Walking on Thin Ice

WHAT IT IS

Sometimes my container gets worried
and I have to remind it, it’s just a
container.

Hey, what would news look like
if it was news?

I get these clarities
and then I realize
they’re mirages.

Lady K

Double cross:

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

To get revenge for the road crossing him.

So, we going to Mexico, or Guatemala?

“Who knows? It’d be nice to see Guatemala after Mexico.”

We’re going to Guatemala, have some guacamole. Guatemalan guacamole.

I used to have a radio show at the institution, and between visits with the psychiatrists, they’d get me a microphone, and I got to be everybody.

“You never told me about the institution.”

I’m telling you now. You know why Freud said there’re no jokes?

“No, why?”

Because he was the joke.

“That’s a good reduction.”

Yes, ma’am.

“But you’ve never been in an institution. You’re lying.”

I have been in an institution.

“Yeah, penal.”

Yeah, also in the cubicle farm institution with the suits.

“Are the suits like straight jackets?”

Oh yes. So’s the desk, the briefcase, sniffing the boss’s ass. Good beta behavior to the alpha dog. Sniff sniff.

“How do you get out of the institution?”

With a passkey. Yes, I knew how to pass as sane. I walked out the door. They weren’t even sure I was there. Maybe I’m not… completely. You can just call me Some of Smith.

“You think you’re incomplete?”

Oh yes. We’re all incomplete since the Big Bang blew us apart. It was all Oneness and hunki-dory-ness before. Until the Big Bang blew us into life units. I’ve been trying to reunite with the Universe ever since. And we can’t until sub system collapse at the End, when the Universe sucks itself back Up, into One Big Pre-Puddle.

“How do you know you’re incomplete?”

I have this aching inside, this not-rightness, this lack of inner peace and satisfaction.

“I think it’s The Planetary Scream.”

That could well be. We’ve all been painted by Edvard Munch.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

“To make chicken pot hole pie.”

CHING

weird to be here,
perhaps I oversteer…

after all, I’m not indispensible
whatever the majority decides
it’s all up to you
nothing is set in stone
let me know if it’s
ok or not

keep your computer safe
you must be logged in to do that
don’t mind our police

lady k

more Chiplis art

reflections of Chiplis art

astro man at my art opening (friday)

Smith reading from On The Road at the
Bookstore on W. 25th

Please come. The gallery is across the street from Visible Voices bookstore in Tremont, which has a Kerouac “On the Road” reading at 7:30. So before you go to the reading, visit me at the gallery.

OFFWORLD

Work by Kathy Ireland Smith

Opening and Reception Friday October 19, 6 - 10 p.m

OFFWORLD is a body of work created by Kathy Ireland Smith during the last 14 months as she and her new husband traveled through Europe. Read more about their travels here http://www.walkingthinice.com

Exploring a new relationship, new ideas and new worlds, Smith works with some of the same materials and techniques as her husband, most notably liquid copper corrosion. Monochromatic, in her use of the copper corrosion, OFFWORLD is a collection of found object art assemblages that exist for the artist in a world other than ours. A world that Smith has been exploring as a writer and here shares some of the artifacts discovered.

Smith is also the publisher of the online poetry zine The City Poetry. http://www.thecitypoetry.com/

Show runs through December 14th.

Gallery Hours: Saturday Noon - 6 p.m.
ArtWalk Friday November 9 & December 14, 6 - 10 p.m.
other times by appt.

Brandt Gallery
1028 Kenilworth
Cleveland, OH 44113
(216)621-1610

www.Brandtgallery.org

I’ve been talking about Mexico for a couple weeks, actually before we left France, and Smith was kind of settled on the practicality of Chicago, but then I told him yesterday that I’m really really a-scared of the government because they are starting to close the borders on activists and zap students at universities and send the tax men after Democrats and fire professors. Since we have the ability to escape, why not really do it? Until the system goes down we can live off his pension and our savings and I’m also trying to get some freelance writing and web work. And we can still send manuscripts to publishers through the mail. We don’t have to actually live in Chicago to send manuscripts to its publishers. Tho it would be nice to network.

And then our friend from Chicago said that they’re raising the single bus fare from 1.75 to 3.25 in November because CTA is bankrupt. Part of the appeal for me in moving to Chicago was the idea of moving to an economically healthy city. I don’t like that the infrastructure in Chicago is decaying. (Bus fare in Mexico City is 35 cents.)

I’m feeling really really cheerful right now. I’ve been breaking out into the song by the Beatles, “Oh, Darling…”

We could find a house to rent in Mexico if we like it and we could keep re-entering and getting a new tourist card each time. Anyways, we can stay there for 180 days on the card and so this will offer some respite from the constant travel. And Mexico’s supposed to be cheap, so why not try and make it work out? It’d be another adventure.

And I’m really going to try to find some freelance writing projects this time. I imagine there’d be a lot to write about with NAFTA and the peoples’ vs. the corporations’ perspectives.

I need to be somewhere strange, too.

I like that Mexico is a medical tourist destination.

A friend’s brother was in Mexico City for a year.

Anyone have some recommendations? We prefer someplace cheap, relatively safe, dry & hot or dry & cold vs. humid, and accessible via public transportation. Mexico City is probably out because of air pollution.

I know nothing about Mexico.

Anyways, after the next picture I have the conversation Smith & I had last night when we decided to go.

Here, I got out the bag.

“Are you thinking of smoking?”

Well, yes. In fact, most days when I wake up I start thinking about smoking. It’s the true degenerate who occasionally smokes in the morning and then in the afternoon. The responsible degenerates wait until evening.

I’m torn because I have two sides of me: the Smith who wants to please authority, and the Smith who hates authority. In my life obviously the hating authority side has won.

“I don’t recognize authority.”

But you’re living in their land. Using their electricity. Their food stores. Their public transportation.

“Public transportation is for the people.”

Yes, but it’s run by the authorities.

“That’s just our tough shit luck.”

The authorities run everything for the rich, not us.

“Yes, and they tell us the exact opposite.”

I like in France and England how the government’s a wee bit afraid of the voters. In France and England the governments are afraid of the people. Here, the people are afraid of the government.

I think grass should be my reward for putting up with life.

“How come life didn’t seem so hard to put up with before I started smoking?”

Life’s always been hard to put up with for me, from day one. It just amazes me that people — less intelligent than I am — get through life better and more easily.

“Well, you’re a round peg in a square hole.”

I’m square peg in a hyperspace cube, or more accurately, a hyperspace cube in a round hole. To max the metaphor.

I also find since we’ve been socializing with me usually straight, it’s easier to socialize with a buzz.

“Not for me, Dude.”

Sometimes. You can’t be stoned and socialize. But to have a little buzz is good. See, there’s *normal*, there’s *tingle*, there’s *hum*, there’s *buzz*. There’s *stoned*, *wow*, and *gone*.

“Wow, you are just like Aristotle!”

I just came up with this. I make this shit up. But, for socializing, hum and buzz help. Stone makes it harder for strangers.

And the Marrakech hash was better than the Essaouira hash. Essaouira was better than Beziers. All hash is better than grass. But from a quality top down it went London, Krakow, America. Actually Krakow and Cleveland were sorta the same.

“What about Amsterdam?”

Oh, Amsterdam is the best of all possible worlds. The mere fact you can order varieties of what you want from a menu and not have to look over your shoulder as you scurry home.

“We should live there before it goes underwater.”

We should have a pool party as it goes. We’d all be bouncing around in these giant hookahs, floating, quoting Lewis Carroll to one another as we pass.

I figure about 2011 it’ll go under. So we can have a pool party then. I’m starting to take seriously this Dec. 21, 2012 Mayan prediction.

“Everybody into the pool.”

Everybody’s getting that one wrong, though, too. The Mayans merely said their calendar would end and we would pass from the age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. So a new calendar could well start up. The Mayans point - it was if we are to pass properly into the next age, we have to change our values, become more Earth Mother oriented. Less materialistic and greedy selfish sham. Sham you, ma’am. Thanks for the bam.

It’s all in between time here. Cleveland’s in between time. Can’t settle down until we get to Chicago. And so much of what happens there depends on Chicago.

“I don’t know. I’m afraid to stay here.”

Where, here?

“Yeah, in the US.”

So, you want to think about going somewhere else?

“Yes, I do.”

You are really fucking weird.

“Well, I’m really really interested in Central and South America. See, I’m thinking everything might implode soon and we won’t get a chance to get out.”

Well, no. When they take over, it’s going to come around next election time.

“Yeah, so I want to get out of here, not sign a lease.”

But even once they take over, it’s going to take them a while to get everything in working order. We can get out at that time, most likely.

“I don’t know. They’re starting to be rough with the borders right now.”

We got in, didn’t we?

“Yes, but we didn’t try to get out. Let’s go to Mexico.”

OK.

We protested Tuesday outside the Union Club in Cleveland, a venue hosting a $500 breakfast fund raiser for Guiliani. His speech was canceled so we took our “SUPPORT THE TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME NOW” signs to a traffic-laden corner.

Some demonstrators ridiculed the people in suits who entered the Union Club. I don’t think wearing a suit is an offense. I joke about “suits”, but I’m not hostile to someone wearing one, and I’ve worn my share. I feel sad for someone in a suit. It seems like a prison uniform.

One demonstrator tried to get passersby to sign a petition to put the Libertarian candidate on the ballot. He approached one man who didn’t even wait to hear what the inquiry was about. He dismissed the lot of us saying, “I’m a Republican.”

I don’t see Republicanism and peace as opposing concepts. A “limited government” party that examines itself should have qualms about spending 750 million dollars a day in Iraq and bloating the debt.

The demonstrator approached another guy who just said, “F- off.”

Blind team affiliation is a natural and regrettable behavior. I used to be a Democrat. I just assumed that the Democratic party was “for” my interests. I didn’t bother to dig deeper and see if the party’s actions followed its words. After more research, I see the Democratic leadership as corporate kowtowers.

I remember the viciousness directed against Bill Clinton, his daughter and wife. I couldn’t understand then how people could be so cruel, and I didn’t think Chelsea deserved scrutiny. That viciousness is repeated in the personal attacks against Bush and his family. Yes, I’ve relished the attacks because Bush and Cheney are de facto mass murderers and their crimes arouse ugly feelings in me. But the problem with hostile discourse is that it undermines opportunity for constructive dialogue and change.

It’s important to recognize that there is a class war in this country, and the class war is escalating, and it has real consequences for most people in this country. But it’s also important to recognize the potential for change in individuals. Ridicule reinforces boundaries. We need to try to get beyond boundaries and parties and classes. We need to try to humanize and empower each other rather than demonize. (I appeal to my better nature here, but I expect relapse.)

My first couple days back alternated between vicissitudes of dread and comfort. Much of the dread was due to cold and jet lag and an uncertainty about what this whole trip meant and what we’re going to do now.

First morning back we went to Jimbo’s Hamburger Palace in Harlem. It’s a kind of greasy spoon run by Hispanics. The customers were mostly African American; we were the only whites. It felt like home, like true America. Friendly gritty banter between customers and servers. We sat at the counter, watching the grill. The cook slid orders by us on the counter down to the servers, to the cash register, to customers. Shitloads of possible combinations and items available for breakfast, and still customers ordered things off-menu. And yes, the best American coffee, with cream or milk, unlimited refills, thank ya very much.

Taking Amtrak from NYC to Cleveland was like taking a time machine. The vocabulary of man-made structures was rivets, brown and olive bridge, black telephone wire. Edward Hopper. Long stretch by the Hudson, blue sky and possibility through dirty brown-tinted windows.

Quacks of Midwestern accents, overweight and happy or overweight and miserable Americans. The patois of the Midwest is a jarring juxtaposition with Europe. I think there’s an infantalization of adults here. We float in the amniotic water of a comfortable American existence, and the Midwestern dialect and our tendency to be overweight are emblematic of our isolation. But I have this dialect, too. And I was very overweight not so long ago. I should not be so elitist.

Dining car dinner across the table cloth from charming Mary and Ted, African Americans who are very concerned about our country. Ted’s convinced 9/11 was a setup. He laughed after everything anyone said. I couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses. I peered into his glasses, tried to fasten onto something.

Midnight in the Amtrak journey, I woke up to a flashlight in my eyes and someone asked me authoritatively, “Are you a US citizen?”

“Uh huh,” I croaked. Then dozed off again as I heard the same inquiry repeated rapidly down the whole car. Smith told me that a lot more happened (bad stuff) when I was asleep.

Jimbo’s and dining with Mary and Ted was great. Most worrisome in coming back was the midnight border patrol.

Felt empty and unloaded when Amtrak let us off in Cleveland at 4 a.m. Ten dollar taxi ride to the guest house of a friend, who’d left the key for us in a hidden location. Next day we walked in lonely anonymity to a city convenience store, where there were no fresh fruits or vegetables, and all the food was junk. The clerk tried to charge us $3 for a $2 frozen budget meal, and I thought it a bad omen. That there was no fresh produce was also an omen. I read omens into everything. My omens serve the next ten minutes or the next ten months.

There had to be a way to turn this around. I’d found such happiness in this Cleveland neighborhood when Smith & I started our relationship. Actually, I’d always dreamed of living here, Tremont, Cleveland, artistic enclave. But in my funk I couldn’t see past the indifferent foliage of large American yards, the subconscious mutterings of faulty mufflers, the opaque aluminum siding.

I went to the West Side Market for therapy. It’s the largest food market I’ve seen. The interior has a hundred stalls for meat and dairy and bakery vendors, and the exterior has 85 stalls for produce. You can grab a coffee and pastry and sit above the stalls, watch the hubbub of the crowd below. Outside, homeless people hawk copies of the Homeless Grapevine for a dollar, a rag championed by Smith’s friend, the deceased Cuyahoga County poet laureate Daniel Thompson. On Saturdays, the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition holds vigil to end the Iraq war.

We bought watermelon and raspberries and strawberries and grapes, spinach pies, fresh bread, hummus. The wealth of food and seeing friends all weekend worked. I am happy, happy to be back here, happy to have all this culture, happy to have so many friends who welcome us back.

foto by smith

cri de coeur - goya (cry of heart)

leaving new york, lady chose the front of the empty amtrack car because it’d be quieter. tried front seat first, but it had no window, so we moved back one. 2 stops later they packed the car, put crazy lady in the no window seat in front of us.

she’d make cartoon soundtrack noises, unhealthy variations on internal explosions. she’d go mmmmmmmpha while jabbing her fist upwards in short rocky thrusts - she’d do it 3 times each time, sometimes the times coming very close together. other times she’d place her hands behind her head and wag her crooked arms forward 3 times going poo poo poo. one point her male friend had been gone awhile, she pulled handfuls of her hair up and outward in slow motion going eeeeeeeeeeeeee low in her throat. i think initially he was trying to pick her up, but ended up trying to take care of her.

every time she was alone, she’d simmer, then burst out of herself and into the rest of us.

stood up, turned to an older black man snapping “quit standing over me. . . and don’t you dare bow to me.”

told her companion one of the afro-american conductors, a “mountain of a man,” had been rude, kept trying to get too close to her in the aisles.

when a young black man walked by looking at seat numbers, she lashed out “you get away from here, go on, go away” and as he did she yelled “don’t you smile at me.” she sat awhile, turned to the old rural couple across the aisle, told him that man she’d sent away had tried to sit with her 4 times, but she kept changing her seat and finally had to get off the train.

when the u.s. border patrol marched a different afro-american from the train, she yelled out “thank you, officers, thank you, very good”.

before we got off in cleveland, i started sniffling - “blow your nose” the dark seat in front of me ordered. sniffed again few minutes later and she snapped “i told you to blow your nose”. started to say something wicked back when i thought no, i can’t do that, she can’t help what she is, it’d be wrong to make her worse.so i blew my nose. knowing we’d be off the train in 20 minutes sure helped a lot.

foto by smith

foto by smith

arise 5 a.m. barcelona monday leave hotel 6 to bus subway train to airport to plane to dublin wait 5 hours plane to new york taxi to harlem hostel sorta sleep not much due dormatory bunk beds walk to jimbo’s early morning breakfast subway to penn station to ride 12.5 hour train to cleveland thru the american gestapo border police who force 1 black skin two brown skins from our train at midnight to finally reaching chiplis’s love shack out back here in cleveland ohio u.s.of a. at 4:30 thursday morning.

this will be our home for next two months after 14 month traveling england, netherlands, poland, croatia, italy, france, spain, morocco, england again, france again, spain again.

had 2 hours sleep this morning, maybe couple hours on train, 2 hours in harlem, no hours dublin to nyc. little sleep 3 nights before in barcelona or the week before in france due to massive sinus colds picked up in paris which we’ve dosed with 2 weeks various sinus cold flu tablets liquids powders all which act like speed on me and refuse to let me sleep.

my head throbs, my body aches and cries for sleep, my nose is shut down for unauthorized maintenance, our refrigerator is empty, our clothes filthy, we are car-less but have feet, bicycles, and bus. of course we’re too tired and ill to fix any of these problems today. it’s so bad i’m sitting here drinking cold coffee thinking it’s about time coffee and i quit being so close… not going to break off, more like reduce our relationship to occasional visits. had i not automatically ordered stong dark coffee this morning, i’d be asleep right now next to lady… think she’s gone in sleepland for the day.

we have 4 poetry readings scheduled here (the first next week), and lady k has her 1st one person art exhibition opening in 2 weeks.

in 2 months we move on to chicago and start life over in one place for at least a year while we get our 2 manuscripts done - Special by Lady K, and criminal by smith - and a couple more started.

we haven’t had time to analyze being back yet, or how we’ve changed, but it is way weird being in familiar surroundings after 14 months overseas. we’ve slept in 47 different beds, moved on 47 times past 14 months.

it’s important this blog doesn’t wipe out the previous one i posted earlier today 2 hours after we got here - it’s titled They’re Coming To Take Us Away, and it’s about the u.s. government border patrol forcibly removing 3 non-whites from our amtrack train at midnight at the ohio pennsylvania border - things we all say can’t happen here in america, yet this is something i saw happen with my own eyes. since when are there border police between pennsylvania and ohio? did i miss something our 14 months away?

foto by smith