AD.

I’M TALKIN TO ME IN A UNIVERSE

& I’m talkin to all of us. All I’m sayin is before you lay yr cards on the table, you shoulda searched yr earnest. I never tell anyone what to do, but I can show you the dance floor and let you borrow my partner. See how everyone’s confused? We got insects in our english. Is a word an object & does it make sense? How’s the internal logic of your combustible engine? Did you pop a piston? What about a worry wart?

I’m not talkin down to you sister, but I’ll steal your farts for art. Men are cold cocks on an abacus. Or are they fellow pilgrims? And why ain’t Beethoven a woman and is your heart just a dart for art and why the mass suppression? I want to wow your power. Woos an icky word. The mind field out there aims to detonate your shoes and mace your laces. It’s a private context with universal characters, and I got a get rich quick trick to save the last generation’s flames on the planet, to mime the minefields on the empty ocean floor, git our buckets to the moon & race to space, populate the people of the human race.

FOIL FOR THE SQUARE

“Why’d you take the comments out in this blog?”

I can do what I want.

“Youch! Who said that?”

Ew, an ugly voice came out of Shady, Smokey—I meant to treat you with respect. But listen to you; you used a loaded word, you said “You shouldn’t do that.”

What word, “should?” Yikes! Who knew the calculus that led to your language. Are we striking down entire words now?

I’m sorry. There’s a logic to the patter of the path. & I believe in imperfectly executed beautiful evolution with many small niches & alien footage of foliage. I’m on hot-wire. I’m still trying to figure things out. I don’t anticipate a solution, but I will try to treat you rightly not make a misstep on yr merited respect.

“Wait a minute- I’m sorry, too. I was telling you what to do.”

The footnotes were a minefield. I admire your advocacy for expression, blind binds, sticking your tongue out in the mirror. But who knows what traps were laid for the less than wary. That path I had to tread my own. Ironic that I’d censor an expression, but it was my forum, and sometimes people don’t even see what trouble they get into. I walk a tight line. But we can put this up for discussion in the footnotes if you like.

“How dare you tell people their vision. Wait, what’s that I heard? Something just went boom.”

That was the sound of machine tricked wing. I refuse to make you the villain here, Smokey, so we’re gonna have to switch roles. The quotations are from Shady here. There, now. We’re square.

– a smokey shady joint

IT WAS HARD TO SWALLOW

The only way to get through it is to tell it, Polly. Boy, someone must have touched a nerve of vengeance.

Polly’s kinda hard to swallow. I’m a nervy gal. I got eyes behind venetian blinds. I pull down the curtains and exercise some discretion, let you see the shadow on the wall. I’m gonna have to hold some secrets, Smokey, cuz life is a mystery, and a good woman can’t bear the daily double crosses.

That reminds me of yr third floor balcony yearnings and other cans of worms.

OK. We’re gonna kill the comedy, Smokey, cuz I see this story is a tragedy & I wanted to give you a taste. I’m sorry for being so mean.

It goes like this. There are thieves of opportunity, and there are thieves of skill. The poetry thieves of Barcelona, the guy who comes in to the cafe to pick yr pocket for a drink of water, phone call kidnap capers, and all this metaphor is waiting in the real world, backed up by real stories upon which we will expound. There are a lot of opportunities for the enterprising and it’s hard to sort it all out.

But we’re all adults here & I think we got enough maturity to keep each other audience. I ask for your forgiveness and there will be no more pie fights.

Pleading maturity? That’s a low blow.

Eh, you know. I got the zealotry of a born again poet & I wanted to burn a couple Buddhas. I wanted to impress with technical skill and castrate myself & the me I see in you. It’s a universal story and we are each other’s audience. It’s real art and it matters, and I hope you can see it. I could show it to you in a picture by another poet, cuz it’s perfect and it don’t hurt no one. You’ll have to wait for his permission.

Sounds like someone left a dish on the table. I’ll leave it for the next shift. I gotta go get some rest and think of the concept some more.

ALL I CAN TELL YOU

All I can tell you is the act of looking changes. Words are power if poetry is pure. You are the agent of your own destruction in the temple of your own belief. Chance can be a choice, and there’s also free will and cautionary actions. When poets are concerned, I advise you to talk about it at a table like mature adults, and get all your facts in advance, otherwise you can waste years of your life following a false prophet, and be forever regretful. Poets have a list of names and they can’t even trust what they hear in their own heads. Is the cat alive? Is the cat dead? If you’re curious, you can ask in real words and hope they supply the answers. Because metaphors are lies and truths at the same time. There are no answers. There are only footprints and the tracks you leave behind, things that rearrange your day and reassure your world. You don’t have to talk about it when you don’t want to. But if you want to talk about it as a sister or a brother I’d be happy to share my stories with you, and maybe some illustrations. I encourage you all to help me find my footsteps and retrieve my memories in this project called life but tomorrow that may change.

LIKE A HAUNTING

Like a haunting?

Yes. My shame haunts me.

I don’t know how you get from here to there. Was there an incident?

There was an assassination and I’m trying to figure it out. There are tape lines on the ground. I’m hoping it’s an academic question from a long gone past. I hurt you, Smokey, but you always ask me for proof of truth, day after day, you say, “What are you thinking?”

And it’s like no one ever listened before you and I certainly don’t want to shut you out. I wanna talk to you in person but my words are circular, I don’t got your plain down town business, my faith needs a recursive polish. We got a good thing going in this partnership. My mind jumps to the immediate, the cold passionate kisses showered in tear of wine. I believe I got a lot of radiant sunshine that lasts for you to the end of your time, and now I got hope that when you’re gone there’s a reason for me to live, where there wasn’t before.

Now the problem is, several people want to talk to me. But then I don’t know if I can trust this train of thinkin because raw language is a rope that pulls one in. I think I’m interested in the talk of concepts not of gendered words. But is talk neutered? I’m not sure the project of my life wants to court that cause and effect because right now I just want to write and look at ideas. It’s all understandable, and there are many skilled players, and you gotta watch what you show in your fingers, and it happened before in my book and it’s a matter of talking with each other clearly, making decisions and choosing what you need to do for you. I wished someone had spoken to me clearly in the past.

Some thinkin and writin’s gotta be done. I believe in magic and happy shared kool-aid without poison. And absolutes are not cold bullet concepts, but abstracts for specific application from the textbook of our trampled footpath.

So this is a private/public consternation about art & meaning & bounty.

Smokey, I got you on the brain like a disease. So all I’m sayin is, you’re gonna have to wait and find out. I want stones to crawl under and examine.

HATTER & A FRIEND

Hatter and a friend used to steal luggage from the airport. That’s it. That was just a sentence going into something else. He had a bone spur, sez every step hurt while he was searching for a stamp for a bribe from the government. Hatter borrowed money from us. The government never got the letter. He waited two months and he didn’t hear a word while we suspended our belief in return for our faith in his story. I do not talk in calculus of lightened load. I can’t get past the headlights now. Smith’s stitches undone himself while I cried over the power of his determined autonomy. That’s the perpetual story of Us. It’s very interesting.

To quote a paragoric: “We will kill things and eat them. We will turn savage. Write our blogs in blood.”

I think that we can mend this broken pillow. Wipe yr grief, store your receipts.

Meanwhile here’s a cocktail napkin called HEY THERE
I feel like this screen is a fishbowl…

.
.
. bloop

O, that I would say what I write, and backwards too would be fresh

so many details to existence if I slow comb it

Smokey sez: One book won’t kill you. I see the way the ladies walk for fear of plagiarized paraphrases.

THE REALITY AS EVER DELIVERED TO YR DOOR*

A self sustaining titillating pile of
shit is what I made o my name,
earnst burned Babbler, that’s a power word
from withinstitution o my wisdom &
I’m sorry worst fur the way I wore ya,
cuz I’ve high tide love fur you.* I went

low town, low grape. Taint
nothing wrong save for taunt
on a naked ape. I wantd touch
down, neutral ground 2 celebrate.

There ain’t no fault in their gestalt,
it’s me who got specific on sum good fish floats,
my Pacific toxin moxie. I’m so sorry
in a word made war.

I made enemies outta friends & the rest into enigmas, playing a game with every name assuming self the shit un where I’d scoot remains.

* We’ll ‘jig it together forever in absolute time’ o my blessed nested manifestation at the multiplex showing only at a theater, only near you. Any perceived insults in this are the result of specific blinders & not meant fur real. & that’s stamped, notarized, & put in the bank.

I ASKED MYSELF

I asked myself who I wanted to be. I wanted to be special k. I called my keyboard catalyst, notebook named for bite of writer & when they looked I blushed if they saw my eyes. I cut it off, you star who I inhabit, eyelash batting traps like they lay it out flat, a scream of starry nightmares, a dazzling display of bewildering darts & other proxieness.

TRICK TRACKED NEEDLE OF A GROOVED OUT POINT

Every land to mind is trap
a touchdown rock with loft
a ring with wings in which
you scoffed by mere of mention–
when every word is used
it squirms, my love, and
this is you & yr readymade
mines on reverb like a
bunny I keep showing
endless echo & he’s
spooked*

Careful no accident in yr incident
when you pick a sticky pocket
of eyeball in yr aspect like lacing
a list of beautiful bodies &
powerful mime..

A cousin in a closet

who I wanted to inhabit was a
she who danced with dark, her eyelash bat traps like they
lay it out flat, a scream of a starry nightmares
so beautiful I had to close it before I exploded
a dazzling display of bewildering darts
I wanna be you, you, you, & me & I
wonder whose arms I inhabit, O star,
cuz the face in the mirror
ain’t familiar & it looks like you
like the proxie of to beg
for explaining & to
prove a point and all for art.
This is a variant on a theme
dreaming sleepless for a week
a whisper that won’t stop writing,
a which that I’m crazy
and the fucked
coincidence
of double
blind
minds
exploding and rolling
on the tricked track needle
of a grooved out point.

* I married Bugs Bunny with my Kat in the Hat on reverbs of hallowed ground

A SNAKE TO FORTIFY MY BOOTS

A snake for a shoelace, I love your lisp. Thanks for helping me get my boots on tight. Let me tell you a story later about how she is in a he. I got an expound on an elaboration, a real deal, too, right here, on my own ground, an endlessly revibed seed in me that inhabits my brain and sticks like charmed witch bubblegum. This one I keep in constant storage. I think it’s safe to go back to Courier now, I got a letter to deliver. Remind me later to tell you how I wanted to explain the Seuss in Smith, how that is part what started this thing and why I think he’s important and a universal truth of hallowed ground. Then a revibe of his pocket that was felt up & mimed by an artist, cuz that’s important too:

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

Smith & Lady

& while we’re at it, let’s include this & this, important gold star references in my lexicon. I got multi-faceted tricks between the mirrored walls of quoteline time:

Brother Grim

Scamper little bunny
Run for cover fast
Protect your carrots
Forget the nest
The fox is hungry
The wolf he wants
Bunny tummy
Plus all the rest
Of the critters
Of forest
Far larger than you
Are looking
For cooking
Material too
So run funny bunny
My money’s on you
George Bush is too stupid
To ever catch you
Said the souls of the slaughtered
To the living few

Said the souls of the slaughtered
To the living few

Steven B. Smith

Bye Buy

The Man keeps knocking
Down my front door
Wants to sell me some
Sorta social spore
Says grits & groceries
Ain’t enough
In the modern life
You need much more stuff
Made me want to crow
And flap my thing
Chase the hole
Outside wedding ring
So I cut my hair
De-furred my face
Gave the Man a chance
To show a better place
Where the air was clear
The water free
The fair folk there
Accepting me
But when they pursed my lips
To kiss an ugly place
The Man above unzipped below
I said sorry sir I gotta go
Get out of my face
You can keep your fairs
Your free fatted Fraus
The lure of your lair
Is lacking in now
I’ll take the stair
It’s quicker somehow
Cleaner too
Thanks to no you
You can unstab my back
Cuz you’ll need your knife
Rat back to the pack
That leads your life
It’s hit the road Jack
Be ass and back
Or tap tap tap brutal bell
I bye buy’s black burden
I lay down your load
You ain’t no at
For this gone cat
As for is
You’re due your due
You can go to Hell
Be your own fondue
Drink dropping lake
Eat rising grape
Work rolling rock returning
Dirt burning

Steven B. Smith

DID YOU EVER READ

Looks like everyone’s getting killed in my book.

Did you ever read Candide, by Voltaire?

No, I couldn’t force myself to read it.

Everybody dies in it. But by the end of the book they’re all back again. I smell you.

I know, I tell ya, thinkin stinks.

You gotta wash up, take a bath and get some rest.

One Response

  1. All the voices in my head feel like they’re eavesdropping on the all the voices in yr head, but none of us knows who’s who outside (or maybe not even inside) our own skull.

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