AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

steal this poem


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

no wailing offense


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

no bless oblique


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

tangle tango


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

vote early vote often


good advise – foto by Smith

First a note from our sponsor — IF it’s not cancelled again this month due to snow like it was last month, Lady K has a poetry reading tonight at Mac’s Backs in Coventry at 7 pm with co-feature Steve Goldberg who is promoting his new chapbook Tremont Crawl.

Mac’s Backs-Books On Coventry
(216) 321-2665
1820 Coventry Rd
Cleveland, OH 44118

Now back to our program.

You can pretty pretty pretty please help our friends at Geauga Lyric Theater Guild win $50,000 to help turn their theater into an arts center in Chardon, Ohio without costing yourselves a cent.

As my wife Lady K posted on FaceBook, “I’m really hoping ppl can vote for this particular project–our friend is the director of this organization and it is so difficult to get funding, such a struggle. I’m encouraged because the Theater program has moved up in the rankings–it needs more of a push, though.”

You can go to this link and vote once a day through the rest of January if you care to help. Click here to register and or vote: refresheverything.com/geaugalyrictheaterguild — and vote every day for the next 21 days — as our friend Jean Brandt of Brandt Gallery said, “Vote early and vote often; it’s an American Tradition.”

I’ve been to a play at the Lyric Theater featuring our friend’s 8 year old daughter, and I can tell you, this would be money well spent.

The Geauga Lyric Theater Guild started out in 78th place January 1st and they’ve moved up to 65th so far, so there’s a chance we can swing this thing our way.


country fresh – foto by Smith

jam up jelly tight


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

silly putty


Heart Lady – foto by Smith

Plum Plucker

I’m a plum plucker from Tennessee.
Actually, I never made it to Tennessee,
was from Nine-o-sea.
I’m really an escapee
from a Silly Putty factory.
At night when I go to bed
I lay in my big egg shell.
Human by day,
Silly Putty by night.

Lady read that at Saturday’s open circle poetry gathering at the Brandt Gallery, and after she finished I told her I liked it.

She replied, “Well you should, it’s yours.”

I looked at it and said what do you mean, I don’t remember writing that.

“You didn’t write it, you said it to me and I wrote it down.”

So I stole it back from her, a free poem for the taking.


Sky Lady – foto by Smith

7 sins


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

coffffeeeeee



morning coffee sale – foto by Smith

Letter to the White House

Hello,

I see that there is no category for ‘Defense’ or ‘Military’ in the subject selection box above.

Interesting.

I would like to propose that Obama pushes for turning the Defense and Homeland Security departments into *real* defense departments–that of defending our country’s infrastructure, economy, education and health.

Imagine that our country is a war zone. (Actually, it is.)

Imagine that we have ravaged our country by waging war on it. (Actually, we have.)

Well, typically after we rage war on a country, we pour money into it to rebuild, no?

So how about rebuilding our country?

It would keep the military hawks happy because they’d still have jobs and a budget.

It would make the citizens much, much happier.

It would be a great jobs program, much like the military is a great jobs program today.

Think about it–it’s very rational, and if we are to remain a strong country, it’s necessary.

Thanks!

Lady

– –

You can write your own letters to the White House here.