Lady asked me to draw her bath, so here it is – foto by Smith

My friend The Mad Poet aka KE aka Kevin Eberhardt commented that I seem to be especially poetically verbose these days since I’m blogging all these poems.

Actually I just alphabetically collected 325 of my poems from 1964 thru last week into a single master file and noticed quite a few that had never or seldom seen light so decided to blog a poem a day for a couple weeks — each week will likely be 5-6 old poems and 1-2 new poems.

325 poems isn’t a lot of product for 46 years, but most years I only wrote half a dozen poems, and from 1975 through 1985 didn’t write any at all. Then of course last year I wrote 77 new ones, so go figure. I also threw away at least 100 theoretically inferior poems over the years, which I now regret.

Anyway, here’s a new old poem from 2004.

Steal This Poem

Could I steal
I’d take ‘until things move according to themselves’
By Amy Bracken Sparks

Or Jim Lang’s
‘Ice melts in only one direction’
Though I’d lift the whole poem if he didn’t watch that way

I’d glom Steve Melton’s Steve E Gloom
He’s dead and would like that
Having deeded me ‘Cleveland in Cambodia ’
Before he downsized

I’d steal most of Major Ragain’s work
As life lesson plan

Hack Jack Kerouac’s strife and times
Borrow Burroughs’ drugs
Swallow Stevens’ Eliot

When I recite
I’ll use Bob Dylan’s words
Sing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’
In Tom Waits’ voice
With Willie Nelson
For backup stash and harmony

(I’d steal from Daniel Thompson
But he’s the laureate poet
And people would know it).

Oh, I’m good at taking things
I have a sense of taste

undrawn bath – foto by Smith

accordiansmith – foto by Smith

No Wailing Offense

There will be
No tears
No wailing
No gnashing of teeth
When I go
When I’m gone
When I die
When my flesh
Is sold
For packets to eat
Or door stop
What knot
Plot not
Best to burn me baby
Use me as sand
Grit to rough the bland
Just call me
Oyster helper
Pearl point
Beginning irritant
Smooth in end

noseysmith – foto by Smith

fone gal (Chiplis studio) – foto by Smith

No Bless Oblique

Brain benign bimbos and the big bellied boob boys
Limbic low in basic lick me flick

This it it is is slow evidence each error arrow
Winging other realm weak water we

Our trust in lowercase emotion immaculate deception
Everyday evasion begs meeting nest

Saliva downloads darkness, lamps light lies – lies accrue
Mothers mire, fathers flame

Our knot whichever ought wrought
Or not, depending on seek sought

Luna by Nina Huryn (Chiplis studio) – foto by Smith

blur Lady – foto by Smith

Fandango

We’re in this waiting room
waiting for the set to change
except there’s no waiting
no waiting
just a few flowers
to feel
fuse
maybe fondle
as we tip our tongue
in tangle
and tango the won’t that awaits

blur Smith – foto by Smith

lost cat – foto by Smith

Wrote 7 Sins words two days ago, and we jammed it into music today.

As always it’s music, engineering, editing, recording by Peter Ball (aka Apartment One) with my words and voices. The songs are online at reverbnation.com/apartmentone, currently the first two titles on the home page.

The first cut — SevenSinsSmith — is a repetitive fragment, a slight night dance drumming around the cyber tribal campfire.

[Sometimes the songs won’t play on my laptop unless I move my cursor away from the Play Arrow after clicking]

The second jam — SevenMoreSinsSmith — starts off Rolling Stonish Beatlesque and quickly veers werewolfish with old Captain Beefheart crumbs dipped in mutant Howling Wolf. Starts hard and aggressive, goes soft and sensitive halfway through.

As Bansky sort of said of his art clone clown in Exit Through The Gift Shop — these cuts are not normal, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

But they are original.

If they disappear from the home-page 6 song list, click on “See All 197 Songs” for master list and our 17 Smith/Apartment One jams — any title that ends in ‘smith‘.

Some of these cuts come deep from the beyond Garbage of Eden in the Valley of Odd via deviant paths way past midnight with no passports just ticket to ride.

cast glass face – foto by Smith

the sin experience – foto by Smith

7 Sins

Don’t hock my soul to Satan
Don’t let me lose again
Within are better makings
To steer myself from sin

I stumble bum from grumble
I stagger crack to cringe
I roll below then crumble
On this my downward binge

I fat my ass with muffins
I sludge my blood with gore
I miss and mess the tough ones
And sell my soul as whore

My mouth twists in lie
My eye shuts to truth
Never asking why
I waste away my youth

Envy greed and wrath and sloth
and more pour out uncouth
Life is light and I am moth
My more is less in use

Don’t bust my nut with evil
Don’t write me off just yet
A hardened heart’s medieval
No higher calling met

I know I slough in sorrow
I trip and gripe in sore
But I will rise tomorrow
Unless in sin there’s more

So don’t sell my soul to Satan
Due my lust and pride and such
Please give my weakness your prayin’
You know I’m not asking much

the end is not at hand – foto by Smith