27.11.08

Short days and little stones









Sunny day, though short.
In a hurry, as frequently around this
time of year, to catch it while
it´s there...












"Once in a while
joy throws little stones at my window
it wants to let me know that it's waiting for me
but today I'm calm
I'd almost say even-tempered
I'm going to keep anxiety locked up
and then lie flat on my back
which is an elegant and comfortable position
for receiving and believing news

who knows where I'll be next
or when my story will be taken into account
who knows what advice I still might come up with
and what easy way out I'll take not to follow it

don't worry, I won't gamble with an eviction
I won't tattoo remembering with forgetting
there are many things left to say and suppress
and many grapes left to fill our mouths

don't worry, I'm convinced
joy doesn't need to throw any more little stones
I'm coming
I'm coming."

(Mario Benedetti: Little Stones at my Window,
translated by Charles Hatfield)

More about M.B. here (english) or here (deutsch)

25.11.08

Handgemacht - Sozialpalast









Saw these photos in a magazine - it´s
Oscar Niemeyer´s "Copan Building" in
Brasilia...









...and thought: couldn´t this be a quilt?









I´m going to name it "Sozialpalast",
Socialpalace - (unofficial) name of a
Berlin-Schöneberg 10-storied tenement,
build where till 1973 the "Berlin Sportpalast"
had been, famous location of boxing-fights,
the Berlin Sixdayrace - and, in 1943,
Joseph Goebbels´ "total war"-speech...


"They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
listening to the sounds,
the hammers pounding in nails,
thack thack thack thack,
and then I hear birds,
and thack thack thack,
and I go to bed,
I pull the covers to my throat;
they have been building this house
for a month, and soon it will have
its people...sleeping, eating,
loving, moving around,
but somehow
now
it is not right,
there seems a madness,
men walk on top with nails
in their mouths
and I read about Castro and Cuba,
and at night I walk by
and the ribs of the house show
and inside I can see cats walking
the way cats walk,
and then a boy rides by on a bicycle
and still the house is not done
and in the morning the men
will be back
walking around on the house
with their hammers,
and it seems people should not build houses
anymore,
it seems people should not get married
anymore,
it seems people should stop working
and sit in small rooms
on 2nd floors
under electric lights without shades;
it seems there is a lot to forget
and a lot not to do,
and in drugstores, markets, bars,
the people are tired, they do not want
to move, and I stand there at night
and look through this house and the
house does not want to be built;
through its sides I can see the purple hills
and the first lights of evening,
and it is cold
and I button my coat
and I stand there looking through the house
and the cats stop and look at me
until I am embarrased
and move North up the sidewalk
where I will buy
cigarettes and beer
and return to my room."

(Charles Bukowski: The House)

23.11.08

Berliner Schnee











Light snowfall during the night,
hardly enough (is it ever?) to
build a snowman - or was it meant
to be a snowowl...
Poor little bugger.









Some addition to the familiy in
the cloth creatures department...


"Overnight, it’s pow! The held note
keeps falling. And only seems
slow. Because it’s just
frozen rain, what’s the big deal? the checker
in Stop and Shop told me.
Save warmth like stamps.
The fade of their color
in the 1920s. Airmail. The pilot with his
skin-tight goggle helmet on his
miniature head could be
snow-blind.
All heads are small. Mine’s
lost as a thimble
in this weather. Where
a finger should be and be
sewing, every thought
I ever thunk.
Just this word
thunk. Never used.
It lands, noisy
metal in a bucket. That’s
the last of it. No echo
for miles of this
snowfall — as in
grace, fallen from,
as in a great height, released
from its promise."

(Marianne Boruch: Snowfall in G Minor)

More about M.B.? Go to One Poet´s Notes

21.11.08

Any advantages out there?











...still playing around with
embroidered felt faces...


"Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity,
the most important thing in life is to
know when to forgo an advantage."

(Benjamin Disraeli - "wisdom quote of the day"
on quotesand poem.org)

19.11.08

No particular rain...









It´s cold, rainy and windy in Berlin.
Spend the last days attempting to
establish some sort of order...









And it´s good - if one has to look at
walls through a leafless tree - to see
at least a friendly light...


"This is about no rain in particular,
just any rain, rain sounding on the roof,
any roof, slate or wood, tin or clay
or thatch, any rain among any trees,
rain in soft, soundless accumulation,
gathering rather than falling on the fir
of juniper and cedar, on a lace-community
of cobwebs, rain clicking off the rigid
leaves of oaks or magnolias, any kind
of rain, cold and smelling of ice or rising
again as steam off hot pavements
or stilling dust on country roads in August.
This is about rain as rain possessing
only the attributes of any rain in general.

And this is about night, any night
coming in its same immeasurably gradual
way, fulfilling expectations in its old
manner, creating heavens for lovers
and thieves, taking into itself the scarlet
of the scarlet sumac, the blue of the blue
vervain, no specific night, not a night
of birth or death, not the night forever
beyond the frightening side of the moon,
not the night always meeting itself
at the bottom of the sea, any sea, warm
and tropical or starless and stormy, night
meeting night beneath Arctic ice.
This attends to all nights but no night.

And this is about wind by itself,
not winter wind in particular lifting
the lightest snow off the mountaintop
into the thinnest air, not wind through
city streets, pushing people sideways,
rolling ash cans banging down the block,
not a prairie wind holding hawks suspended
mid-sky, not wind as straining sails
or as curtains on a spring evening, casually
in and back over the bed, not wind
as brother or wind as bully, not a lowing
wind, not a high howling wind. This is
about wind solely as pure wind in itself,
without moment, without witness.
Therefore this night tonight--
a midnight of late autumn winds shaking
the poplars and aspens by the fence, slamming
doors, rattling the porch swing, whipping
thundering black rains in gusts across
the hillsides, in batteries against the windows
as we lie together listening in the dark, our own
particular fingers touching--can never
be a subject of this specific conversation."

(Pattiann Rogers: In General)

15.11.08

Still is still moving to me...












My preferred operating mode at the
moment is: stillness...


"Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill--
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls."

(Charles Simic: Stone)

13.11.08

Koons, Recycling









Nationalgalerie Berlin, lilac balloon sculpture
by Jeff Koons (ridiculous stuff, if you ask me...)
- photo taken from outside through the pane









Still cutting away at that never used
felted object...









with the pleasure of making the
acquaintance of these two

A little extra effort on beautification
sometimes doesn´t hurt...

12.11.08

November moon howl










"I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I'll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.

I'll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I'll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.

And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."

(Gwendolyn Brooks: The Crazy Woman)

... for more, see here

11.11.08

Memento









A year ago my father died.
That´s why I made this, for my mother.









The grey-on-grey writing says:
Ich war, ich bin, ich bleibe -
I was, I am, I stay

9.11.08

Feltling









Cut a never used felted object to pieces,
taking one of them as foundation for this
(rather grouchy looking) feltling...


"We are like butterflies who flutter for
a day and think it´s forever."
(Carl Sagan, born Nov. 9, 1934)

7.11.08

A peaceful color, grey (plus red)












"A peaceful color, grey.
Something to turn into as you exhume time,
The traditions of mothers and fathers
Becoming slowly immortal: grandmothers,
And grandfathers, and so on, and so on:
Tortoise grey:
Fire breaks which distil the flames of youth,
And douse the tendencies for strangling suicides,
And speeding on confusing highways:
Grey of professors, and grey of established
Thespians:
Wiser uncles who have given up on the family
Business and taken to wearing spectacles,
The grey of the scuppernongs on vines of
Chain-link fences in northern yards beside
Sprawling lakes,
The grey of the first cat who was your reward
For learning to go where you should go
When you needed to,
Grey of thick rope trustworthy by ships for
Knotting anchors,
And grey for the frothing sea in a tumult against
The foreign hull, like a splinter in the unfathomable
Gullet:
And grey for the sky when the earth is furthest away
From the sun, when rain freezes and becomes
Gentler falling and a deadlier paradox,
Grey for mice who are not cartoons,
Grey for the mothers’ closing wombs,
Grey for some of her eyes,
Grey for long good-byes,
And for the German Shepherd’s panting tongue,
Grey for that part of the moon shyly in the shadows
Watching her from the sky,
Grey for the inevitability of true loves which come with
Time, after the stores are closed and the nights
Are all but empty save for the red leaves threatening
To tear away,
Grey from the lovesick heart walking alone the empty avenue,
Grey for the silent movies and phone calls,
And the birds who never learned to fly.
Grey is the open hand waiting for you,
And the open tomb.
Grey will never be Japanese, but eventually
Everything else will find grey, but find my lips
As I find you,
And we will find grey together."

(Bret R. Crabrooke: Grey)

6.11.08

Handgemacht - cloth creatures










Remember the L-Monsters (Sept.27)?
Thought I´d like to make some more.
Here the first 3 new ones...

If that´s not enough, go on a Flickr
cloth creatures-tour by clicking here and
here and here and here and here

4.11.08

Distant gardens










Found under a pile of fabric
a stack of precut squares
in autumnly colours








Borrowed the idea for a tree
border from Jude at Spiritcloth
(last week´s "what if wednesday")
Thanks!









"Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit,
als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten."
(Rainer Maria Rilke)

(The leaves are falling, falling as from
far away, as if distant gardens withered
in the skies)

2.11.08

Allerseelen, heizungslos










"Dark grey mornings,
Misty and mellow,
Cold days turning
To frost at night,
Wrap up warm,
Sit in the twilight
Of the fire,
Burning in the hearth
Warming my toes
The earth has a surreal
Feel to it
Thoughts of Christmas
Maybe snow
Family and friends
A glass of cheer
Tucked up warm
In cosy beds
Hard to wake and
Face the grey
Of November mornings."

(Lynda Robson: November Days)