WALKING ON THIN ICE

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SUICIDES

You have very odd ears. You don’t have a lobe. Instead, the bottom of your ear goes directly into your head.

“Yes, but I have the concept of a lobe… inside my head. Soon I won’t need my eyes because I’ll fully understand my eyes.”

You also have a straight line crease going from the bottom of where the lobe should be separated from the head straight up the side of your ear face interface, two-thirds the way up. It’s like somebody pressed a ruler edge in hot wax. I think it’s where they sealed you together after they finished making you.

“Who are they?”

Well, initially I thot you worked for the rats. You never actually denied that.

“Continue…”

Then I asked you what your purpose was.

“I said my purpose was to replace you.”

And you certainly have re-placed me, from Cleveland to Morocco. You sold my place. So. I don’t know who you work for. You might work for Smokey Grey, for all I know.

“I come from the Future Now.”

I also thought at one point you could be a graduate student coming back from the Future doing your paper on me, in real time.

“That could be, but I don’t remember it. It hasn’t happened yet.”

So in reality, you’re probably not even born yet. It depends how far back you came. So I’m even worse then robbing the cradle. I’m robbing the womb.

“Maybe the womb’s womb. Sounds like our government. They’re really for massive retroactive abortion.”

“It’s really hard when you see the tie lines to the Future.”

The tie lines?

“Yes. I untied mine. I can’t remember the cliff. But I can see the lines dangling. It’s like different ways to get to the plateau without getting squashed. Future can be a plateau, or you can fall off. You can pull yourself up into a better future, or you can let go of the rope.”

Or you can dangle in indecision.

“I think I’m from the Future where we fell off. I have dreams about it and the hundred thousand suicides of third world farmers in India. Did you know that most of the current fighting in Africa is because of scarcity of resources and change of climate?”

Soon coming to a neighborhood near you…

“No one knows each other anymore. We’re too busy on the rat wheel or watching TV.”

Hopefully when things go bad real fast, and they lose their TV, everything else, the citizens will turn upon their politicians and rend them unto Ceasar.

“Unfortunately I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. Usually the citizens turn on each other.”

Ah… your basic twilight zone episode.

“But it’s so true!”

Oh, yes. There’s that classic Twilight Zone episode, ‘Fear Comes to Elm Street.’ For no reason, entire neighborhood’s lights go out, except for one person. They all get suspicious. They all turn upon that person, tear him to pieces. At the end of the episode, you go up on the hilltop where one alien turns to the other, says, ‘See how easy it is to turn them against each other, with just a few lights? There’ll be no problem.’

“I used to think all this was paranoia.”

Wes Craven’s near my age. He probably saw ‘Fear Comes to Elm Street’ and turned it into ‘Nightmare on Elm Street.’

“I need a good horror movie. I haven’t been scared since Aliens. Now all I have is Reality. Well, maybe that’s why the movies are no longer scary.”

You were easier to scare back then because you’d had less horror in your life. You were young and innocent. Actually, you still are.

“No. I know what I’m getting into. This is the most fascinating time for me to possibly be alive. This is my movie. I’m almost completely aware and cognizant.”

May you live in interesting times.

“I’m glad I can talk to you. Back before I used to talk, I would just say one phrase over and over, turning it in my head, one thought. Couldn’t get past that one thought. Your conversation allows me to row ahead, to float down the river of thought.”

So much depends upon the little red wheelbarrow boat.

tried to watch mel gibson’s Apocalypto - gave up after 40 minutes of boredom. all the violence in this film and his previous crucifixion film makes me think gibson is not a happy person inside. and of course his sexist anti-semitic comments also keep coming to mind.

since i shaved my head and moustache off so i look like an angry mean psychotic amish serial killer, we get stopped less often in the streets by people trying to sell us stuff. we’ve also learned not to slow down or stop because then the sale sharks move in for the kill. as for the beggars, we only pay the old and the crippled - all the young and middle aged requests/demands we ignore.

we’ll be talking along and lady will lunge for her computer to start recording what’s being said. once in our early days while making love i said something clever and she wiggled away from me to write it down. i call her polly pureheart. intrepid reporter polly pureheart reporting from private places unknown. i do like what she’s doing with the conversations though - it’s a fresher, more immediate way of writing.

we wandered more dead end small twisting alleys inside the city walls again this morning amidst crooked buildings, stone arches, open doors, cats, refuse, and the smell of human feces. all this magic exotic visual input has become a part of the same old same old. it’s amazing what one can get used to. after a few dozen ancient walled towns in various countries, the eyes appreciate rather than become astounded. it’s time we stayed in one place long enough to get past the new and get past the next stage of chronological boredom so we can get to the point where we become part of the place we live. skipping from place to place has its charm, but after 11 months it becomes just more of a different same.

there’s academics, there’s intellectuals, and there’s noam chomsky. one out of three ain’t bad.

I saw a young guy roughing up one of the older street vendors.

“Really?”

Yeah, he was middle aged or older. A young twenties guy or late teens shaking him back and forth. My first thought was protection racket. Paying. Who knows. I was gonna watch a while, then decided it wasn’t my business.

“Where was this?”

On my way to the bath house.

“A lot happens on your way to the hammam, eh?”

My hammam pops!

“I’m afraid. If you stay and watch such a thing, you might get hurt.”

I just figured if I lingered it would get complicated. So I continued on to my public bath.

“This is the first you’ve told me of this.”

Well, it happened today. On my way to the hammam. So it only happened about four hours ago.

“Well, I’m concerned!”

I’m not. It’s just one of those things going on, part of the city. So I went on about my part of the city.

“Sounds like Kitty Genovese.”

Oh, is that a mob guy?

“Oh a dozen people watched her get murdered from their apartment windows. But I’m glad you didn’t intercept. You’re 61.”

You know, I intercepted, interjected once. San Francisco, 1966. I saw a man manhandling a woman, I think trying to get her into a car. So I put myself into the equation and they both turned on me. It was a drunk man and wife, fighting. So… tried to do good, got bit. At least there I could speak the language! Here what am I gonna do. Shake my finger, “no” or something? I got enough fights inside my head to look for more outside.

“Something like that’s pretty instantaneous with me. I can’t control myself.”

I’m getting better. I’m getting a little wiser and slyer. A damn lot slower. Besides, I’ve become a lot more mellow since we worked out the Earth isn’t gonna survive. Can’t do what I can’t do, so I’m not gonna get upset about it.

“I’m worried about you going to the hammam alone.”

Not gonna do you any good. Actually, I like walking over there. It’s sunny, there are crooked narrow alleys. I know its zigzags, its vendors. It’s enjoyable, walking over there and back. I was gonna go today stoned just to try it once. But decided the whole experience was enough as it was.

we walked some side alleys inside the walled city… re-walked many due to double dead end. there’s no logic, no pattern in alley layout - it’s like following fractals.

i stand on sand as lady jogs. the ocean rolls in, slides out, caresses my bare feet, leaves magic behind. the wind blows retreating waves into side-ways ripple, refracting lasered light on water bottom. stone, pebble, shell, shard act as barrier to sand-rich retreating waters - cast dancing shape of sandless shadow in water’s path. constant wind blows low over beach, creating tiny sand dunes skipping in glisten of silicon flash. the sand surface has multiple textures, from moonscape madness through cross-hatched basket weave in dark and light, the water wetting rippled edges so sun can flare from angle edge. dark silt washes sandy texture in textured fill. it’s an effervescence ephemeral world of hit skip beauty. it’d be easy to film these moments too - they’re constant, repetitive, predictable. there’s an odd thought - predictable moments of magic.

WEIRD WORLD

Just read some articles, “Lieberman Threatens War With Iran” and “Cheney’s Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed“…

In the first article, Lieberman says Iranians are arming Taliban insurgents to come across the border into Iraq, and says we should bomb Iran.

The second article describes the media campaign that was inflicted upon US news sources recently. A number of articles have come out, attributed to anonymous alarmist sources, claiming that Iran is arming the Taliban. In one of the most striking articles, ABC reported that NATO officials said they’d caught Iran “red-handed” shipping arms and explosives to the Taliban.

Turns out this was propaganda. In a startling admission, Defense Secretary Gates and the commander of NATO in Afghanistan Gen. Dan McNeil said it was bunk. As a matter of fact, the Taliban and the Iran government are adversaries.

This is really really weird. It’s REALLY STRANGE when the MILITARY is protecting us! I mean, come ON… Robert Gates is the check against Cheney and Lieberman?!? It’s also really strange because at the same time these power goons (Cheney, Lieberman) advocate invading Iran ostensibly because of Iraq, Bush is considering using Iran as a broker in Iraq according the Baker Hamilton Report. Last week Bush said he’s supported the Baker Hamilton Report all along. Meanwhile, Cheney thinks Bush is going soft on the war, so rumor has it he’s going to try to “constrain Bush’s choices.”

I think the recent truth to power by official appointees is the result of what happened to Tenet and Libby. Smart appointees aren’t gonna take the fall for the big bad guys.

And remember Ashcroft? Turns out he wasn’t as terrible as he could’ve been. He refused (ailing from his hospital bed) to capitulate when Gonzales asked him to sign papers to unleash more wiretap offenses against US citizens. This was a weird middle-of-the-night intimidation visit over Ashcroft in his hospital bed, per Bush’s order. Fortunately, someone tipped him off, so Ashcroft called in some witnesses for the meeting. Maybe Gonzales’ goons woulda snuffed him otherwise?

Back to the media campaign against Iran: What’s terrible about this is that many people try to inform themselves by — for example –listening to NPR with innocent ears. They are channeled into buying into the propaganda machine.

Reality’s getting really really weird in a bizarrely hopeful way when people who are part of the machine turn against the masters. Good for them. Perhaps those who rise through military meritocracy are the only capable defense against draft dodging war monger plutocrats.

Now, if Gates could just stop envisioning a “North Korea” style occupation of Iraq (he wants us to be in Iraq in our 107 permanent bases there for fifty more years with a scaled-down force of 30,000 troops)…

on our journey, my favorite city culturally was krakow because we lucked up with the underground music folk there, got to read our poery repeatedly.

this may seem odd, especially as much as i’ve railed against morocco, but my favorite place we’ve lived so far is here in essaouira, inside the old walls of the medina. our apartment’s initial filth and unlimited flaws are more than made up for by the foreign film we enter each time we go or come through our stone alley, or the endless soundtrack we hear each time we stay in. it’s like walking through a fine art postcard, or strolling through a short story poem novel, or living inside an exotic found sound assemblage..

Quand même*

Even so
No matter what
All the same
Despite everything
Nevertheless
Against all odds
Whatever

*(Sarah Bernhardt’s motto)

essaoura - 35 days in, 16 days to go
morocco - 67 days in, 20 days to go

moroccan days are like dog days - seem like 7 for every 1. that’s cuz they’re full, rich, complex, and cost both pocket book and soul - and stretch the mind as well.

sacrificed a banana’s first born to the god of mad max north so i would receive a blog during today’s vision quest to apocalyptica. no blog appeared. you can’t trust gods, even when you sacrifice. of course, i can’t be sure which green banana on the bunch was the first born - so maybe i sacrificed an innocent in vain.

so here:

French Kiss

Remember the French Kiss?
I don’t think the French
invented it, do you?

I think it was that
little snake
in the Garden of Eden,
that little
slither tongue.

Ohh, come hither
come hither

that little snake
that little snake

S B Smith / Lady K collaboration

“OLD HOPE: BURN OUT THE RICH!” @The City Zine Issue 19! http://www.thecitypoetry.com

aLLiaceous! ball! benadam! biscayart! blue7! bree! caddy! ceraolo! chiplis! chojnacki! clarke! cohen! craig! g dumm! l dumm! ke! goldberg! green! landis! lang! leon! mcguane! e shaffer! w shaffer! sharma! skyrm! lady k! smith! thomas! townsend! wagenseil! wallace! weems! weiss! williams! zirkle!

Some Snips:

we are in our lunar module in outer space and we did not ask for this and there is only one direction and it is an appetite for atmosphere. it is an appetite for government. an appetite for our church and we very much like the way our church operates. we like the daylight and we like the atmosphere. we do not like the rotation of this moon. we do not like this atmosphere and there is no christmas here and no spring. - from OUR NOOSE by George Wallace

how could i drink from your fount

when it was but a cockchafer’s elytra

passing through rivers’ folds you won’t cross,

speaking nothing of flying

as wings are bones of the mind.

- from SPRING COMES OHIO by Paul Skyrm

“And there’s the Great Rat Moon. Once every thirteen Mouse moons, comes Rat Moon. We all go out in the dark and honor the large chromium rat trap from which our Great Leader almost escaped. We worship the bits of leader left encrusted in the trap.” - from SMOKEY GREY AND THE GREAT RATH MYTHSSSSS by Lady K

“OLD HOPE: BURN OUT THE RICH!” @The City Zine Issue 19! http://www.thecitypoetry.com

EVERYBODY OUT OF THE POOL

I want a window seat when the Apocalypse comes for me. You know, just like we sold our house before the market collapsed, we gotta make it, book-wise before the bottom drops out. And if we make it, and get paid, we can have our bodies fixed before skill sets disappear.

I could have my teeth replaced, my eyes lasered, my groin fixed. And we could remove your excess skin from the Extra Kathy you used to carry around.

“Yes, let’s get rid of the evidence of my evil twin. I want to have my nipples taken off. And in between my legs, I want to look like Barbie. Nothing there, just a plastic crease.”

Can we take off my testicles?

“Yes. All you’ll see down there is a hinge where your leg meets your torso. In between your legs, you’ll see an interstitial wedge.”

I could give you wedgie.

“Rub my plastic crease. Why do you want your testicles removed? I like them against my naughty bits.”

Well, they hang right between yr two legs, which can crush them. And due to gravity, they try to go to where ya sit. And on hot days, the skin sac lays against yr flesh and sweats. The final straw was wearing a rubber suit to white water raft, without underwear. That’s when I decided to cut them off. Not using em, shouldn’t be hanging around.

“You know, fish don’t have balls. Mammals have balls. They need them to keep the sperm alive. But what do fish have? They have sperm, they must have sex sacs. But they don’t have external balls. And lizards don’t have balls. I’ve never seen a lizard’s balls and penis. And birds don’t have balls. Only mammals have balls.”

So what’s the difference between mammals and other animals?

“Balls. Mammals have balls.”

Ah, so that’s the defining characteristic.

“I don’t know why mammals have that particular need. Well, we’re probably warmer than fish and reptiles.”

Ah yes. We’re too warm for our little spermies.

“Birds don’t have balls.”

Well birds are pretty hot little critters. Don’t they have high pulse rates?

“Yes. But I believe they came from dinosours.”

Are you saying dinosaurs didn’t have balls?

“Well, birds don’t.”

Bee’s don’t. Flowers livin in the trees don’t. Balls are also why Man invented the wheel. He kept licking his balls, saying, ‘Wew! Round! Me Make wheel!’

“Once we hit six degrees, we reach humanity’s end game, played out on an unrecognizable planet scarred by crop failure. The last time the world warmed by this much was 250 million years ago. The result was that 95% of everything on Earth died. The only survivers were a pig like creature called Lysotorous, who had the land to himself for the next 50 million years, and a few clams in the oceans.” - *What Makes Us Think We Can Entrust The Future of The Human Race to These People*, Johann Hari, June 11, 2007, *The Independent*

“Why are we laughing?”

Because we can’t cry. Does no good. Gotta laugh. Everybody’s saying that our calamitous cut-off point is 2050. But now they admit that we’re going to Hell three times faster than our fastest predictions. So instead of 43 years, we have 15 years to the End of Nest.

“Sounds like a good retirement plan for me.”

Durn right. Don’t have to worry about putting all yr eggs in one basket! Cuz there won’t be any eggs, or basket!

“Why aren’t people freaking out?”

They don’t think they can do anything about it. Therefore, they don’t want to know about it. AND, the stuff they know that they CAN do about it, they don’t WANT to do. Cuz they’d have to get rid of their SUVs and their pork chop bellies.

“I’d rather have a future than an SUV.”

*Responding to another wave of mass suicides of farmers in July 2006, the Prime Minister Singh made it clear only a small minority in India can and will enjoy Western standards of high living and consumption.* - New York Book Review of “Impass in India” and “The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future”

The reason for the suicides is the US-government subsidized agricultural business. We sell our produce in India cheaper than they can grow it.

“This is pure nightmare. People obsoleting themselves. I don’t understand why the intellectuals and the scientists aren’t raging in the streets. 100,000 Indian farmers committed suicide in the past ten years. That’s genocide by the corporations. Heck, with my obsessive contingency planning I’ve always considered suicide in face of mass extinction. These people are actually doing it. The Apocalypse has come for them. It comes in waves.”

“What else could we do before the bottom drops out?”

Go to Nepal, Greece, the Far East and Alaska. May as well see a bit of what we’re gonna be missing in case we have to testify at the trial.

“With all these tar sand deposits in Canada, I imagine some fast and furious mining. They’ll probably create little pockets under the Earth where people are surviving.”

Oh, the Earth People. The Earth People will live down there in their deposits of tar sands and they’ll come up and feed off the surface survivors.

“Well, we’re changing the chemistry of the ocean, even the pH. So I imagine the air will follow soon.”

Grab a planet by her oceans, and her air will follow.

“Yeah the ocean is so vast. Who would ever think that we could affect it so much?”

There’re a lotta people pissing in the pool.

“That’s the PERFECT metaphor.”

They say now, 2050 is the catastrophe year. That’s when the Amazon Rainforest bursts into flame. But that’s also the COMPROMISE position of 1600 world scientists. You can imagine how bad it REALLy must be if you can get a committee to agree to 2050. And now they say it’s happening three times faster than their worst estimates.

“And no one’s actually reducing any emissions.”

Not a single folk.

“It’s all for ‘down the road.’

Road’s running a might short. So we got 15 years, max. Like you said, ‘there’s your retirement package.’ And I can do 15 years easy. A little coffee, a little glue will do.

“Glue?”

Yeah, tack myself back together. Repair jobs.

“Well, you and I are reducing our emissions.”

Yes, got rid of our vehicles. We basically walk or ride bicycles or take public transportation except for the airplanes in between countries.

“And we don’t fly back and forth. We usually go to adjacent countries.”

We try to limit our unoriginal sins. We’re doing less damage than we were, but damage still we do.

“Still, consciousness of energy consumption permeates everything I do now. I consider packaging in products, I try to cook more efficiently…”

You certainly don’t bathe every day. And we’re doing our dishes and shaving in cold water, but that’s not by choice.

“I used to think nothing of buying and using many things.”

I never bought furniture. I only bought clothes when what I had wore out. But I was obsessive in buying 45s and music cassettes and CDs and movies. And comic books. And books.

“Mass produced print and plastic media is obsolete and bad for the planet.”

So I was lining my nest with obsolete artifacts.

“Actually, garbage art is avante garde and ethical.”

So I’m obsolete avante garde.

“Yes.”

Is that new wave, or old? Neo, or proto? I’m gonna be proto plasmo man. I will ooze moral energy waves and MAKE people be good. PROTO PLASMO MAN! I will oscillate off into the sunset on my little energy wave after each episode of moral rescue. Stay tuned for PROTO PLASMO MAN! Pro-toid. They’re gonna call me pro-toid in the press.

“In the tabloid press?”

Yes. That’s alright. Tabloid press was built on the broad backs of the pro-toids.

So tomorrow we run. We both hammam. Then we drop off our laundry. Then we kill something and eat it. Day after that, we go north to Mad Max land, in the morning. See if we can find water. Northwest passage.

“Ah, the northwest perimeter. Danger zone.”

Yes, sector seven. Back in the ole days when they knew about amerika but not a lot, they always figured there was a way to sail through the north west, but never found one. So they dug one through in Panama. But if I read right, if things get warm enough and enough stuff melts, there will be a northwest passage from one ocean to the other.

“Yes, actually. That’s already true. I believe that happened this last winter.”

So, what we yearned for and couldn’t find, we created with our waste.

“Shh.. you’ll encourage them.”

It’s just possible that Gaia, Mother Earth, had us come along on purpose to do all these bad things so she could get minerals and stuff rearranged, a little land tuck here, a little skin tuck there. And she was cold, so she had us warm up the place. So we’re doing what we’re supposed to, by destroying our nest.

“No, I don’t feel those vibes.”

Vibes? Hippy chick.

“Yes, you can tell when you’re being bad. And this species is in Hell right now. Actually, we’re the devils in hell. We’re causing mass extinction of other species.”

That’s what they get for not checking our references before letting us move in. We our selves are hell. No money down and no payments until you die! But then there’s one hell of a balloon payment.

“Actually, the last generation pays.”

Last one out, turn out the lights. Everybody out of the pool!

“You sound like a life guard.”

I’m a wife guard. I got me a good one, gonna keep her. Peter Piper, pumpkin eater had a wife and couldn’t keep her. Tho he fed her very well, kept her in a pumpkin shell…

PUMPKIN TIME

You know what time it is?
It’s pumpkin time!

No, not pumpin time.
Pumpkin time!

Cuz at midnight
everything turns into
a pumpkin
and the mice run away

Now midnight you also might
be pumpin pie,
depends on what yer doin
at the time

Somethin
you might be fuckin
might turn into a pumpkin

So you fuckin pumpin
pumpkin pie

S B Smith and Lady K

intrepid reporter polly pureheart june 13 2007

had dead bee tea today. we were in sunny outdoor courtyard drinking hot mint tea when some bees decided the sugar should be theirs. i tossed the sugar lumps into our 2 teapots to protect them - one bee flew in after, and drowned. i fished his wet corpse out, tossed him to the side, and drank the rest of my bee corpse tea. i was hoping for a buzz.

i’m totally out of the flow today, have neither grace nor wit - nor balance. lady told me i was so bad i was “reducing her flow zone layer.”

an arab walked up to us, looked at lady, grabbed her hand, shook it, invited us to eat couscous at his house right then and there. he wanted lady, probably would have drugged us, bundled her off to the white slave trades. he was rubbing her shoulder as we said no, kept saying how nice lady was - how very nisssse.

as money obsessed as morocco is, it is even so strangely honest… when the street vendors go to daily prayers, they just lean a stick across the doorway of their shop to indicate they’re away. nothing is locked up or put away, yet nothing is stolen.

we’re playing movie language roulette - we bought 10 movie dvds for $1.30 each. the jackets say they’re in english, but so far the language count is 2 english, 7 french, and 1 hindu. odd watching films where your only clues to plot are what you see, where you cannot understand a word of what you hear. these are street stall bootlegs - when they make copies, they forget to copy the language and subtitle menu options. the best film so far is terry gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm. the weirdest is from india, a bollywood sci-fi musical about a brain damaged adult who thinks he’s 8 yrs old - with no provocation, he and the children and the small blue alien life form break into singing and start dancing about the country-side (Koi… Mil Gaya by rakesh roshan).

lady’s starting a dead kitten count. a lot of the cats and the beggars have disappeared from our alleys. i suggested they went into meat dishes, but lady thinks they’ve been thinned by authorities to clean up for next week’s yearly music festival.

here’s the online blurb about the festival:

The annual Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival is a celebration of the mysterious music of the Gnaouas, the product of a mystic tradition with branches as widespread as Haitian voodoo and Brazilian Candomblé. Originating through a cross-pollination of African magic and Islamic rituals, the Gnaoua brotherhoods form a structured unit around a master. He leads the music and dancing until the participants are in a trance induced by the mesmeric rhythms of the drums, the guenbri (a form of lute) and the hand-held garagab (metal castanets). During religious ceremonies, Gnaouas have been known to impale themselves on swords or beat their heads with iron balls without sustaining visible external injury.