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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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Archive for April, 2012
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
2nite – foto Smith
This needs to be sung fun and jolly, like a Saturday morning TV children’s song.
Tonight’s Advice to Tomorrow’s Me
Whatcha gonna do when the oughts run round?
Whatcha gonna do when your thoughts dip down?
Whatcha gonna do when your heart ticks tight?
Whatcha gonna do when it’s not all right?
It is not the fall but the getting up.
It is not the fail but the making up.
It is not the fault of the other folk
If you’re the butt of the cosmic joke.
Forget the outer, it’s the inner view.
Regret’s your master unless you renew.
Yesterday’s gone around the bend.
Tomorrow’s chance to make amend.
Past makes perfect seems to suggest
You’ve taken leave of some sound sense.
Then seeps in when somewhere down the road
Sometimes too steep to carry the load.
It’s always here and now, this not that
No matter what jumpstarted this act.
Work from in to out till all sparkle clean
Then get to work on the rest of the machine.
– Smith, 4.29.2012
2morro – foto Smith
Posted in Photography, Poetry | No Comments »
Saturday, April 28th, 2012
Inside out t-shirt by Anna Arnold – foto Smith
Wrote this this morning, posted it, then took it to the Newfus poetry workshop. I figured if any poem of mine could use constructive criticism, this newborn was it. So here’s what I posted, followed by what the workshop group suggested I change it to. They did make it better.
Street Fighting Women
My wife gets up at 3, goes to bed at 8
while I retire at 11, rise at 6.
At 3:28 in morning
through sleep I hear soft “Honey?”
“Uhhhhh yea?”
“There’re two women fighting outside
and I don’t know what to do.
Should I go out and stop them?”
“Let me look.”
I stumble through dark cold to look out window.
On the sidewalk three floors down
two women are screaming at each other.
In our driveway is an unknown car,
a man standing foolish, silent,
staying away from the women.
I listen . . .
anger, outrage, but no violence.
“Don’t worry, they’re not going to hurt each other.”
We watch awhile.
One puts her hand on the other’s shoulder.
Shoulder woman jerks, turns, starts away.
Hand woman follows,
both still screaming.
Man sort of starts forward,
stops when they stop, keeping distance.
More yelling,
but it’s running down.
Shoulder woman finally leaves left.
Hand woman, man depart right.
I go back to bed,
unsuccessfully seek sleep,
toss and turn
trying to return to where I was
seeing no moral
no lesson
nothing but this poem.
– Smith, 4.28.2012
Workshop result:
Street Fighting Women
My wife gets up at 3
goes to bed at 8.
I retire at 11
rise at 6.
At 3:28 this morning
through sleep I hear soft “Honey?”
“Uhhhhh yea?”
“There’re two women fighting outside
and I don’t know what to do.
Should I go out and stop them?”
“Let me look.”
Stumble cold through dark to window.
On the sidewalk three floors down
two women are screaming at each other.
In our driveway is an unknown car,
a man standing foolish, silent,
staying away from the women.
I listen . . .
anger, outrage, but no violence.
“Don’t worry, they’re not going to hurt each other.”
We watch awhile.
One puts her hand on the other’s shoulder.
Shoulder woman jerks, turns, starts away.
Hand woman follows,
both still screaming.
Man sort of starts forward,
stops when they stop, keeping distance.
More yelling,
but it’s running down.
Shoulder woman finally leaves left.
Hand woman, man depart right.
I go back to bed,
unsuccessfully seek sleep,
toss and turn
trying to return to where I was.
– Smith, 4.28.2012
Lady hugging tree yesterday for Arbor Day
same tree 2 women were screaming in front of this morning
foto Smith
Posted in Lady, life, Peace, Photography, Poetry | No Comments »
Friday, April 27th, 2012
the check’s in the mail – foto Smith
Other words.
“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” - Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer (1881-1973)
“Be better to your neighbors and you’ll have better neighbors.” - Ernest Tubb, American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music (1914-1984)
“Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?” - Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer (1883-1931)
“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” – Horace Walpole, English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician (1717-1797)
“Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, lecturer, and poet (1803-1882)
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” - Satchel Paige, American baseball player (1906-1982)
“Politicians, ugly buildings and whores, they all get respectable if they last long enough.” - John Huston, American film director, screenwriter and actor (1906-1987)
“The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” — Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author (1937-2005)
“Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” - Miles Davis, American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer (1926-1981)
(descriptions and dates from Wikipedia)
Cheers – foto Smith
Posted in Art, life, Philosophy, Photography | No Comments »
Friday, April 27th, 2012
A couple plugs, friends, for some causes and events about which I care. First, I’m involved in Occupy Cleveland and I do the newsletter for them twice a week. For months we’ve been preparing for HeartFest. We have the official celebration at Willard Park April 28-30 and then May 1 – 5 there will be activities that are at our space in Public Square, a bit more limited (as we could only afford the permit for three days). On May 2, Smith & I are reading poetry in the NW quadrant of Public Square at 6 PM.
So here’s the blurb for HeartFest:
HeartFest 2012 – April 28-30
Willard Park (Free Stamp Park) on Google Maps…
Stage schedule April 28 – 30 (subject to change)…
More events on May 1 – May 5 as well…
Join us as we gather our communities together for a 99% Spring festival. Everyone is welcome to participate! Festivities include family fun with the community, free food & entertainment, educational workshops, community meetings and general assemblies, local business spotlights, sames, music, poetry, a really, really FREE market & more! Please bring usable, nearly new, cool items/clothes/plants, etc., to donate and swap. Also: yoga, zombie walks, Planned Parenthood, art, speeches, kids stuff, toy giveaway, music… jamming. Bring your drums!
Questions? Email clevelandheartfestival@gmail.com.
. . .
The second thing I really, really care about, even more than HeartFest, is the celebration of trees and the planet enshrined today in Arbor Day and in holidays like Earth Day. I personally plan to go out and hug a tree today. Or more. Why not? I say, “embrace the label!”
In honor of the trees, Grandma and I bought memberships to Holden Arboretum in Kirtland this past week. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Northeast Ohio. Today and this weekend you can enjoy FREE ADMISSION all weekend! One of the major exhibits, opening today, is called “Vanishing Acts: Trees Under Threat.” The exhibit’s name is really a misnomer because we are going to prevent the loss of these species, but what the Arboretum is saying is that some trees have been harmed, and they are providing an opportunity to learn more about the issue and help in the actions to save our planet’s trees.
We’ve also ordered some tree seedlings from the Arbor Day Foundation and I plan on integrating them into my life in a very interwoven way. I’m giving some to my mom and some to my aunt, and am looking for anyone else who might want some trees as well.
~ Lady
Posted in activism, Being, cleveland, dreams, Environment, Events | No Comments »
Thursday, April 26th, 2012
Silent echo – Smith
Odd dream last night. I was trying to play drums in a band called Rubber Gun Chicken and couldn’t make a sound.
So while I’m pondering that, I’ll continue the personal silence meme and use another’s words for today’s blog . . . an 88 year old poem written by a 22 year old black man to his white professor which I’ve read at our last two gatherings to appreciative silence.
This is from pages 166-7 of Cleveland Poetry Scenes: A Panorama & Anthology from Bottom Dog Press 2008, an excellent book of articles and poems I’m honored to be in (surprised too, since I’m Cleveland’s archetypical outsider).
Langston lived in Cleveland from 1917-20 when he was 15-18; he graduated from high school here where he was class poet and had his first poem published in the school magazine.
THEME FOR ENGLISH B
By Langston Hughes, 1924
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
– Langston Hughes
Cleveland building blocks – foto Smith
Posted in Photography, Poetry | No Comments »
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