movie Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (2024).

Taken from the screen with an ancient Sony Ericsson cell phone from around 2004 and subjected to some retro editing.

Haven't finished watching, so no words on the film for now.

What is the title of this poem?

 But, more importantly, what is its content?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
Inspired by a similarly titled poem by Kathryn Bevis, which has lots of detailed content, I came across at the Poetry Society UK site. I decided to not only question the title of the poem but also the content, thus taking it up one notch.

A Man Needs A Maid

 

That was one particular April in 2014, when it had been drizzling, raining cats and dogs and hailing in turn and I was working at this farm somewhere in the boonies of southern Germany, where the rough charm and ruddy looks of one Mr. Rolf Pralad had brought me. One of his favorite songs was Neil Young’s “A man needs a maid” – he’d told me that before I arrived there, but I had no idea how literally he understood the title. 

I learned to get up early, feed the animals, milk the cows, make breakfast, clean the place, etc. In turn I initially got some loving, but that faded after a short time. 

It was towards the end of April, and it was still raining, I kid you not, when he tossed me out because his old girlfriend had come back. 

“I don’t deserve this, Rolf!”
“A matter of opinion.”
“What has she got that makes her better than me?”
“Well, for one she is blonde, and I prefer blondes, and then –”
“Then what?”
“I don’t want to insult you, Karo.”
“Well, you’ve done plenty of that already, Rolf. I deserve better.”
“You don’t. Get lost!”

Upon which he threw out my suitcase, pushed me out the door and slammed it shut in my face.

But his dog Pummel followed me, and now, ten years later, I still have that dog – a heavenly creature compared to his former master.

– Kathleen Mulholland (© 2024)

Author's note: Story not my own. Loosely based on a video game (see lo-fi clip above).

The drab streets haiku

 

Read today we should
all be grateful for any-
thing and everything

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
I really did read that today somewhere on the oh so social media. “Anything and everything” would include drab streets, right? Like the Roman street with its crumbling brutalist architecture eternalized in the photo above.

PS:
Anyone interested in drab street photos like the one shown here please get in touch!

Let me do my work

 Dedicated to Alessandro

There we go.
And now.
That’s what I need.
Next.
A bucket.
This goes here.
Shit.
Dropped it all.
A broom.
Now what.
Needs to dry.
What is this.
Nothing.
Damn.
No way.
Next thing I need.
Found it.
Now that.
Doesn’t work at all.
Maybe it will.
All OK.

– Nicole Weiß (© 2024)

Author’s note
Yesterday, the handyman Alessandro S. was working in my house. This short story is more or less based on things he mumbled to himself while he was going about his work.

Translation from German. The German version was published here.

A Korean move

Drop sideways onto
bed in desperation, then
sad eyes on pillow

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
Inspired by watching yet another South Korean TV series – Dr. Slump (2024). The photo is a film still of actress Park Shin-hye in a scene from this series.

Today’s observation haiku

Stout Roma woman
seated on a concrete block
outside the market

She had removed one 
sock and was massaging the
toes of her bare foot

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
The truth and nothing but.
Was this worth noting and being poeticized/documented?
Not entirely sure. But what’s done is done.

Linger On

Linger on,
you pale blue light

And it did linger on,

pale and blue

But just how long

and what followed – 

light or shade – 

I do not know

after the night’s 

weighty long dream

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note

This was sparked by the song Pale Blue Eyes by the Velvet Underground, which has appeared and disappeared repeatedly in my mind for days now for reasons unknown with its title and imagery distorted.

A lazy Sunday afternoon haiku

 

Sunny afternoon,
late January. At home
alone, cat sleeping.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
Razor edge of time reporting, glimpse of a time span that lasted for a while. I’d actually planned to write this in my head before I even got home. I knew that the cat would be sleeping. He does that about 16 hours out of 24.

Photography haiku

 

Found out this morning
I have neither spider web 
photos nor smoke pix

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes
I’ve been known to participate in some photography challenges where you’re invited to post a photo to match a given topic. This made me realize that I have nothing suitable for at least two topics. The above smoky picture is actually a fake – the interior of this room looks smoky but in reality the smoke was the result of a dirty window through which I shot the photo. As to spider web photos, I have nothing to show. Must try to look for webs!

Old movie

 

“That’s an old movie – you can tell by the cell phones they’re using.”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
This was said by a relatively young person (born in 1986). Makes me feel downright ancient because old movies to me are still those that were made in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. They definitely used rotary phones in those days – if any.

Critical Can Opener

 

There’s nothing wrong
with this poem.
No need to look for it.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
A variation of Richard Brautigan’s poem of the same title, in which he says “There is something wrong with this poem. Can you find it?” (Quoted from Brautigan’s collection Rommel Drives on Deep into Egypt from 1970.)

At cHouse

 

A bartender who looks like Sandra the Hawaiian from Superstore mixed my drink this evening.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

Note
The year’s about to end, so I decided to treat myself to one of those Italian bitters, and the above Japanese sentence renders the event as concisely as possible. No picture of the bartender – that would violate privacy laws.

What do I remember

What do I remember
of this light-weight day
above the hillside,
above dark shadows,
looking at blazing white
clouds in the distance?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

Note
Let’s leave it at that, shall we? More of a question about memory and what one remembers about one particular moment. Thank God for photographs – they greatly help with the task of reconstructing things gone by.

The photo taken from a chair lift above Campo Imperatore in Abruzzo, Italy, is by my real me, Johannes Beilharz. Leica R4, 50 mm Summilux, Adox CMS II 20 film.

Voice Message

    

Girl on metro is recording a voice message: “Sorry there were no advent calendars with 31 doors, so I had to get one with 24. Is that okay?”

My name is Luka – an ultrashort poem

My name is Luka

Now playing

Note For those not familiar, here's the song by Suzanne Vega from 1987 this alludes to:

Other than that:

Just don't ask me what it was.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

No Regrets - one of the best break-up songs ever

Tom Rush performs No Regrets live

   

This gem, written in 1968, is probably Tom Rush's most well-known song, and it has been covered by other notable artists over the years (among them the Walker Brothers and Emmylou Harris). 

To me, his own rendition is the best and most touching by far. He has a great voice and is an excellent guitarist with a distinct style of his own.

From the lyrics:

No regrets

No tears goodbye

Don't want you back

We'd only cry again

Say goodbye again

6 lines

A grinder
is digging into the wall
painfully

And there’s
nothing
I can do about it

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

Note
The reported truth and nothing but. I could have added “except write a pedestrian poem about it”, but then it would have been more than 6 lines. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

The supersonic chewing power haiku

We are moths and can
infest everything! We then
lay a zillion eggs.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

Note
A grim reality report from the afflicted kitchen.

John Prine - Hello In There (Live From Sessions at West 54th)

Me and Loretta, we don't talk much now
She sits and stares through the backdoor screen
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen
(John Prine, from the lyrics of Hello In There)

This song has a story for me. I came to know it when I bought Diamonds & Rust by Joan Baez around 1975, the year it was released. Hello In There instantly struck me as one of the best songs on the album and made me aware of its composer, John Prine. As a result, I started listening to Prine and bought several of his albums.

T. S. was wrong

Thomas Stearns

was wrong:

July is the cruellest month,
sandwiched between June
and August, which are
almost as cruel if measured
by the unbearable heat here
in the Roman stone desert
which comes immensely
close to a waste land
every day from nine to five

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

Note
A facetious shot at the beginning of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922). Otherwise razor edge reporting from the global warming front in Rome, Italy, on July 11, 2023.

Dream No. 181

 

Had a dream last night
in which, try as I might,
I could not remember
what George Harrison
looked like.

This greatly upset me
in the dream, him
being my favorite
Beatle and all. 10-foot 
pole taste of memory loss.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

Photo: Ed Caraeff/Getty Images

How to do Europe in five days

 

Jackie and Jilly, who used to be friends and colleagues while both lived in L.A., are finally meeting again at a bar in Boise, Idaho, for the first time in years.
“I hear you went on a trip last year?”
“Yes, we did Europe in five days. It was great.”
“What do you mean by you did Europe?”
“Well, we looked up What to see in Europe on the Internet and planned accordingly.”
“I see.”
“It worked perfectly. We did France, Spain, Italy, Germany and England.”
“And saw them in five days?”
“Yes! And the beauty of it is we’ll never have to go back there.”
“Because you’ve seen all there is to see?”
“Everything worth seeing!”
“Good for you and your blessed little eyes!”
“Are you being sarcastic by any chance?”
“Never! Europe and the wisdom of the Internet would never recover!”

Photos
Top left: Paris, France; top right: Rome, Italy
Center right: Heidelberg, Germany
Bottom left: London, England; bottom right: Madrid, Spain

A contemporary gesture haiku

Kiss your own palm 
ecstatically while LOL
and jumping up and down

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

Notes
Gestural cloning is an essential part of (aspiring to) social media popularity. The above poem is based on one such gesture observed today. Do it, post it on tiktok (or wherever) immediately and get popularity!

For anyone unfamiliar with messaging abbreviations: LOL does not mean “lots of love” but “laughing out loud”. Seems to happen all the time in messages.

For purists: No, I did not quite follow the syllable count and don’t really GAFF.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Mother Mother (1990)

I've had this song in my head for days without knowing why. Usually there's some association that triggers the memory of a song. Nothing like it in this case. Didn't even wake up with it playing in my head as it sometimes happens.

I've been listening to Kate and Anna McGarrigle since 1977, when I picked up Dancer with Bruised Knees at the record store at the University of Regensburg in Germany on a whim because I loved the cover.

A moocher haiku

 

A haiku and I
were having coffee at Star-
Bux. You pay! it said.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Painting by J. B. with a little help from Artifice. As can be clearly seen, the haiku is only present in spirit.

Balzac, Balzac

“Balzac, Balzac ... that rings a bell. Wait – wasn’t he the gasman? Or the notary? Not sure which.”

An English-language take on Léo Ferré’s lyrics from La vie moderne (click on the video above to hear the chanson).

From the original French lyrics:

Quant à Balzac il s’y demande si

C’est un gazier ou un notaire

Seamstresses bent over sewing machines

 

AI art is a hot item in the crypto art collection scene and currently creates an enormous amount of hype. To investigate this hoopla a little bit myself, I went to one of the online generators that can be used to create such art.

You enter a text description, press the GENERATE button and wait for the piece of art to emerge on the screen in front of you.

The prompt I entered for the masterpiece above was “Portrait of a seamstress bent over a sewing machine”.

What I got from the machine was – lo and behold! – not only one but two seamstresses and two sewing machines.

While this idyll looks quite realistic in its 19th-century charm, you will notice some interesting anomalies when you take a closer look. Three of the hands, for example, are disfigured and/or have missing or superfluous fingers, and there are two fingers to the left of the front sewing machine that do not originate from any hand.

Did the artificial intelligence decide to play a trick on me because I did not pay for its services? 

We shall never know.

– Yours artificially, Leonardo Blumfeld

Las palabras y los días

También
hay unos días
sin palabras

– Leonardo Blumfeld (© 2023)

Nota
Hoy me he metido en vena castellana, inspirada por el libro de Octavio Paz con el título arriba.

Bullet Train (American Action Comedy, 2022)

Bullet Train

A solid bore
of blood and gore

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2023)

The two lines tell it all in a nutshell. This 2022 Brad Pitt starrer and Kill Bill derivative is to be recommended if you like to spend 127 minutes of your time listening to incessant claptrap about fate and karma, including shrink advice about good and bad luck from the voice of Sandra Bullock (who fortunately remains mostly unseen), yawning at endless twists and turns cropping up at every bend of the railroad track towards Kyoto and watching lots and lots and lots of blood and gore inflicted in the most various ways. Hallelujah! Another masterpiece delivered by stars desperately trying to hang on to past glory.

Photo above (still picture from the movie): Brian Tyree Henry as Lemon (one of the highlights, has some truly funny moments)

A dad joke

Two peas are rolling along on the floor.

Says one to the other: Watch out! There is a step

                                                                                ep 

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                                                                                               ep