WALKING ON THIN ICE

see what i can see – foto by smith

Going down the mountain to see the sea and jungle. Maybe coverse with a parrot, get my fortune told by a swamp toad.

new future in me, new me in future.

dark knight of the soul – foto by smith

40 pounds of bottled drinkable water – foto by smith

Looking at a foto of John Updike’s white bushy eyebrows and white head of hair I told Lady I wish I had his eyebrows and hair. If I had pure white hair, I’d look like a real poet – yup, if I had his hair and had my hanging left testicle removed, I’d be in business, could write a poem anytime. He’s dead now and doesn’t need them, so maybe I can dig him up and arrange a transplant.

But then if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Besides there are other concerns going wrong or vague or different or not at all.

One of my two main instruments of art outside my talent, my eye and my luck is my Casio digital camera, and it is acting up. Sometimes won’t take a foto unless you press the shoot button down for 2-3 minutes steady. Other times it won’t focus, and its lost its super-macro up-close focus ability which limits a lot of my shots because like Star Trek, I shoot were normal humans never go. These cameras seem to last about 2 years for me and then go fug-bucky. Perhaps because I carry them around in my front jeans pocket and they absorb dirt and dust in their little sensitive crevices.

My second major art device is my laptop upon which I write, process, upload, download, research, and kill inordinate amounts of boring time. Its power cord has cracked and without warning will switch to battery – and believe me, on a Dell Inspiron B130 laptop you do not even want to be on battery power – the two hour battery lasts less than 40 minutes and it overheats the computer as well, burning your lap and suddenly shutting down the laptop. In my book, Dell = garbage = rip-off = bad product. Right now I’ve got the power cord falling down against the break so the wires mostly touch, and as long as I leave my laptop on a chair, never move or jostle it, and sit before it as an uncomfortable supplicant to its insensitive godhood, we have a working relationship.

My third art implement is my body, which seems to be pain central.

My fourth is my mind, and it appears to be fine, as long as you don’t listen to what my friends and acquaintances have to say about it.

Anyway, I may be disappearing from the web without warning if my power goes. Ordered a new power cord 2 weeks ago but delivery through E-Bay and mail in Mexico are both nebulous entities.

So if I go, I go. Don’t worry, you’re not off the hook because even if I go, I’ll be back.

And all this equipment uncertainty is minor compared to the Quantum Indeterminedness of our leaving this sunny paradise called Mexico after 15 months to move back to Cleveland in 5 weeks. From sun to gloom, color to gray, hot to cold, poor to poor. After living outside the USA for 3 years, Lady and I have become different people, better people, and the US has become a much worse country, so who knows but The Shadow what the F will be.

Seize you on the downsize. This has been Smith reporting once again from the tarnished silvered underside backside the mirror.

tile poem by Lady & Smith – foto by smith

mountain posts – foto by smith

They are burning the lower slope of the closest mountain, ridding it of brush and undergrowth. Watching from the roof, I thought wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that in politics too, burn away all the crimes and excrement of the Bush years and use his waste as fertilizer to grow a more moral nation. I think that’s just what Obama is doing.

We bought a small heater because it’s so bloody cold here in the morning (it drops down to the mid-40s, which isn’t all that cold, but that’s a 40 degree drop from the daytime, so it is cold in Einsteinium Relativity), and our electric bill went from $7 a month to $31 a month. Told Lady it was a money cruncher, and she replied “I thought it was a space heater, not a Peso eater.”

Of course in Cleveland, this $31 of electricity would cost us $200-$300.

clinging vine – foto by smith