We are an odd couple, Lady and I. I notice people stare at us in public. Is it because I’m 27 years older than she is? Or that she’s 10 inches shorter than I? Or is it the way we look together?
Mac’s Backs Books is the longest continuous poetry reading venue in Cleveland — I first read there back in the early 1980s.
Last night’s reading there was extra special because Yuyutsu Sharma’s co-feature was Katie Daley, whom I believe is one of Cleveland’s two finest performing and writing poets — the other one is Wendy Shaffer.
Here are a few fotos from last night’s reading.
Here’s Yuyu’s remaining scheduled poetry performances here in Cleveland:
January 30th at 1 p.m.
PoetryElyria at Jim’s Coffeehouse, 2 Kerstetter Way in Elyria, Ohio
February 2nd at 7 p.m.
Snoetry: A World Record Winter Wordfest
at Jim’s Coffeehouse,
2 Kerstetter Way in Elyria, Ohio
Lady K and I will be reading at Snoetry at 6:30 as well.
Yuyu’s reading last night at “n Verse Lorain: A Poetry and performing Arts Extravaganza” at the Lorain Arts Council’s 737 Gallery in Lorain, Ohio was indeed part of an extravaganza – poets, music, singers, dance, free food, and a large audience.
Tonight’s he’s reading with Katie Daley at Mac’s backs in Coventry.
You can hear Yuyu recording with Apartment One at reverbnation.com/apartmentone. . . click on “See All 198 Songs” and go down eleven titles for Spacecake Amsterdam and another eleven for Temple London and click and play.
Yuyutsu’s next three readings:
January 29, 2011: Yuyutsu Sharma Katie Daley
at Mac’s Backs.
7 PM, 1820 Coventry Rd.,
Cleveland Hts., OH 44118. 216-321-2665.
January 30th at 1 p.m.
PoetryElyria at Jim’s Coffeehouse, 2 Kerstetter Way in Elyria, Ohio
February 2nd at 7 p.m.
Snoetry: A World Record Winter Wordfest
at Jim’s Coffeehouse, 2 Kerstetter Way in Elyria, Ohio
Yuyu will be reading from his new book — Amazing Helambu –
a photographic and poetic journey through the Helambu and Langtang area
228 pages, 125 panoramic photographs, 19 poems
ISBN 978-3-9810883-1-1
Jammed up jelly tight for the next 6 days due to hosting a Nepalese poet, so blogs may or may be scarce.
Our poet friend Yuyutsu Ram Dass Sharma is reading 4 places in the next 6 dfays:
Yuyu Reading in Cleveland, Elyria and Lorain from his new book — Amazing Helambu –
a photographic and poetic journey through the Helambu and Langtang area
228 pages, 125 panoramic photographs, 19 poems
ISBN 978-3-9810883-1-1
January 28th at 6:30 p.m.
In Verse Lorain: A Poetry and Performing Arts Extravaganza
at the Lorain Arts Council’s 737 Gallery, 737 Broadway Avenue in Lorain, Ohio.
January 29, 2011: Yuyutsu Sharma Katie Daley
at Mac’s Backs.
7 PM, 1820 Coventry Rd.,
Cleveland Hts., OH 44118. 216-321-2665.
January 30th at 1 p.m.
PoetryElyria at Jim’s Coffeehouse, 2 Kerstetter Way in Elyria, Ohio
February 2nd at 7 p.m.
Snoetry: A World Record Winter Wordfest
at Jim’s Coffeehouse,
2 Kerstetter Way in Elyria, Ohio
Here is a short sweet 10 year old poem — more rhyme per buck with 4 lines, 6 rhyming words: hole, soul, black, crack, sky, I. And actually backed rhymes internally too.
Used Karma Lot
I cut the cockroach off at the watering hole
Sent his brown backed soul
To that great black crack in the sky
May God have more compassion than I
— Steven B. Smith, 2001
A poem I wrote Sunday titled “Belly Back Beat Off Blues” was turned into a musical jam this afternoon which by evening became an online song called “Bellybonesmith“.
Right now it’s the first song on Peter Ball’s (aka Apartment One) home page at reverbnation.com/apartmentone.
Just click and listen. It’s an easy going awkward blues not quite sung, kind of sweet in its own way.
belly bone back, back bone belly
gonna go jack my jam in jelly
Belly Back Beat Off Blues
Dancing down
the Corner Buddhist Beat Cafe
digging Pretty Lady
scoping Haiku Baby,
Stinky Finger
picking Pussy’s pocket,
Lockjaw John out back
humping Zen goats
outlined in rhythm and blue,
Crankman behind the wheel
weighing latest deal
in get-away zone,
Monkey Jones
jimmying Juicy’s lovely locket
flluxing right and left
in jelly jam scam
for Uncle Sham,
Whirl Girl
doing the Duze
looking to shake
her bad leaf break
before Growl howls another poem,
Mama Boy slurring
his slip & Zen,
all blowing
their
Off Beat
Beat Off
Slippery Slope Cope
Less Than Most
Coast On Tomorrow’s Sorrow
Blues
– 1-23-2011
Likely do a jam this with this my music friend and will need a chorus so will probably use:
Belly bump back
Back bump belly
Gonna go jack
My jam in jelly
French Kiss
Remember the French Kiss?
I don’t think the French
invented it, do you?
I think it was that
little snake
in the Garden of Eden,
that little
slither tongue.
Ohh, come hither
come hither
that little snake
that little snake
– with Lady K, 4-13-2006
I tried to explain a couple of word meanings to Lady this morning and she scoffed at me. Actually said “Hah!” Where went her vow of “for better or worse”? Oh wait, we had a Wiccan wedding with oils and verse and such, with no *obey-better-worse* being mentioned, so I guess she’s off the hook contractually.
Told her “Pioneer” was what you said when you saw someone with pie on their ear, and that “Coincide” was what you called a pregnant mother who had named her fetus “Co”. . . of course after birth it’d be “Cooutside”.
Here are a few fortune cookie sayings I’ve gotten down at the corner Buddhist Beat Cafe.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Patting yourself on the back.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get revenge for the road crossing it.
Knock not.
Who’s there?
Not the world, knocked much longer.
Why did the egg cross the road?
To get to the chicken on the other side.
What’s purple, really angry, and you’d better stay out of its way?
The grape of wrath.
What do you call an honest cop?
Mythological.
Persian abortion:
Stuff snake up snatch, turn mongoose loose.
What should you do if you see a drowning banker?
Toss him a hundred pound bag of pennies.
Why is the sound of one gland collapsing?
What the right gland giveth, the wrong gland taketh awry.
Livin’ Old Lies
I says’m as I sees’m
Seize not what sold to sum
Hadn’t done, wouldn’t be
Do what told be gone
– 2007
Another poet friend wrote she was glad I wasn’t really writing a poem a day because it made her feel as if she weren’t producing enough.
Well, don’t worry – no one any good ever writes a poem a day forever, or at the very least doesn’t write a good poem every day.
Here are my 2000s yearly poem counts – as you can see, it’s all over the place, from a single poem to 77 a year. In our three years of travel I wrote 30 poems, while in the two years we’ve been back I wrote 104. My previous best year was 2005 when I was writing poems to musically jam with Peter Ball, then Mom died, and finally Lady came into my life — three excellent muses.
2000 – 1
2001 – 3
2002 – 3
2003 – 16
2004 – 27
2005 – 56
2006 – 18
2007 – 4
2008 – 8
2009 – 24
2010 – 77
20011 – 3 so far
Here’s a poem with deliciously sliding sounds from 1987.
Foreplay
Freud comes tonight
to mock our mere
reflected lives’
refracted fear,
shelf dependents
miming mirror
of every man and action.
In abstinence
such sibilance
through undue trade
and undulance
calls forth
in outlawed ambulance
emotional transaction.
These scars we horde
until they’re heard
to bargain bare
a binding word,
the players paid
and pompous lured
to daily dead transgression.
Nipples rise
through lemon dust
raw, red
and real in sapient lust,
emasculate tongues
court and musk
mother’s moist application.
