Every week I wash the sheets and make the bed and tell Lady, “New made bed, clean sheets,” whereupon she quotes a Russ Vidrick line to me, “Clean sheets, redemption, and you.”

Man, what a great line. Last week at his monthly Guide to Kulchur open reading, I told Russ I’d be signing my name to that line as soon as he dies, and he said, “Heck, take it now.”

So I did.

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.

Told Russ Vidrick when he died
I’d be signing my name to his
‘clean sheets, redemption, and you.’

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 time,
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.

– Smith, 2004, 2014

Cleveland cunnilingis

Cannibal Saliva

Marijuana and Mozart on a Sunday morn
Plethora of complacencies
Of tongue, beard, bush

Poets fall down.
Dream
Drown

– Smith, 1975

Masturbation Manual

Masturbation Mambo

Well you slip your hand on in
pulling light down low
grip unzippered sin
do the masturbation mambo

Add some lubricating cream
to massage the ole libido
dream a dreamy dream
and masturbate the mambo

Oh you stroke it to the left
and you pull it to the right
while thinking of the cleft
and squeezing real tight

You’re picking up the pace
roiling oil on the ego
in this fleshly race
of the masturbation mambo

You do the pants pant here
then the rub dub there
through empty air you spear
phantasmagoric hair

Moaning lone and low in groan
of huffing puffing hump
your sex and you alone
in pre-climaxing clump

You play the music louder
make faster master go
in double dealing downer
doing masturbation mambo

Till bang you break the mold
in epileptic shudder
your inner outer load
that was meant for another

So with hairy palm on gland
and blindness quickly coming
why don’t you give yourself a hand
and tug your central something

– Smith, 2010

man

Sisyphus Morning

Sleep holding down my eyelids,
burst of honey spoons my head,
hot black caffeine down my throat,
climb this slo-mo mo-fo slope.

Been down this slide before,
swung this swing so many days,
in and out the same old door,
zombie shuffle same old craze.

Eat the fuel, drink the water,
both been done and done and done,
walk through their daily oughter,
wondering how one reaches one.

– Smith, 12.10.2014

monster