AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

this this ain’t that


use worth – foto Smith

nite lite – foto Smith

hallelujah – foto Smith

Queenbee – foto Smith

red fish blue – foto Smith

omphalos – foto Smith

2 side orders of reality please – foto Smith

across the river & thru the woods – foto Smith

Schrödinger’s cat – foto Smith

Schrödinger’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

HOW THE SUN CAN BE MY MIND AND THE SHADOW MY SKIN

The sun
can be something
that illuminates
this particular point
and the shadow, then, the skin
or even the shadow passing over the skin
as though to say here is this particular point
and here is the sun, my mind (at this moment)
and here is my thought of this particular point
cast against something, the casting a skin
of thought akin to a reflection of sorts
and here is the sun, my mind
and here I am opening my eyes to see
what I am seeing,
what I am gilding,
what is being cast
from what is being gilt

This shadow not some kind of malevolent shadow–
a shadow that would be the reverse of ideals–
but rather
something swimming in a universe
of ideas
where shadow
being the opposite of ideals
is only a small speck
in a vast ocean
of ideas
about shadow,
most of which are
blessedly good

Thank goodness

When I walk my shadow out across sand
it walks with me, fluid, easy as anything
like air through a hoop, noiselessly,
frictionless at this scale

The sun passes over clouds
and the wind starts up
(noise at that scale)

But me & my shadow walking across the sand
we’re just easy & peaceful, and I think about the metaphor
for Good being with me and the familiar story
about the distressed person being carried
on the beach, one set of footprints
and I know shadows aren’t so bad
are even sought after
so I choose to defuse
the abusive projection
of something that is only
one part of a spectrum
of ideas about this kind
of skin, a part of Good
not apart from Good
a part of Good
inherently within
it

~ L

skin brain bone


skin – foto Smith


brain – foto Smith


bone – foto Smith

Me, Myself and Lie

There’re three me’s in me:
skin, brain, and bone.
And none of them will leave me alone.

– Smith, 2010

odds and in


Doubting Thomas Gallery (where Lady & I read 4.21.2013, 1-2pm) – foto Smith

Odds and in.

Had to Google this morning’s Mutt cartoon to understand; the punch line had a cat saying wolves were part of her heritage because she had always been on “Team Jacob.” Discovered it refers to the Twilight movies. I find it odd a cartoonist would choose a movie most folk avoided. Rotten Tomatoes rates the five films as 49%, 27%, 49%, 24%, 48%, but they made one point eight billion dollars, so maybe the cartoonist is more with it than I.

A second cartoon had Donald Trump’s refrigerator shopping list as “bread, dough, lettuce, clams, bacon,” which puzzled me until I realized they were all slang terms for money. With Trump one really doesn’t need a punch line.

Weighed myself this morning and set a new adult record. I’ve been as high as 270 in my drinking days, was 185 when Lady came into my life and started feeding me healthy food, and am now 162. I graduated from high school in 1963 at 165, so I weigh less than I did when I was 17.

Part of the weight loss is Lady and I going vegetarian over a year ago, part is giving up candy and as much sugar as I can, part is having only 8 teeth left on the bottom and a temporary plate on top leaving two teeth matching up for chewing. Be another 5 months before I get my lower partial.

As Patti Smith says, life is hard — sometimes hard to understand the cartoons, sometimes hard to chew — Pattie Smith’s advice to the young


Cover Artcrimes #8, the 1989 Performance Art Festival program
cover collage & foto Smith

beauty firm in eye


Ladyday – foto Smith

Wild Flower

Preferring seas to fame or same
In flame of darkness fired
Mired not in mud but flood
Enfused to birthing Nature’s tug
Of moon blood duty
Beauty firm in eye,
Could she in time
Or even rolls reversing
Ever mime wisely nursing
Pagan cures of curves and learning
Firm in flesh unswerving
Tall and elegant prime?

Aye.

– Smith, 1995


Wildflower – foto Smith

8th century 2010


u r getting sleepy – foto Smith

If there is a solution,
Then what need is there for dejection?
If there is no solution,
Then what is the point in dejection?

— Shantideva, eighth-century Indian Buddhist monk

Worry Wart

Worry is a weary wheel
which wears you down
juggling future lance
with will and won’t
and why not knots
predating date
preclimbing time
predancing
before the music starts
before the band is hired
before the song is written
before the whistle works

Worry is the wanton wastrel
whittling away while with why
when where and when are worthy

Worry whacks now with later
whores wit with wait
wets wow with whoa

Worry is the wuss what wins
the waste that warbles
unwonders the was
wilts the will

Worry’s won’t
woe’s wail

– Smith, 2010


Woe’s wail – foto Smith

PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE

I don’t like the idea of foolishness in the sense that someone would be seen as disempowered, disrespected by virtue of having done something stupid. I feel that some sometimes write people off too quickly. I feel that some–many–want solid exemplars to lead in various domains, yet people are people.

It is interesting that everyone seems to be oriented towards acknowledging that personal and professional and ethical and spiritual growth is good. Yet in order to grow from a less perfect state to a more perfect state, one has to have been in the less perfect state to start with. (This being where the meaning of growth is beneficial progress.)

And certainly we want people to be able to change such that they are making better decisions and doing better things.

Quite often I have seen some politician make a good decision only to be decried by some people for having made bad decisions in the past–the people sometimes say, “Well, he or she is just doing that in order to appear good and for political reasons.”

But what would beneficial change look like, what would beneficial actions look like, what would authenticity look like when it happens? Why have so many decried beneficial happenings just because of the person who has done them?

It’s like there are these little stepping planks, and everyone says, “Look, there’s a river we must cross to get into a better future.”

And so there are all these people complaining about no wire being strung across the river, no posts being put down, no planks being put down.

But then someone does put a post down in the river and many of the people demonstrating on the bank say, “Oh, well, don’t fool yourself. He or she’s just doing that because it looks good.”

There’s got to be some momentum when you put down enough posts in that river. Everyone can see the posts. All you have to do is put down the planks then. And then people can walk over it to the other side. Indeed, this has happened on many social issues, and even some environmental ones.

There’s a spiritual component to this. If you truly take to heart the ramifications of physics, of the observer being part of the system that is being observed, then you have to acknowledge your perception helps create this whole big Thing.

So faith comes into this. Faith is applied perception, applied good will, applied openness toward receiving the good will of others, applied openness toward seeing others improve and be good.

So when we see that politician enabling the post being put in the metaphorical river to build a bridge to the better future, let’s encourage her or him.

~ Lady

the nothing b4 something


The Great Ball All – foto Smith

Ylem 1

They’re never simple, simple things
cuz cause just neath the surface
teeth in nasty places
two sides to each equation
plus bystander option
ain’t one or the other
all or nothing myth
it’s leggos of egos
layered in sayer
cathedral cards raised in the mist

You just have to hope the rope holds
that you scramble through simple sans sin
while rushing forward
juggling onward
forewarned by past spins of the skin

— Smith, 2011

I wrote this under the assumption that ylem (pronounced eye-lem) was the nothingness that existed before the Big Bang, the nothingness that the somethingness of our expanding universe is expanding into.

I was wrong. Ylem is the primordial soup that existed just after the Big Bang and just before atoms and chemicals began forming.

Turns out there is no name for the nothing before our post-Big Bang something. Closest some scientists come is calling it a singularity, which answers nothing and is wrong according to the bigger brains who say there was no singularity, no nothing, just a “past-timelike-incomplete spacetime,” which I must say doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue or through the brain.

In fact Big Brains say our universe isn’t even exactly expanding, that it’s more of a stretching, like a raw ball of bread dough with raisins in it where the raisins are always next to the same space, but as the ball of dough cooks and expands, it stretches so the raisins are all farther apart than they were but still next to the same dough space.

I can live with that. And ylem as primordial soup is still a great metaphor, though not quite as cool as the nothing beyond our something.


The Great Plain Same – foto Smith

afterglow hen hive


afterglow – foto Smith

hen hive – foto Smith

yesterhaze – foto Smith

old town – foto Smith

saved face – foto Smith

rosebud – foto Smith

manifest – foto Smith

afterglow hen hive
yesterhaze oldtown
savedface rosebud
manifest

my many wife









My many wife – foto Smith

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

– Smith, 2005