sleepless days & sleepless night

Read this non-fiction poem at Snoetry in the wee Monday morning hours.

Marriage Proposal

December of 68 I was laying on LSD on my bed downtown Baltimore.
Walls, floor, ceiling, doors all painted flat black.
Metallic mobiles and assorted assemblages hung from the ceiling
turning at will in low green and blue light.
My future wife walked in and sat so she could see me in the mirror.
So and so just got married she said.
That’s nice.
Silence.
Watch her reflection watching me.
So and somebody else also married.
More silence.
Watch her reflection evaluate my reflection’s reflection.
Even through the LSD I could see she wasn’t talking what she was saying
so asked.
I just want to know what’s going to happen she screams
stalking into the living room.
I lie there amid my hallucinations and resentfully realize
I’m too weak not to marry her.
Another’s strong needs always overrode my indifferent apprenticeship.
20 minutes later she skulks back to the bedroom.
OK I snap.
OK what? she snaps back.
We’ll get married.
When?
Six months I finalize
feeling sure the artist within will wither once reduced to marriage,
suburban boxes, the upper-class hypocrisy rampant in her family and friends.
We had a rich wedding in a high Episcopal-cum-Catholic cathedral.
Reception held of course at the country club.
None of my freak friends came.
The day of the wedding
I put all the trash left from moving in the middle of the floor
smoked the last of my grass
took off all my clothes
and slowly danced naked about the trash
sprinkling it with my box of monosodium glutamate
and chanting unknown chants of sorrow.

— Steven B. Smith, 1988

Got up 27 hours ago, spent Sunday doing chores, then at 9 last night we arrived at Snoetry to offer reading and audience support in the 100th hour of Dianne Borsenik and John Burroughs’ attempt to set a world record of 150 hours of continuous poetry reading (the old record set last year at Prospero’s Books in Kansas City, Missouri was 120 hours).

For the next 8 hours I sat drinking strong tea and coffee through the wee hours of the morning listening as poets Mark Jordan, Nancy Nixon and Mark Hersman from southern Ohio traded sets back and forth, reading five sets myself. Never had five feature readings in one 8 hour period before. . . best I’d done was two in 6 hours last year in and near Detroit. Heard some excellent poetry though tonight from poets I’d never met nor heard before.

My first three sets of my own poetry and a 4th with me reading well-known poets I’d published in Artcrimes over the past 25 years went well. But my 5th set at 4:45am which consisted of My First Armed Robbery and My First Motorcycle Ride from my memoir offered much too much strange outlaw behavior for sleep deprived possibly conservative poets to assimilate comfortably; it was very awkward. I should have quit, but my addled unrested brain didn’t operate fast enough to explain to my ego that a microphone and an audience are not always one’s friend.

By the time we left for home at 5:15am, I’d been up 23 hours. Now it’s 9am and 27 hours since sleep and my eyes are way wide while my stomach’s awash in acid reflux from too much serious caffeine and zero rest.

We have a charity gig tomorrow night so I must somehow get some daylight sleep today but not so much I’ll be unable to sleep tonight so I can rest for tomorrow night — trouble is, I’m miles and hours away from being able to sleep anytime soon.

Snoetry II: a World Record Winter Wordfest – 150 hours of poetry is in its 112th hour of poetry, 8 hours away from breaking Kansas City’s 120 hour record, and 38 hours from their 150 hour goal.

You can check for open spots and see who’s reading at crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2011/01/29/schedule-of-poets-during-snoetry-2-in-elyria.aspx.

All 150 hours are being cybercast via ustream.tv/channel/snoetry-ii-a-winter-wordfest—150-hours-of-poetry—official.

What with hosting Nepalese poet Yuyutsu for six days and his four poetry readings, then taking Lady’s Granny to a 5th reading Saturday, then going back down yesterday for 8 continuous hours (two guests and six poetry readings in nine days), I’ve had enough socializing and poetry to last me a good while. Unfortunately it’s five days until the next reading, which is too soon for recovery.