AD.

For March, Lady and I are tag-teaming poetically. She started the month with the poem below. I’m to use her poem to inspire my poem for the day, then tomorrow she uses mine to jump-start hers. And away we go.

Things I Want to Understand

The world of subtle specifics
of men in play, affect and fashion
like soporific maneuvers of Pétanque
to the pig, foreskins, those who wore ulsters
in Victorian England, and the cigarette of
Bill Evans sticking out his mouth
like a writer at his piano
sucking on a pen

~ Lady, 3.1.2015

Had to look up two of her words:

Pétanque – a form of boules where the goal is to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (literally “piglet”) or jack, while standing inside a starting circle with both feet on the ground. The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel, but can also be played on grass, sand or other surfaces. Similar games are bocce, bowls and (adapted to ice) curling. – sez Wiki;

and

Ulsters – The Ulster was originally a Victorian working daytime overcoat, with a cape and sleeves. It is often seen in period productions of Victorian novels, such as those of Charles Dickens and was referred to in the Sherlock Holmes stories – per Wiki.

The Ulster overcoat looks like my US Naval Academy Midshipmen raincoat I wore from 1965 through 1968 when they kicked me out. It’s short cape is also rather like my foreskin as well.

I took the Bill Evans foto above in Art in America art critic Thomas McEvilley’s NYC apartment in 2002 while helping Jeff Chiplis take down his White Box Gallery show. Thomas’ apartment had more art and books and uncleaned dirt than I’ve ever seen in one place.

Under Stand

I have no secrets to share,
nor truths to unsheathe
like fore-ulsters of old.

Clothes make no man more man,
rather hide his less,
whereas a bared breast is beauty.

But there is one gleam —
a naked mind is scary seductive
in want and hide and need.

Close companions walking together
with talk, sit, think, silence, stink shared,
this is sweet.

Streets stray, luck sways,
and whether cold slivers or heat sweats,
two as one completes.

– Smith, 3.1.2015

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