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WALKING ON THIN ICE

Mad Sing You II Sunday 7.20.2014 1-4pm

July 15, 2014 No Comments

Mad Sing You II poetrymusic Fest

One Life to Live

Am I running from the coming of the fountain of afford?
Is water getting wider before we have a chance to ford?
How’s the hide of hoarder hoisting heavy load?
There are questions lacking in the running of the day,
personal people problems per their portion of the pay
with not a lot of options in the play or way of lay,
at least that’s what they say.

I say sock it to em,
sex it up,
add some color,
bunny hop,
make it funky,
do it down,
even clunky you can clown
defrown that upsidedown.

– Smith, 7.15.2014

In 5 Days, 7 Poet-Music Acts:

MAD SING YOU II 2nd Annual poetrymusic Fest
Sunday July 20, 2014, 1pm – 4pm
a 21 and over show
Pat’s in the Flats
2233 W. 3rd St (bottom of Literary Hill)
Cleveland, Ohio
$5 cover charge

This is the song most folk like of mine . . . going to do some sort of version of it at Mad Sing You 2nd Annual poetrymusic Fest Sunday at Pat’s in the Flats, probably between 1:30 and 2pm — click here to hear High Wind Whether.

I almost chickened out last year when Dan Smith asked me to sing my words in front of a band and actual people for his Mad Sing You 1st Annual poetrymusic Fest, but performed in spite of myself for my first time musically on stage in front of an audience.

He asked again this year, but my main music man wasn’t keen to repeat, so with great relief I said no – but then on a whim I asked Shawn Mishak (guitarist, vocalist, lyricist and leader of Kid Tested) if he would be interested, and he said yes, so now I’m stuck performing outside my comfort zone again, which is a good thing.

So in 5 days we’ll be joining Latex Menagerie (spoken word by Bree, Adam Brodsky & Russ Vidrick), Shelley Chernin, Jesus Crisis Ban/ne/d (JJ Haaz & John Burroughs), Tom Adams w/ Goggles Pisano, The Deep Cleveland Trio Band (w/ Dan Smith), Terry Provost . . . Shawn and I are The Leftovers.

Not sure what we’re doing since Shawn and I haven’t gotten together yet because he was on tour . . . he’s going to improvise something while I do what I do. Whatever it is, I have to have more oomph in my let loose department than I’ve so far exhibited. (I’m a too tightly wound twit most times).

Find out in 5 days what we do when we do it. Lady may help on the reggae number playing her angklung*.

* (per Wiki) a musical instrument made of two bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved to have a resonant pitch when struck and are tuned to octaves. The base of the frame is held in one hand, whilst the other hand strikes the instrument. This causes a repeating note to sound. Each of three or more performers in an angklung ensemble play just one note or more, but altogether complete melodies are produced. The angklung is popular throughout Southeast Asia, but it originated in what is now Indonesia and has been played by the Sundanese for many centuries.

High Wind Whether (the song)

The trees they are dancing
Wind playing the tune
In sky tall prancing
Beneath a full moon

Clouds chant the chorus
Direction and sound
In song sung just for us
We being earth bound

Romance abounds
Adventure exists
Just look around
At all that you’ve missed

Our feet stuck to dirt
Our hearts leap for air
With happiness we flirt
And shirk our despair

Yes the trees they are dancing
Leaping for the moon
My soul sky chancing
Laughing in loon

Romance abounds
Adventure exists
Just look around
At all that you’ve missed

– Smith, 2011


follow yr heart

Rose

July 15, 2014 No Comments

ROSE

Cultivated pearls prized
like a 50s secretary
files the rounds
of her nails

Red lips
smiling shiny
teeth like a pearl necklace
teeth

~ Lady

Out at the In-laws 13

July 14, 2014 No Comments


Lady’s test peach/raspberry pie for county fair

Out at the In-laws 13

Chasing cloud shadow over empty concrete,
green and road and time running by like burning oakam.

Big dude dog Miles thumps tail to back deck
as ma’am and me and her parents of be
talk tales of bathhouses in backs of barns,
84 yr old open mic poetry virgins,
Thomas Jefferson’s shitter in the library,
how blacksmiths in auto’s first years
helped set low speed limits to slow the cars
which were hurting their horse maintenance business,
you know, the old gold standard of operating procedure
where money follows money follows money follows money,
like when climate changed worsened weather
backs up our sewers in a perfect shitstorm
someone still gets paid.

And while we’re here,
where are the skyroads, the windways,
the searoads for quadrocopter air?
Or the aero vello flair?

Speaking of flare,
studies say smelling people’s farts at parties
improves your health,
though they’re not the type of folk you’d want around
being party poofers and all.

Ma-in-law tells of luring feral cats to spaying
with cans of wet catfood.
“That’s how I got my first girlfriend,” I spurt.

The hummingbirds chirp and bubble
swoop and sweep at honeywater
as the cardinal on the feeder hops and eats
then hops and looks over edge at the kittens below
before hop and eat again
taking care
surviving business
as things fly round in squeak squawk flit flop
interacting talking talk
while half of em eat the other
for in this day there’s no free lunch to give away.

“Oh dear I’ve pie dough in my hair,” wife laments.
I used to play with Pie-doh as a kid, I reply,
later studied Piedoh’s philosophy in college.

Down by the pond with the lilies on the pads
and the frogs in-between,
dragonflies vectoring air,
willow weaves in breezes blowing
showing flowing in the leaves,
all while we’re waiting the baking
wife’s practice county fair pie
of peaches and raspberries
with crisp no-chill crust
to be successfully tossed to our tastebuds to test.

– Smith, 7.14.2014







out at in-laws July 2014

nasty novels

July 11, 2014 No Comments

Lady

Table Magic

For lunch, Lady tries
soothing world stresses
by serving middle eastern lentil soup
with Israeli salad.

Works for me,
the tomatoes and mint
are our first harvest
from our first community garden plot.

– Smith, 7.11.2014

Am on page 154 of John Updike’s “Rabbit at Rest” (1990) . . . I’ve read many a fine book by Mr Updike, and some say this is his masterpiece. It is quite well written — but it’s a novel of the failed. Rabbit Angstrom is unpleasant and I do not enjoy his company. Will finish because I read the first three Rabbit books long ago and am curious if he saves this one somehow.

Put my finger on it – recently reread Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” (1866) and Sartre’s “Nausea” (1938) and both those main characters whine about life the entire book, just like Rabbit. If they’d make me care for these characters somehow then the ride would be worth it, but I don’t care about these people.

An unpleasant novel that does work is Leonard Cohen’s second, “Beautiful Losers” (1966). His sole living character in the story is perverse, unpleasant, psychotic . . . didn’t enjoy the story nor care for the characters, yet somehow two years after rereading it, it still stirs my mind, so there’s something there I haven’t yet identified.

Another nasty novel that works quite well is William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” (1959). Sick and original, sticks with one.


scamp – foto by Lady K

PEACEFUL

July 11, 2014 No Comments

PEACEFUL

Peaceful
as record beckoning
record player’s player
played like Narcissus
bent without end over pool
in relaxed resignation
hand hung in water

Peaceful
let whatever subtext
decides to play
in my throat
just be
not fight
so much

Let the catgut work
its twang

Listen and relax

Listen & wait
for improvement
and space for me to
flute the reed of my intent
with pursed-lip patience
when I’m s’posed
to come in

It will make more space for me

I’m mostly an observer
waiting with flute on my lap
in my own orchestra

~ Lady

Nightlight

July 10, 2014 No Comments

Nightlight

Fireflies fly high
outside our third floor window,
stardust memories.

– Smith, 7.10.2014

feather whether

July 8, 2014 No Comments

startfinish

It was never true that “things were better in the good old days,” but in the past it does seem they more often followed the bromide “the customer is always right.”

But for decade after decade, greed grew while the money pot shrank, and now there’re bigger fights over the fewer pennies, with the customer usually picking up the tab.

But sometimes good still wins. Got an upper dental plate through Case Dental School three months ago. Couple weeks ago it cracked for no reason. I was worried I’d be charged hundreds to fix or replace it.

To my delight, they relined my temporary upper for free (normally $71) to make it fit better while they looked at my broken one. Today they gave me back my repaired plate for free. They also relined it for free to make it thicker and stronger, and told me they were making a new upper at no cost to me because this one’s defective. This will leave me with a new upper, an excellent backup upper, and a so-so temporary backup backup upper. . . for once I have the upper hand.

Feather Whether

Memorizing poem
I close my eyes and sing it
open them
lay lyrics in my lap
take off glasses
lay them on lyrics
rub eyes
look down
see small blue feather next to glasses
put glasses on
feather still there
I’m alone
have nether experience nor expectation of feather
especially blue.

Some small critter flying through ether
missing tail feather
surreal whether
no know what to do.

– Smith, 7.8.2014


thataway

WAKING UP

July 8, 2014 No Comments

WAKING UP

Warmup exercises:
coffee, spiritual practices,
writing to Reality

Then work’s task list

It’s like being a climber, actually

I wake, groggy
I start my procedure

I have these little chisels
putting one hand
of my mind
up my mind
then the other

Something busting
outta fuzz

Passing into various lucidities
like sighting minnows swimming in my
peripheral awareness

I ease myself into a clearness,
a cradle I’ve built for myself

It’s like a tent
hanging off
the side of a mountain
or a harness

Just tying my shoes,
just getting up into the ropes
helps me ease into the anchors
laid on the mountain

Footholds from established practice,
muscles built from faith in
previously laid sling

~ Lady

bees n blueberries

July 7, 2014 No Comments

Lady picking blueberries

Broke my poem a day run after 278 poems. What with yesterday’s social activity plan of helping inspect a beehive, followed by blueberry picking, followed by blueberry jam canning, I ran out of time and found myself falling asleep as I tried to write last night’s poem so said the heck with it and went to bed. So that’s done. Feels so strange not to be looking for today’s poem. Maybe learn to blog again.

If you want to experience hell on earth, try using Windows 8 operating system on an Asus R503U laptop computer . . . in 39 years of computer use, 8 is the worst operating system I’ve seen, and the ASUS is a genuine nightmare piece of expletive-deleted.

The ASUS changes size of screen on its own while you’re typing, it arbitrarily moves the cursor around the screen so you start typing somewhere in the middle of your paragraph, it goes to links by itself if the cursor stays on a link too long, plus an endless number of more complaints. Been using it a year now and I’ve finally stopped cursing it daily, figure it’s a zen lesson in patience. Windows 8 is basically a touch and swipe o.s. for smart fones and tablets – has little to do with actual laptop work.


Lady checking bees

Ratman

July 5, 2014 No Comments

Ratman

The rat was thirsty.
I filled my palm with water.
It licked my skin, drank.

Moisture on my palm.
Rat holding on my finger,
drinking from my hand.

It lets me pet it
caressing full fur body
rat to hand to rat

– Smith, 7.5.2014