WALKING ON THIN ICE

the last 2

Lady reading at The Lit last night – foto by Smith

Decided to end last week’s reading with two gentle poems from 1964-65, back when I was 18, 19. This puts 47 years between the oldest and newest poems read.

~ ~ ~

Confessions of a Conservative

Let others munch spare frogs legs and things
Or their mother’s tidbits so fine.

Not me.
I prefer wee bumblebee wings
With a pipe of blueberry wine.

I’ve no desire for porcupine stew
Aunts coated in chocolate yea thick
Fried crocodile
Ala flayed caribou
Or some other chef’s table trick.

A simple table whenever I dine.
Not mine all these modern cuisines.
I’m quite satisfied with blueberry wine
And old fashioned bumblebee wings.

~ ~ ~

S.O.P.

It hurts to be a teddy bear
To sit alone, unused
No longer wanted anywhere
Just left alone, confused

I’m tossed aside to lie in here
This dank and musty chest
The dampness serves to hide my tear
The dark to mock my past

Not always thus, this has been no
I was her fair haired toy
She loved me once, I pleased her so
I shone, her chosen joy

Yet here I lie in darkest net
Her love for me did end
My love for her she deemed forget
She found a stranger friend

And now the stranger she does mold
And twists him through the air
While in this chest my heart grows cold
Alone and frightened, bare

~ ~ ~

More important — today is Lady K’s 38th birthday. She’s a Christmas Eve baby. That’s gotta suck, sharing your birthday celebration and presents with Christmas and everybody else who are also celebrating and getting presents.

Lady was 32 when she entered my life, so I’ve known her around 14% of her life, while she’s known me maybe 8% of mine (that’s what happens in May-December marriages). But she’s the most interesting person I’ve met. In fact Lady’s my favorite person ever, as well as friend, love, partner, companion, artistic collaborator, co-reader, wife. For me it’s basically she, the cat, and me as tribe, group, and nuclear family — probably phylum and genus too.

Before Lady, I sat alone in neon darkness in my studio pumping out web pages for AgenOfChaos, unaware three white cancer nodules were growing on my voice box (an ironic situation for a performing poet, wouldn’t you say).

Since Lady come along five and a quarter years ago, what a long strange trip it’s been, is, and will be, amen.

Happy bornday, babe.

my multi-patterned Lady – foto by Smith

poems 10, 11 and 12 run 1994, 1985, 2010

wet floor – foto by Smith

Your torment is almost done – only two poems left for tomorrow. Not bad, I turned a 20 minute reading into a five-day blog. How’s that for recycling?

Poems 10, 11 and 12 run 1994, 1985, 2010.

Note for the 1st poem – Moroi (from Wikipedia):
A moroi is a type of vampire or ghost in Romanian folklore. In some versions, a moroi is a phantom of a dead person which leaves the grave to draw energy from the living. Morois are also known as mortal vampires. They are sometimes referred to in modern myth as the live-born offspring of two strigoi. (Strigoi is different than a moroi. They are immortal vampires and close relatives of the werewolves.) It may also signify an infant who died before being baptized. The origins of the term ‘moroi’ are unclear, but it is thought by the Romanian Academy to have possibly originated from the Old Slavonic word mora (“nightmare”).

~ ~ ~

Three Faces of Eve

Moroi, Moroi
We meet where
The cuckoo does not sing
The dog does not bark
The sacred yew my flesh
The warming gone

Though hidden behind
Paths in the park
I in my city
Am amphetamine hot
And see
Clean Grecian face
In crumpled wrap
Of excrement
On flesh

None descending the stair
Dare call patrons
Matrons of questionable ease
Strip tease
Sand not withstanding
For each beach is the same
Same lame game
Where neither retribution
Nor love of institution
Dare descend dissembled day
In this garbage of Eden

Bring back the snake

~ ~ ~

The Grasshopper’s Tale

My life’s dog food for do gooders
Hot dodgers dogging God’s zone
Fur sure of itself
Per path and position
Point portion pursued

We who rise in heat from dream
Lick recollection loose
From cold fire’s template
Futility’s fog
We bleed in abandon
Dance dawn’s dapple light

~ ~ ~

X (solve for) =

I get up in the morning
and I know nothing.
I do bad during the day
and learn from my mistake
do bad again, learn again
bad, learn
bad, learn
bad, learn
and by the time I go to bed at night
I’m wiser
I’ve learned stuff
I know things
I know how to do tomorrow better
I go to sleep
I forget
I wake
I know nothing.

~ ~ ~

fallen flower – foto by Smith

7 of 14, 8 of 14, 9 of 14

Cleveland, Ohio – foto by Smith

Here be 7, 8 and 9 of 14 poems I read last Sunday to maybe 20 people.

~ ~ ~

Vérité

According to community owned reality
you can’t boil watched water
or save stitched nines in time
but clean underwear is next to giddiness
the first squeak gets both the oil
and the fast bed early rise prize
while money parts fools with ease
though not all the time
in a government of the eatable
too often beaten
by bad breath gift horses
in homes housed unholy
some Simons so simple
made to drink water
roll lone moss unstoned
in gelded gold glitter
their beauty self inflicted
skim deep disturbing
carpe per diem
in well ending wallow
back bridges burning
too many egg baskets
in forests unfallen
for sometimes the right hand’s just wrong
when tossing apples at doctors
too easy to get gone
the do down done diddled
bathwater from baby
to soft pillow the conscience
on single step journeys
where the weak shall inherit our mirth

~ ~ ~

Our Daily Scaffold

We’re but a game of hide and meat
deceptive fog bequeathed by heat
to cheat the sheath of self by soul
to eat and propagate our goal

We rise in wonder, wander off
our reason tries with labored laugh
to catch our lies of lip within
and patch our eyes of if and when

~ ~ ~

World Warp Weave

Maybe so maybe so I say
to your bob and nod and nay
but for quick fur instance
if a cat got cash
you be trash or interest?

It’s the moist mark of the past
the old glow gone glitter
that makes new the now
this wow pow ow now
of lies allowed and certified
by clones of clowns
who not alone
abound in corporal service.

You choose your lie
eye line your why
and Zen the one you worship.

~ ~ ~

no message – foto by Smith

4, 5, 6 of 14

falling ladder – foto by Smith

Here are the 4th, 5th and 6th of the 14 poems I read last Sunday at Jim’s Coffee House and Cafe in Elyria Ohio, a weekly reading hosted by John ‘Jesus Crisis’ Burroughs. As you can see, this was a very varied reading.

~ ~ ~

I’m For Falling

Whining want weeps
Its winning way
From fool tool TV
Via too much tit
And botoxed brain
Showing shallow twits
In xeroxed pain
Damn little give
Whole lotta take
Turning from sun
To burning lake

I’m for falling
Falling down
Falling through air
Calling cloud
Free from err
Free from want
From wanting more
Free of lust
Of money whore
Free to trust
The ever more

~ ~ ~

52 Blues

Blues rocking my notion
Blues quaking my earth
Blues causing commotion
Blues life’s afterbirth

Blues empty my wallet
Blues hole in my ace
Blues whatever you call it
Blues winning the race

Blues bogarting boardroom
Blues suffering’s shame
Blues heavy in hordes loom
Blues down dirty game

Blues stomping the Savoy
Blues blowing the blame
Blues exploding the convoy
Blues shattershot aim

Blues hoodooing abuse
Blues burgeoning bicker
Blues clogging the clues
Blues secretly snicker

Blues in my pockets
Blues in my hair
Blues my eye sockets
Blues body snare

Blues ain’t got a women
Blues too many gals
Blues darkening domain
Blues breaking my pals

Blues harmonica crying
Blues electric guitar
Blues slow night dancing
Blues wherever you are

Blues just ain’t my am
Blues knot nature’s load
Blues a late night jam
Blues the midnight crossroad

Blues is selling your soul
Blues is crying your game
Blues is digging your hole
Blues is jazz rhythm rain

Blues sickens the sore
Blues unjustly jisms
Blues unevens the score
Blues happiness imprisons

Blues is the night’s shadow
Blues is the day’s glare
Blues is good time’s widow
Blues but might’s blare

Blues dark dank and dripping
Blues ark for the poor
Blues history’s shipping
Blues forevermore

~ ~ ~

Unknown Nipple

Your nipple
Though we’ve yet to meet
Must surely seek to touch
My tongue’s erectile tissue
Which seeks south to nether musk
Past inward looking navel
Which wise in eastern ways
When rocked in western rhythm
Knows what in maya may
Be only sleek illusion
Wonders reaped and sown
In peaks before the valley
Down treasure’s traveled road
Where promise wraps forgiven
Its penis premised trap
Where truth in life is hidden
And minor deaths enact
Their furtive nightly burden
When joy it should be danced
And future fear forgiven
Like past purveyed by chance

Your eyes so solemn watching
Your lips promised pursuit
Your soul silent searching
Your heart no kindness fused
To form for wanting giving
To life its lift and shine
My love it spurts in wanting
Your flesh your spirit wine
Within your skin whenever
Blessings cross my brow
Profane in sacred wanting
Pure light enough for now
But o o unknown nipple
O mind of supple bliss
O soul unsullied, simple
On me bestow your kiss

~ ~ ~

snow 532 – foto by Smith

first 3 of 14

sketch of me while reading – foto by Smith

Finally got my poetry performance power back, my mojo’s returned. In yesterday’s poetry reading, my actual performance came very close to what I had intended. Might be my best reading ever. Normally I’m too straight and uptight and stiff, but this time I got laughs, appropriate silences, a lot of applause, and afterward folk came up and said I did good — including the waitress. A woman in the audience did the above sketch of me while I was reading. You won’t recognize me from this face, but the reading stance is right on. She labeled me a “Criminal Poet” in the drawing. I didn’t get her name, but her initials appear to be JEM. (Burroughs sent me a msg — artist’s name is Jane E. McClellan of Elyria.)

(It always helps with an audience to have a humorous poem that everyone can relate to — like Masturbation Mambo — third in your set of 14).

Host John Burroughs videotaped it, so within the next 6 months when he puts it online, I’ll be able to verify how I did, check for flaws and failures, and get a wee bit better next time at crowd pleasin’.

I’m going to blog three of the poems each day for the next 5 days in the order I read them. It was an odd mélange of brand-new poems that had never been read mixed with old poems that had mostly never been read, with none of my greatest hits included.

Here are the first three of 14 I read December 19, 2010 at Jim’s Coffee House and Cafe in Elyria Ohio, a weekly Sunday reading hosted by John ‘Jesus Crisis’ Burroughs.

~ ~ ~

Doing Time

A leaf alive
Another life
A lie let lie too long. . .

Moon meat and Moses
Sucker song along
New lie highway
Old road alone

Need new lies
Old lie don’t do
New supposes
For falling through

New excuses
And pretty parts
To hide abusive
Hollow hearts

Toys for boys
Swirls for girls
Swine to enjoy
Those hurled pearls

For Babylon baby
Ain’t another time
There ain’t no maybe
It’s this life’s the crime

And I’m doing time

~ ~ ~

Sold American

We’re born in blood, raised in flesh
In Ragnarock ‘n roll Armageddon
So let’s go let’s go let’s go go Sell American
For the red white black and blue

Schrodinger’s cat is dead, perhaps
And we but lie, lie dreaming
This tit for tat means this this ain’t that
No matter what the ragweed’s weaving

My Little Bo Peep’s out eating her sheep
With Darwin doubtless her handle
Your Little Boy Blue’s down sniffing glue
While cooking a spoon over candle

So drink a drink for all that hasn’t happened
Bleed in need for the all that never will
Three cheers for the crippled, the misbegotten
All hail the politicians fingers in the till

~ ~ ~

Masturbation Mambo

Well you slip your hand on in
pulling light down low
grip unzippered sin
do the masturbation mambo
add some lubricating cream
to massage the ole libido
dream a dreamy dream
and masturbate the mambo
oh you stroke it to the left
and you pull it to the right
thinking of the cleft
and squeezing real tight
you’re picking up the pace
roiling oil on the ego
in this fleshly race
of the masturbation mambo
you do the pants pant here
then the rub dub there
through empty air you spear
phantasmagoric hair
moaning lone and low in groan
of huffing puffing hump
your sex and you alone
in pre-climaxing clump
till bang you break the mold
in epileptic shudder
your inner outer load
that was meant for another
you play the music louder
make faster master go
in double dealing downer
doing masturbation mambo
so with hairy palm on gland
and blindness quickly coming
why don’t you give yourself a hand
and tug your central something

~ ~ ~

just before I read, Lady wrapped my newly shaved head
in a turban made of her neck scarf – foto by Lady K

Smith poetry reading 12-19-2010

poets Courtenay Roberts & Smith – fotos & layout by John Burroughs

I’ll be reading at Jim’s Coffee House in Elyria this December 19th along with Courtenay Roberts. I’ll be doing a bunch of new poems mixed with some old poems I never read, so it should be either awkward or interesting.

Here’s host John Burroughs’ reading write-up:

Courtenay Roberts lives in Cleveland Heights, OH where she works as a barista in Phoenix Coffee’s Lee Road Café. When she is not supplying the neighborhood’s coffee habit she is most likely reading her latest find from the local used bookshop or laughing at her own very unfunny jokes.

She began writing in college by accident. After figuring out that life as a professional dancer meant very little ice cream, she turned to the only other thing that had been with her since early childhood, books. She has been searching for a practical use for her degree in English ever since.

Before she dies she hopes to dance across the stage at Carnegie Hall, write the ever elusive great American…something, cook one legendary meal for the people she loves most, and to have gotten dirt from all seven continents beneath her fingernails.

while

Steven B. Smith is a poet, memoirist, photographer, blogger and collage/assemblage artist who makes his home in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, OH. He’s been writing poetry for nearly five decades. For more than twenty years he published the famed ArtCrimes journal. He created a massive online art/poetry archive at agentofchaos.com/. And a wide array of his poetry and collages have been published in the critically acclaimed book Zen Over Zero: Selected Poems 1964-2008. Smith and his wife Lady have traveled the world extensively, creating and living art in places like Croatia, Morocco and Mexico, while blogging about the best, worst and most unique bits of their journey at walkingthinice.com/. They’ve also collaborated on a book about Smith’s life entitled “Stations of the Lost – a true story of armed robbery, stolen cars, alternative art, mainstream poetry, underground publishing, robbing the cradle, and leaving the country.” For more information on Smith, you may read his mutant bio at agentofchaos.com/bio.php.

Each session will begin promptly at 1 with an open mic followed by the featured poets.

Jim’s Coffeehouse and Diner
2 Kerstetter Way
Elyria, OH
Sunday, December 19 • 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Here’s one of the poems I’ll be reading.

Doing Time

A leaf alive
Another life
A lie let lie too long

Moon meat and Moses
Sucker song along
New lie highway
Old road alone

Need new lies
Old lie don’t do
New supposes
For falling through

New excuses
And pretty parts
To hide abusive
Hollow hearts

Toys for boys
Swirls for girls
Swine to enjoy
Those hurled pearls

For Babylon baby
Ain’t another time
There ain’t no maybe
It’s this life’s the crime

And I’m doing time

blob Smith – foto by Smith

quantum collapse

3 shades – foto by Smith

Lady has a cool new poem, but she’s shy about posting it, so you’ll have to put up with mine instead.

Quantum Collapse

There is no cat.
There is no hat.
There is no dog and bone.

There is this this
in back that that.
Now’s now not when then stone.

Before or after if
we born and die as one
and one alone.

dreamcatcher – foto by Smith