AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

7 sequence

took these 7 fotos yesterday in this order . . .
no meaning beyond sequentiality.


U.R.O., the governor of Oaxaca – foto by smith


altered ad – foto by smith


fallen flower – foto by smith


mortar & pestal and jicema – foto by smith


paper mache mask on Lady’s art – foto by smith


dying cockroach at english language library – foto by smith

orange flower tree in front of palm tree – foto by smith

miles runs the blue do down


graffiti – foto by smith

second poetry challenge – “what is the taste of blue?”

Miles Runs The Blue Do Down

Blue tastes of
old copper soured with salt
black in lack of sun for fun
old time crackers
blue-bound barrels
bloodhound bred
for bit bitter bayou
or adieu
blue tastes what blue wants
like blues in the light
in lack of light
gods imbue
gluon muse
black hole blues
scoured screws
cleaning clues
all
taste of blue
and blue of you

~ ~ ~

third challenge – “bright red”

Red Light

Many colors are subdued
like blue
Red is bright
intelligent
perceptive
perceivable
Better red than dead

~ ~ ~

the challenge “freedom” leaves too big a hole in my head. kristofferson says “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” so maybe it’s freedom the CheneyBush Beast is giving us as they take all our rights away while we play “Freedom of Choice…”

“In ancient rome / There was a poem / About a dog / Who found two bones /
He picked at one / He licked the other / He went in circles / He dropped dead”

– Devo – Freedom Of Choice – Songwriters: G. Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh

~ ~ ~

the poetry challenges are from Katelyn – myspace.com/kateybwriting


political graffiti – foto by smith

fone fungi forelobes


graffiti in krakow, poland – foto by smith

2 studies (swedish 2005, great britain 2008) finally admit what we suspect – cell fones can cause brain tumors. england says using a cell fone 10 years doubles your risk of brain cancer. the study predicts cell fones will kill more people yearly than smoking does now (cigarettes officially kill five million people a year globally) because three times as many folk use cell fones as smoke. sweden points out rural cell fone users have an 8 times greater chance of a malignant tumor than non-cell fone users, because they have to up the fone’s power to get the signal to the tower and blast your brain with even more toxic no-nos. germany and france have warned against letting children use them.

nothing will change though because money’s being made. we’re used to corporate products killing their customers. the tobacco industry kills off its customers right and left and then replaces them by recruiting from the grade schools. alcohols and guns both kill customers and non-customers alike. as do automobiles, fast food, elective surgery, politicians, and TV. TV at first just numbs then kills the brain, but the body continues on unknowing. this is where a lot of republicans and the religious wrong come from.

i’m not a fan of cell fones. they’re frequently rude intrusions, insensitive or arrogantly aired dirty laundry in public. i won’t be missing a lot of the soon-to-be departed.

the true evil is cell fone radiation is one of the things driving our missing honey bees crazy. they get lost, jammed, overwhelmed, weary, and forget the where and why of their hive. we might have to fit each little buzzing bee with a tiny GPS device to help them find their way back home to the hive. or else hire manual laborers to start pollinating fruits, grains and flowers with q-tips. hey, maybe i can rent my penis out as well – it’s small enough to do bumble bees, pollinate plant pistils, and wouldn’t embarrass the stamen.


erect banana food store advert, oaxaca, mexico – foto by smith

candide candy


graffiti – foto by smith

wrote an exercize poem because a friend asked me too. the assignment was to use the line “like candy on ice cream.” here it be. feel free to hack away.

Like Candy on Ice Cream

Like Candide’s best of all possible worlds
I lick my like from lit of wit
and why the worry ways of ruling rats

Like Wallace Steven’s Emperor of Ice Cream
I take in tacky death
of horny heels and hopeful hellos

Like Candy on ice cream
her nipples pearled pert
we hump in happy horizontal

Like constant lice on the American dream
scum encrusted, yellowed
I yearn for debugging powder, ponder

Like good on bad and bad on worse
I burn for light and love
in lieu of this miss called is

the friend was Richard (myspace.com/afairlyhonestman ), and the poem assignment was via Katelyn (myspace.com/kateybwriting)


painting in local show – foto by smith

Immigrant Isolationism



My Friends at Home – paper masks on our kitchen table – photo by Lady

My friend says the men here don’t do any chores. All the men of Mexico are macho, she says. I look out the window and see our landlord and I’m reminded of this. He always has a handsome macho stance. He and his wife lady hop on their motorcycle some nights. His wife lady is chubby in a cute way, has curly hair, a rarity here, and wears spike heels on the motorbike. I would like to know the wife lady a tiny bit more. She’s a real lady lady. Sometimes she wears traditional indigenous clothes–woven embroidered house dresses–as she does the chores in the courtyard.
  I have to stop and say hello longer and talk with them. It has become awkward. We see each other almost every day, though I try not to. I try to run out the door when they’re not there in the courtyard because it has become awkward because I must begin to say something more than hello.
  I imagine inviting the landlady into our house for coffee and cake, trying to speak Spanish with her, but I’m reluctant because this has a cost. It’s too strange for me. My apartment is my isolation bubble from Mexico. I do not want our landlords to wonder or know too much about us. I do not want them to begin to like or dislike us more. I want the current level of things, where we are smiled at and we smile back as we say good morning or good afternoon.

Lady

random strings of theory


for sale – foto by smith

we walk city streets. shop after shop filled with manufactured goods hung wall to wall, floor to ceiling in baited display saying “buy me,” “need me,” “want me,” “take me home with you,” “let me make your life brighter faster better cleaner easier lovelier sexier more selfish.” store after store filled with things made by the poor for the rich to sell to the rest.

street after street, city after city, nation after nation – endless things crowd together, displayed, for sale. for every one thing sold, 999 remain lost and alone hanging on display walls, lying in display cases, forgotten in remaindered bins. there are more hanging handbags for sale than there are hands on earth, more for-sale shoes than there are feet.

warehouses of watches. plastic dishes. dog collars. letter openers. women’s clothes. extruded plastics. rubber chickens. toothpicks. floss. lip gloss. jars of mayonnaise. forgotten plays. gew gaws. coleslaws. bracelets. rings. things. bleach. dead meat. strange treats. repeat.

life on earth is set up on the premise that enough outside things can fill our inside emptiness. feel sad? buy ! glad? buy ! lonely? buy ! scared? buy ! insecure? buy ! bye? buy ! by? BUY !

humans are obsessed with stuff. it’s all they do. they make stuff. grow stuff. transport stuff to market. make markets to lure folk to to sell stuff to. transport folk to & from markets. feed and board buyers and sellers. collect, clean and process human waste & trash generated by this gathering of stuff to be bought and sold. then they hire thugs called police and army to protect the stuff before, during, and after.

humans have this history of trading, buying, selling, swapping, collecting, protecting – and if none of those work, then taking by force.

we spend a lot of time on our outsides, not much on our within.


market stall – foto by smith

was that a real poem, or did you write that?


internet store – foto by smith

my main reason for moving to mexico was to live in one warm inexpensive place long enough to finish our book. wrote last chapter today. Lady’s doing one quick smoothing and we’re done.

Lady’s reading me the early chapters. they’re sweet, poignant, innocent. not a bad beginning for a book called Criminal. once in a cleveland bookstore bag-o-zine reading, a woman responded to the poem i read with, “Was that a real poem, or did you write that?” that’s my response to what Lady’s reading – “Is that a real book, or did we write that?”

now i do some art, add a couple pages of fotos to agentofchaos.com, study spanish, learn typing, and read through our 1,000 walkingthinice blogs for salvage material and poetic inspiration.

and, figure out what my life is to be here now in this strange land. my only goal was to finish the book. now i need another. i figure reading through the blogs will lead to something.

~ ~ ~

after screwing me around for almost 5 months, social security finally promised to deposit my first check on may 15th. woke up this morning and found they’d already put the money in my bank, and it’s only the 2nd. load off our minds. we were running out of money.

~ ~ ~

Lady collaged her table. challenges me to collage mine. she’s getting feisty. she’s blossomed this journey. now we’re done with my story, she’s going to do her own. this will be The Time Of Lady.

what time is it? it’s half past kissing time and time to kiss again.


collaged table by Lady – foto by smith

the validity of relationships


sinking sun – foto by smith

The Validity of Relationships

Full moon

Dead
Moonlight drips
Drips down
Moistening
Dead realities
Dead reality
Dripping down
Motioning
Dead
Dead
Realities
Dread realty

The moon is moist in Autumn
Great, rotund.

wrote that in the early 1970s.


cup of stuff – foto by smith