January 2012 – WALKING ON THIN ICE

Yes we have No

January 31, 2012 1 Comment

Yes we – foto of Smith’s t-shirt

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” – Groucho Marx

Waiting in line at the bank, Lady and I started singing Yes We Have No Bananas. The chorus is silly, absurd, slightly surreal, seriously shallow and mostly negative yet is sung with the brightest poppiest sense of absolutely positive upbeat joy:

(chorus)
YES! We have no bananas,
We have no bananas today.
We’ve string beans and HON-ions,
Cab-BAH-ges and scallions
And all kinds of fruit, and say
We have an old fashioned to-MAH-to,
Long Island po-TAH-to,
But YES! We have no bananas.
We have no bananas today.

“Yes! We Have No Bananas” was written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn for the 1922 Broadway revue Make It Snappy. It was sung by Eddie Cantor in the revue, and the song became a major hit in 1923.

I love silly songs, like Surfin’ Bird by The Trashmen from 1963:

“A-well-a, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word / A-well-a, bird / Surfin’ bird / Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb, aaah / Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa / Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-ooma-mow-mow / Papa-ooma-mow-mow”

or Mairzy Doats, composed in 1943 by Milton Drake:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

have no – foto of Smith’s t-shirt

I looked thru my 49 years of poems and found three bananas fragments.

~ ~ ~

Poke banana tree
with sharp stick until it bows.
Harvest the bounty.

~ ~ ~

Be one
Be nothing
Bananas brown Asian to African
Albinos weep white
dark, as Africa used to be

~ ~ ~

Coffee in morning
Hot lentil curry for lunch
Dinner banana

(stanzas from Cutting Coffee, 2008 – Lots Overlapping, 1995 – Mundania, 2010)

I also did a riff on Surfin’ Bird:

Chorus Line

Oopa wapa papa
Mau wow wow

Ohpa papa wapa
Wow mau mau

Oopa papa
Oopa mama
Oopa baby
Oops

— Smith, 2005

bananas – foto of Smith’s t-shirt

T.V.O.D.

January 30, 2012 1 Comment

Yellow red 1 – foto Smith

T.V.O.D.

The forgotten blindfold
Acts on obsession
Rides crooked trail
Sweet smells success
Hides blood money
Warriors pit

Lies’ true speed colors night
Graphics violence

— Smith, 2004

Yellow red 2 – foto Smith

emasculate tongues

January 29, 2012 2 Comments

Freudian Slip – foto Smith

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.

— Smith, 1987

Moist application – foto Smith

Secret sin

January 28, 2012 1 Comment

Stress – foto Smith

Do Be Done

I know your scent
O yellow phantom
O red shell
O stolen flag becoming Buddha
O transvestite Greek girl in YMCA tears
Oops
Deep Freud
Cut and dried driving time
The V-ness controls the penis
Womb server
Wee Willie wiser
In new morning
Both the doing
And the doing done
Humid being
Wet with symbol solution
Peel feel from ground
Walk wailing evening
Commotion strange
Cleft of ages
Tally whore in freak amore
I name your secret sin

— Smith, 2005

Wet light – foto Smith

Dead men’s fingers

January 27, 2012 2 Comments

The Watcher – foto Smith

Blood Diamond Sutra

While time dries the blood of history
dead men’s fingers drive the train.
We tunnel down to basic mystery
then execute, and wait for pain.
Why walk this world full of misery
search and seek for better gain.

Just try to live outside of usury
try to follow righteous reign.
With gold above, below’s all blistery
Hell and Heaven both the same.
A game they play to say “This is me”
pre-planned to place the proper blame.

So in this unclean sticky pissery
to stop the smell please try to aim.

— Smith, 2009

Complicated swirl – foto Smith

Quantum Lady

January 25, 2012 1 Comment

Quantum Lady – foto Smith

My first poem to Lady came because I kept trying to tell her we couldn’t have a relationship because of our 27 year age difference, so she should go away. When she wouldn’t, I said in exasperation, “What am I going to do with you?” and she sweetly replied, “You do with me as you want.” So eight days into our relationship I wrote

Pulp Lust

Your “you do with me as you want”
Popped plans of white slave trades
And long slow humid caravans
On large lumbering cockroaches
Thru jungle green into my brain.

Perhaps not the most romantic poem, but definitely Romantic in a Hollywood adventure turgid B-movie kind of way.

Then I whispered her these sweet nothings . . .

~ ~ ~

Down To Animal Bone

Me big
Me want
Me take
Me smart too
Probably get away with it

~ ~ ~

Electric Lady

I got me a live one.
And you know what?
After a live one,
The dead just don’t do.

~ ~ ~

Lineman

Hey baby, what’s your sign?
Cum here often?
Wanna see my coloring book?
I got a big red crayon
Fit right between your lines

~ ~ ~

Fine Fine Feline

Her tiger’s tail keeps twitching
Her pussy a little purr machine
Melted in my lap

~ ~ ~

My Scarless Lady

My woman has been with many men
Before coming with me
Her her makes her she
Her she wishes me
Our now exoskeleton her then

~ ~ ~

Match

Mingus our magic
We mingle our meld both mode
And modality

~ ~ ~

poems 9-11 2005

Probability Wave Lady – foto Smith

U.S. Debt increase: Reagan 189%, Bush1 55%, Bush2 115%

January 24, 2012 1 Comment

Derivatives – foto Smith

Which of our last five Presidents increased the U.S. debt the most?

Ronald Reagan – 189% U.S. debt increase from Jan 1981 – Jan 1989
George H. W. Bush – 55% from Jan 1989 – Jan 1993
Bill Clinton – 37% Jan 1993 – Jan 2001
George W. Bush – 115% from Jan 2001 – Jan 2009
Barak Obama – 16% from Jan 2009 – May 2011

Three Republicans increased the debt 359% in 20 years while two Democrats increased it 53% in 11 years.

Republicans increased the debt 696% faster than the Democrats.

Or on a yearly basis, Republicans screwed us with a 18.5% yearly increase while the Democrats overspent 4.8% per year.

The Republicans are hypocrites who run for office promising less government and a balanced budget, yet every time they get in they run up the debt and increase government.

Plus every time they get power they use it to attack women’s rights, non-whites, and any oil producing country.

Republicans also murder a LOT more brown-skinned people worldwide than do their Democratic brethren.

I find the Democrats to be criminal, cowardly, and crooked . . . but the Republican politicians and pundits and preachers make them look positively angelic.

Why is anyone even listening to these liars anymore? Republicans belong in jail, not government.

Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Simple-minded Santorum and Ron Paul should be applying for Clown School, not the Presidency of the U.S.

Indict a Republican for Christ.

National Debt

Huddled beneath behind
Green metal stalls
The tile encrusted
Yellow, he sews an
Empty money bag
To his crotch, watches
His reflection mirrored
In regimented urinals
five six seven
Decaying down the wall
Cradling his existence
Fraying five to seven
In staid erotic fear
Small spider woven
Through uninforming ears
Tired of heaven he sews
His money to his crotch
He huddles

— Smith, 1971

Best protect where your ass sets – foto Smith

Below Zero Blues

January 23, 2012 No Comments

Subconscious – foto Smith

One Hand Clasping

There’s less to say
these winter dark days
as thoughts grim dim
rise from ache to mind
mime unfair despair
cuz sun don’t shine
and mortality’s not only there
but DANGER BEWARE
signs on reality everywhere
road slip ice askew
nasty nip of below zero blues
sez way past time
to improve my process
purify proceeding
cuz everything you do
preludes to something
everything you do
leads to something else
time to change the same game
beneath this old placenta moon
this already was
of wasn’t

— Smith, 1.23.2012

Winter white – foto Smith

3 wheel deal

January 22, 2012 1 Comment

Wheel – foto Smith

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

— William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963, poem 1923

Barrow – foto Smith

Ladder Lesson

January 21, 2012 1 Comment

Time – foto Smith

Ladder Lesson

Ego so pleased
with yesterday’s poem
gloating in ownership
preening feather extended chest
head too big for reality
wrong wrench this joy in pride
best be happy the Great Whatever
chose to pass the poem through me
its human colon

— Smith, 1.21.2012

Decided in bath I was first a writer, second a poet, third a visual artist.

I know I have a knack for words, a gift for making collage assemblages, and an eye for fotografy — but I don’t know why, or where the talent comes from.

I did not decide to be writer poet artist fotografer — just discovered I was. But it seems the art and words come through me rather than from me, although sometimes it lets me add or subtract a word or collage bit on my own.

I can exercise the talent by creating, but I did not create the talent.

So how can I say this is my poem, my work of art, my fotograf? Basically I’m the poop shoot for this shit . . . it flows, and I facilitate its passage.

Best buy – foto Smith