AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

Grace


my mind eye

open poetry reading today Sunday May 17, 2015 at
the Rooms To Let two house art installation 2 pm
3810 E. 71 St., Cleveland, OHIO
hosted by Smith & Lady in the Chiplis Neon Repoetry room
front house, second floor I believe
no sign up, read if and when you feel
courtiuosly leaving room for all
bring you own chair or sit or stand
Nepalese poet Yuyu Sharma will be part of open mic
he’s returning to Nepal after the reading due to the eartrhquakes

Rooms to Let art installation FaceBook page

~ ~ ~

Grace

Thanks for this food

thanks for this wife
friend for rest of life

thanks for good times fed
as well as stress and strife

and the wild life led

wimmin, wind and weather
hell bent for pleasure

as through this grass I slither
hither and dither for good.

– Smith, 5.17.2015

snake fed baptists

There’s an open poetry reading tomorrow Sunday
at
Rooms To Let
art installation
2 pm
3810 E. 71 St., Cleveland, OHIO
hosted by Smith & Lady in the Chiplis Neon Repoetry room
or elsewhere outside, depending on weather and attendance
no sign up, just read if and when you feel
bring you own chair or sit or stand
Nepalese poet Yuyu Sharma will be part of open mic

Rooms to Let art installation FaceBook page

~ ~ ~

conversation with wife 13

snake fed baptists only go out with them snake-charmin’ wimmins. they don’t go out with no cathlicks. cathlicks and baptists don’t mix. least not snake fed baptists. they’re stern folk. no music, no books. no learning. jes yearning fer something under wrap. them snake-fed baptists do stuff behind yer back. sometimes dance. sometimes sing. that’s how they get through the night. them snake-fed baptists are also real skinny folk. snake don’t fill you out.
there, i said it.

– Smith & Lady, 5.16.2015

~ ~ ~

I get such pleasure from solving the JUMBLE puzzle in the morning paper because it tasks my mind and there’s a thrill when I solve it, and it makes me wonder what satisfaction cheaters like Tom Brady, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, Jose Canseco, Andy Pettitte, Manny Ramirez, A-Rod, Roger Clemens, Jim Thome, Fox News talking heads, and most every CEO, policeman, and politician there is get from cheating . . . how can one feel accomplishment when one did not accomplish? I know cheating made them rich, but it’s tainted money. How do they sleep at night, how do they look in the mirror each morning, what satisfaction can they derive from folk looking up to their false godness? Especially odd is David Justice’s cheating, considering his last name and all, perhaps we should rename his David Injustice. Seems cheating is a prerequisite skill in sports, politics, policing, religion, and the corporate world.

Lady Poem – May 16, 2015

 

Hinted reality
ancient spirit, ancestor breath
grazing flowers, batting lightly,
sighing with memories

Petal confetti, celebratory leaves
marking sloughs of years, one’s
perennialism hastening and plumping,
bruising and shrinking, crinkling to paper,
eaten by the reach of ground and
hunkering into dormancy, germ
starting over again

~ Lady

 

the crime is not stealing big enough

There’s an open poetry reading Sunday at
Rooms To Let art installation
2 pm at 3810 E. 71 St., Cleveland, OHIO
hosted by Smith & Lady
in the Chiplis room I would imagine,
or elsewhere outside, depending on how many come
no sign up, just read if and when you feel
Rooms to Let art installation FaceBook page

Where’s The Sun This Earth Run?

Between dark of bed
and too early dark of rise
lack of sleep leaves lead.

Unready child
awake in unpromised land
carries dark in heart.

If this be stage,
where’s my mark, what is word,
what my length of run?

Enter stage left
and before exit stage right
place for count each step.

Script is total blank,
and on cue cards
invisible ink.

Applause often sparse
and co-actors lack in tact,
their performance flat.

Change the channel,
strip off this costume shell,
ad lib some shit.

They can’t fire you
until your done is do
so go, play the fool.

You won’t get renewed
unless you sleep with crew
or director’s tool.

And no money paid
in spite of contracted say,
that’s just way of play.

So you walk the boards
until replaced or bored,
then retire, gored.

We seem sign unseen
used for decorating stage,
sought until no need.

– Smith, 5.13.2015

The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight took in 500 million dollars . . . this is a country where folks pay half a billion dollars to watch two brown-skinned men beat the shit out of each other . . . a country where white cops kill unarmed blacks with impunity . . . where 62 of 100 Senators are worth a million or more while the rest pocket lobbyist money as fast as they can . . . where corporations buy politicians by the bushel, millionaire football players cheat to win, millionaire baseball players cheat to win, millionaire bicycle racers cheat to win . . . where corporations raking in billions pay no taxes . . where Faux News hate-speakers spew bigotry for cash . . . where clowns and homophobes and racists and sexists openly run for President . . . where cops constantly lie, priests abuse young boys, police hire out as murderers . . . where our government takes from the poorer to give to the richer . . . where our president kills whomever he wants without moral or legal cause — our leaders are crooked, our police are crooked, our corporations are crooked, our newspapers and regulatory agencies toadies to the 1%, our Supreme Court two-thirds corrupt . . . and yet we wonder why there’s such a lack of morality in life today — it’s simple, that’s the way things work now, from the top on down . . yet if you shoplift a loaf of bread to feed your family, you’re jailed . . . the crime ain’t stealing, the crime is not stealing big enough.

What’s really weird is I’m spouting off about morality, yet I stole 13 cars as a kid and spent almost a year in jail for my second armed robbery. On the other hand, I’m a perfect example that one can change, leave a bad path and try to walk a better.

life on earth

Life on Earth

The sheep make their pen.
The cowed graze in grumble.
I await the fair.

– Smith, 5.11.2015

Opened our beehive for the 4th time yesterday. Found eggs and larva and wax cells with nectar and pollen and capped brood and observed bees coming back to the hive with packs of yellow pollen on their legs. And we saw the queen bee, so we’re still in business.

Figure our first year is pure learning. Thank goodness the bees are doing most of the work.

So far only one stung human, my ma-in-law who was trying to plant some special bee flowers around the hive and was stung by a bee in the grass as she was digging . . . got her finger.

Strange to see 10,000 bees buzzing, in constant motion of gold and fairy wings. So gentle and forgiving too. A hive starts with 3 pounds of bees, approximately 10,000, grows to 60,000-80,000 bees in summer, then reduces to 20,000 – 30,000 in winter.

A bee lives 6 weeks, unless it’s late fall and they stop flying for food and then live 3 months over winter keeping the hive warm and clean while attending the queen.

Lady Poem May 11, 2015

 

Thuvian throatsong, patter of Cherokee drums,
congregation of tents, comfortable nests of campfire
communities, dogs settled in the dirt thumping tails
once in a while, watching, trusting, us on our beat-up
old couch surrounded by third floor art–so many centers
of the world in their own sweet ways
so thankful

~ Lady

 

Rule 1


Guide to Kulcher bookstore clown painting detail

Rule 1

Expect nothing.
Hope for everything.
Navigate the two.

– Smith, 5.9.2015

Trying to reboot my inner happiness factor after outliving my youthful innocence, but the Killer Klowns of the GOP — Cruz, Huckabee, Rubin, Paul, Santorum, Christie, Perry, Bachmann, Brownback, Rick Scott, Tom Scott, Scott Walker, Ben Carter, Romney, Palin, Limbaugh, Lie O’Reilly, McCain, Boehner, McConnell, Beck, Jindal, Jeb Bush, and their gang of far-right Christian fundamentalist racist sexist hatemongers — make it a hard go. Not to mention Faux News.

These people are neither moral nor honest . . . or, if they are being honest about their beliefs, then they’re extremely ignorant of both the Bible and the Constitution, or insane, or working for the dark side, possibly all three.

George W. Bush lowered the Presidential intelligence bar so far and Sarah Palin made flat-earthing so acceptable that we’ve entered a moral black hole where knowledge, competency, history, science, facts, honesty, truth, justice and the American way have become unacceptable abominations.

Don’t know if it’s the result of dumbing down due to TV viewing, chemical additions to our bodies from corporate malfeasance, or if there’s simply too many people and not enough intelligence to go around these days, but it’s hard times for those of us who believe in fairness, logic, and justice . . . the old do as you would be done.

As ultra-conservative Republican 1964 Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater said about the Christian right, “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”

Time to cull such sick flux from our body politic.


need to cut some slack

Lady Poem May 8, 2015

 

Held on a leash in life’s lease,
the buttresses of relaxation we hurriedly make
outside bookends of workdays for the great big
blue-green-tan-white panorama
of Nature

Beneath sky blue or
the wrinkled brow of clouds’ introspection
I want to walk, walk in and under and marvel
on this marble of planet

Longer stays in the knit of what matters

Idylls of Heaven on Earth
and Heaven in Heaven

~ Lady

 

The Ways It Works


Tammy Faye Baker, Blest

The Ways It Works

Baby Big and Biggie Small
drop a dime to lamb the tall
and lame the blame till after fall.

Carve seven rooms in kapok trunk
to capture Devil and his funk
keep him calm in seven stuck.

Mayan souls crawl branch to branch
from within for the chance
to enter Heaven climbing plant.

J-men roll and toke the smoke
from inner man to outer bloke
ease this walk on slippery slope.

I grope in dark to further step
carry world on lowered neck
shoulder dry and weary wet.

Lamb lay low, lamb cry high
working kapok cotton mountain side
blood of land in hand applied.

– Smith, 5.6.2015


Jo & Jan, Unlonely

Lady Poem ~ May 5, 2015

 

Spinning dust around clump of star
banging itself into planet, battered matter
germinating feather, fishscale, skin and chitin

Years around sun like cyclical menstruation,
seasons ringing into the layers of trees, canopy
provisions bearing fruit, leaf, bark, home, even
exoskeleton appetizers for woodpeckers

Early histories of harmony, isotopic evolution
in Earth over time traced by argon, potassium,
lead and hafnium, rock rebar and feather thread–
the interrelations of things

~ Lady