AD.

auntlady

Status Report 78

It’s to the nine’s
cuz nine nine every September
brings another year with my Lady love
this being the tenth
our 1st decade
of love
friendship
playful companion for mind and body
body and soul

Strange daze of enigma and maze called Kathy
I named her Kafka’s Lady
which became Lady Kafka
then Lady K
as strange diluted to sane
as we looked in the mirror through day’s play

I plotted how to kill her stalker psycho Sam
should he appear with knife in hand
then killed my throat cancer instead
sold the studio
dispersed possessions
stored the art
took off
2 backpacks 10 countries 3 continents 31 months
England Holland Poland Croatia Italy France
Spain Morocco US Mexico
came back full of poems
fotos, art, love
and like enough to cheat death for you
since I’m heading for 100

I’m with the one I want
and the one I want’s with me

As I said before
it’s you or nobody Lady
and I prefer you

– Smith, 9.9.2015

Lady and I took up 10 years ago.

Gave her a ride to my reading of 9 short pieces on mom Mother Dwarf’s death two and a half months earlier, and afterward she came up to see the art and stayed, even though my unwelcome mat said GO AWAY and I was in my 20th year of self-imposed celibacy, proving once and for all that art and poetry can not only get you laid, but can catch a wife.

She brought drama.

There was her stalker psycho Sam who wanted to kidnap her and keep her in his closet and talked of murdering me because I took her away.

There was the firefighter poet who’d she’d left her husband for and now had left him to play the field with a cracked psychologist and psycho Sam and another old bearded poet and the occasional stranger . . . all who went away after me though none of them thought she was better off.

Two weeks later she moved in. Six months more we married, a day after her divorce was finalized. Four months after that we’d sold my studio, given away most the stuff, stored the artwork, and took off for Europe and Africa and Mexico for 31 months.

By the time we’d gotten back, we’d finished my memoir Stations of the Lost & Found, a True Tale of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the cradle, and Leaving the Country by Smith & Lady (available online for $20, or $15 from us).

Now it’s time to write book two.

So happy 10th year of taking up, my love. Got a ways to go.

ladysmithjoyce2poets Lady, me, Tim Joyce – foto by poet M.J. Arcangelini

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