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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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May 21st, 2013
Getting through it is what a woman’s period is about—getting through the end of the cycle, bloated, sloughing, cleansing. How the blood blooms, body aches and then svelteness after the sloughing. Like our sight of the moon showing more and more light then sloughing it off.
But a moon when full is like a bright plate, a pendant, something resonant.
A woman when sloughing off her blood? What’s that? Is it just that we do it together? Is it just about cycle?
A woman when sloughing off her blood, a woman when aging through the cycles, she’s not always so keen on it.
The moon, though, the moon is always keen.
A woman is kind of like a tide and a beach and a powerful beachcomber, a powerful self-grooming beach. Not a bitch, a beach.
There are many metaphors for a woman, but I am working on conveying some kind of idea here about grooming and aging and here we have again the thing about the woman and the moon.
Perhaps just the getting full and release and the similar period of time—that’s it? But as far as cleanliness, the moon is always pretty clean and keen.
A woman picking through her mind can be keen. A woman letting herself recognize her framework, her bones, the beauty of her bones and how the tissues hang on them, a woman can love how her tissues hang on her bones. A woman can love how her tissues billow on her bones. A woman can love how her tissues firm and slacken and slacken and firm on her bones. A woman can have so many expectations for herself and make them happen.
The moon takes whatever comes, actually. The moon is slowly battered over and over but what we see from here is bright silver patina.
Women, they are battered as well, we all are. I’m not talking about assault, I’m not talking about violence—there’s been enough of that. What I’m talking about here is the battering of the days and nights. What I’m talking about here is the battering of being through so many cycles. And the upside of the cycles is renewal, there’s that, too.
Let’s have gentle means round these circles, let’s take them tenderly. They seldom ever end.
~ Lady
May 20th, 2013
Poet, Philosopher, Radical Christopher Shillock – foto from his websites
It pays to be nice to poets
Couple years ago a Myspace friend — Christopher Shillock, Minneapolis poet philosopher revolutionary with punk political street cred I admire — messaged me he was visiting Cleveland and were there any open mics.
One of the cooler places to read is the basement of Mac’s Backs Books. Co-owner Suzanne has been hosting readings since the early 1980s. She’s a selfless supporter of poetry . . . had she not bought so many poet’s books and given them such sweet deals for the past 34 years, she might be rich by now, that is if anyone CAN ever get rich running an independent bookstore.
Suzanne immediately added him as a third feature for that week’s reading, Lady cooked us dinner, and I drove him to the reading. Next night he took me to dinner where we were both unmasked as dangerous facades with soft pussycat centers, which is pretty amazing considering his black leather jacket and wild hair coming across like someone you’d not want to disrespect in a dark alley (and there are even a few folk who fear me, go figure).
For the curious, there’s his blog tcbard.blogspot.com/,
an older bio mindspring.com/~jcsiii/,
a glowing newspaper article tcdailyplanet.net/news/2005/12/03/chris-shillock-anarchist-action
and his Facebook page facebook.com/christopher.shillock.
After Lady published my memoir last year, Chris offered to set up a book reading/one-night art show for us in Minneapolis. I’m really looking forward to this, going to a new city to read before an audience of strangers.
So take it to heart and be nice to strange poets . . . you never know when they’ll be nice right back at you.
Poet, Philosopher, Radical Christopher Shillock with sweet innocent Smith
– foto from his websites
May 18th, 2013
Three faces have I – foto Smith
Poet Louise Robertson and I are reading today down in Mansfield at Borderlands: Poetry On the Edge, Main Street Books 2-4 pm: facebook.com/events/182212025266698/.
A week from today Lady and I are the featured readers at the Gamut Gallery in Minneapolis, MN (data to follow tomorrow).
Main Street Books is at 104 North Main Street, Mansfield, Ohio 44902, (419) 522-2665
From Face Book:
Borderlands is a poetry reading series composed entirely of Ohio writers. This month’s reading features Louise Robertson and Steven B. Smith.
Louise Robertson lives, raises her kids, works, and is involved in the poetry scene in Central Ohio. She holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from George Mason University.
Robertson’s publication credits include many small press journals (including a feature set of 6 poems in the Jan. 2011 Pudding Magazine), a couple anthologies, one chapbook produced by a reading series, and a law school newspaper. Additionally, Pudding House Publications published her chapbook Teaching My Daughter My Language. She runs Rewriting Ovid Publications, a very small press with a growing set of high quality authors.
A passionate advocate for the presences of live poetry, she has organized and helped organize numerous poetry events such as the Writer’s Block First Draft show, the Poetry Forum at the Rumba Cafe, and the Women of the World Poetry Slam.
Robertson’s awards include, more recently, the 2009 and 2007 Columbus Arts Festival poetry award after having placed 3rd in the 2006 Columbus Arts Festival competition. She also placed 2nd in the 2006 William Redding contest. She won an honorable mention in the 2005 contest from Perigee. Her most prestigious academic award was the 1992 Mary Roberts Rinehart award. She took 3rd in the 1991 Virginia Downs competition. She also received the Mary Cotton Fellowship and a general academic fellowship while getting her MFA.
Steven B. Smith is a poet, memoirist, photographer, blogger and collage/assemblage artist who makes his home in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. He’s been writing poetry for nearly five decades, and for more than twenty years he published the famed “Artcrimes” journal. He created a massive online art/poetry archive at agentofchaos.com, and a wide array of his poetry and collages have been published in the critically acclaimed book “Zen Over Zero: Selected Poems 1964-2008″ (The City Poetry Press). Smith and his wife Lady have traveled the world extensively, creating and living art in places like Croatia, Morocco, and Mexico, while blogging about the best, worst and most unique bits of their journey at walkingthinice.com. They’ve also collaborated on a book about Smith’s life entitled “Stations of the Lost & Found — A True Tale of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle, and Leaving the Country,” published in 2012. For more information on Smith, read his bio at agentofchaos.com/bio.php. Check out his musical collaborations at >reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.
Poet – foto Smith
May 18th, 2013
Lately I keep thinking about the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” In the movie, they find out that in the future they are worshiped and the whole of future society is based on them. The motto of the society is “be excellent to each other.”
I love 80s expressions like “excellent” and “awesome.” I love thinking about the hearty innocence and doggie gusto of Keanu Reeves. Yeah, he’s kind of bland, but he’s still *excellent.*
I am on a quest. My quest is to be as excellent as I can be in all the little nooks and crannies of the Thomas’s english muffin of my life, the big, most excellent, vegan-butter-and-raw-honey-whole-wheat-toasted english muffin of my life, the english muffin of my life that is delectable yet leaves one wanting more life to live!
So for the past two years I’ve been beating myself over the head with activist efforts without letting myself have the teensiest toe-dip in the actual tangible parts of what it is I would affect positively with my activism.
That’s changed recently. I am working on tangible, immediate results in addition to abstract work.
There are two things we’re picking up: volunteering at the APL doing dog-walking and working on protecting the watershed. So rather than only sitting and talking, Smith and I are out there doing fun stuff and getting exercise and being with each other, helping save the world and being and feeling excellent.
Volunteering at the APL is such a joy–to be with the dogs in the field, being so happy, witnessing happiness. Their walks of temporary freedom also temporary respite for me. It is so nice for the dogs to have the walks–they are treated well and they get out quite a bit, but even so the majority of their time is in the little cages.
I have noticed, though, that some of the dogs who are more shy or who have some physical problems (like Dozer, a sweet, blind dog) have been there for probably quite some time. One dog doesn’t like a leash, so I don’t think she gets to go out very much at all unless someone really pushes her. I’ve been working on a relationship with her and have just sat in her cage to work on keeping her social but she won’t even let me pet her yet.
It makes me think that when I adopt a dog, if that happens in the future, I will adopt one that is shy or has some kind of physical issue, because it will help prevent animals with these problems from having to stay too long cooped up.
This morning we’re going for orientation on the new watershed volunteer gig. This is kind of neat because it’s a new project for the Cleveland Metroparks, a new watershed program in Parma. The more I read the more I read about new programs for reclaiming and restoring the health of land, and I am so enthusiastic about being a part of this, putting my hands into the loam of it, seeing stuff grow and be protected and secure.
~ Lady
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Posted in activism, Being, couples, dreams, Environment, ethics, Family, Lady, ladymemoir, Letters to the Universe, Philosophy, Relationships, smith & Lady, spirituality | No Comments » |
May 17th, 2013
That ole debbil weed – foto Smith
Since I’m not toking past few days for next few days or weeks, I’ll write of past, a.k.a. the golden haze. (still doing two cups of strong Costa Rican cowboy pan coffee though)
Defy, Get High
Caffeine and cannabis
what a great way to start the day
Like an afterglow henhive in yesterhaze oldtown
where savedface rosebuds manifest
I’m laughing with you
even though you’re not laughing
— Smith, 5.17.2013
Lucky green – foto Smith
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