AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

t’was a Goldilocks day

2yellowducks

Out at the In-laws 19

T’was a Goldilocks day
green leaves, blue sky, sweet honey sun.

Dead Man’s Curve 90-degree right
slings us hour east
as Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis
mile us on.

Pa-law’s talking of walking and watching
sitting the land through shadings of season
“Excepting the deadfall of winter.”

Tasting Ma-law’s dish,
“Potato salad’s long been in my life.”
“T. S. Eliot? How?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You said T. S. Eliot.”
“I said potato salad.”
“Close enough.”

Bro-law slideshows his shades of Iraq
remembering Memorial Days done.

In beehive inspection I finally see
my first Queen Bee laid eggs.

I paddle my first small pond canoe ride
with 4-year young boy 7-year old girl
searching for yellow wood ducks.

Put hand through thick spider webbed box
into last year’s fall honey
guarded by black body blob.

Drive back as
Dodge car emblem shades into Rogue,
yellow white flowers become bread & butter,
and glow puffs explode in the sun.

Dean Man’s Curve six hours later
90 degree left finally welcomes us home.

– Smith, 5.31.2016

redcanoe

Meandering through Mammon

minnie

Lady needed more Boss Ma’am business clothes so we ventured into Surface City which had no pity as we walked through miles of aisles of tops and bottoms and intimate in-betweens normally unseen.

Being her driver, I pushed the shopping cart, and as I sat waiting outside dressing rooms, I saw one tried-on unbought dress on a hanger inside out, so I put it right. Found a belt in a trash can and returned it to the return rack. Saw a blouse tossed on the floor and hung it back up.

And not once was there a magic pot of gold reward.

When wee, I read fairy tales. One that stuck was the large rock in the road. It impeded traffic, but traveler after traveler from high class to low just walked or rode around it, showering it with curses.

Finally a simple good-hearted farm boy came along, saw the rock and removed it so others would have an easier passage. As soon as he picked up the rock, he saw the pot of gold the King had hidden beneath as reward to whomever was good enough to do a good deed.

Having been a farm boy, I’ve been removing rocks for others for seven decades now, and so far no pot of gold, no King, just mostly curses. But it did make me feel better about myself, which is reward enough.

Wrote this while waiting outside the dressing room watching customers walking the aisles.

Skin Deep

Meandering through Mammon
in search of moral tampons

Gotta clothe the surface
to make us worth us

Can’t be down and dirty
climbing up the well

Ain’t I purty?
Ain’t I swell?

– Smith, 5.30.2016

chesirecat

small stuffed tigers running up the steps

dreamnotes2

One of the reasons this is my 21st day of not smoking grass is financial, but the real reason is daily toking dumps my dreams from short term memory as I wake. I finally woke remembering this doozy of a dream Friday night.

Cleveland Dream 2016.5.28

Lady and I walking down the street were cut off by a late 1950’s Buick slow turning left in front of us. As it turned, its left rear light was slow clipped by a late 50’s Dodge. We didn’t want to be caught up in the police investigation so veered around the cars. Police started chasing us so we ran around the corner to an elevator a woman had just stepped into and we dashed between the closing doors. By the time we got to the top, the woman had disappeared although the elevator had not stopped anywhere. At top we got out, looked around for the woman and saw two lower legs and feet protruding from the ceiling.

In the dream I realized I was dreaming and took out my pocket pad to take notes for my blog, but at this point in real life, a bit past midnight, our neighbor below’s friend once again pushed our doorbell to get in to see her and woke me. I got up, picked up the remote doorbell receiver and moved it into the living room so it was out of transmitter range, then realized I’d forgotten the rest of the dream and what I had wasn’t special enough to post, so went to sleep.

Then Lady and I were house setting this extremely rich English couple’s place. It was huge, a mutant cross between an English mansion and a warehouse. It was dusty and antiqued and art was stacked thick everywhere. I wandered around taking fotos of the special pieces, most of them featuring closeups of eyes. I leaned in close to one painting, looked through the viewfinder to focus, and the art disappeared. Looked and found the camera lens had suddenly over-extended and pushed through the painting leaving a foot wide round hole. I knew we couldn’t afford to pay for it if I admitted I’d done it and was mulling my mind about lying. Then more people appeared, some we knew, most we didn’t. Thought maybe the painting was so old the owners would think it’d decayed away by itself, then thought there were so many people now no one could possibly know who’d damaged it.

Before I resolved my moral dilemma, I found myself in a huge room filled with gigantic Anselm Kieferish paintings. Someone said they were by John Robertson’s girlfriend, Jane. I stared at one piece of grays and blacks and browns that was basically two big eyes, then stepped closer to see more and it transformed into a Robert Rauschenberg type collage painting. Kept stepping back and forth, watching the painting repeatedly change.

Walked down to the kitchen and saw the girlfriend painter feeding a baby at the table. I asked, “Are you Jane Adams?” “Close enough,” she said, “Jane Brussels.” “Sorry,” I replied, “for some reason John Robertson’s name changed into President John Adams in my mind, so you became Jane Adams. Did you paint those paintings that change back and forth with each step?” “Oh, you noticed. You’re the first.” “How do you do those double images?” She answered, “Not easy, especially if the lights go out, then I can’t complete them cuz it just flows through me from somewhere.” “I know what you mean. I’m going outside to the car to get a copy of my memoir to give you, be right back.”

I walk down the outer steps as the police come to break up the gathering, which by now seems to be a hundred people. As I walk down, dozens of individual small stuffed tigers are running up the steps, with more stuffed tigers in cardboard boxes, and the boxes themselves are running up the steps. I overhear two well dressed tramps in the yard — who are wearing fine old expensive clothes which are now dirty, tawdry — sitting against the stone wall. They remind me of the two Waiting for Godot tramps as one says to the other, “This is the best they’ve done yet, party number 1437.”

I wake, get up at 2:14 a.m. and sit with a flashlight and pen writing three pages of quick notes without my glasses to keep dream alive while listening to neighbor below giggle and laugh loud in what I suspect is sex with her wrong doorbell ringing boyfriend..

I bought a Pick-4 Lotto ticket using my dream number of 1437. Winner was 4047, so two of my dream numbers appear three times in winning number and I lost my dollar. That’s twice I’ve played the Lotto — once on dream number, once on weird wrong fone text, lost both times.

My dream last night was so-so. I was the prisoner of the Nazis. I was the only prisoner they had. I believe I was also the Nazis. They kept moving me around, threatening violence, showing me to groups of people. But nothing ever happened, no hurt, no misuse, just psychological violence which didn’t bother me. Except for interesting setting and my remembering the dream, it was rather banal. Guess all my dreams can’t be surreal blockbusters.

Social Less

A dram of dream measures heft of beam,
mind and spirit esteem schemes in seam.

Our surface acts walk creaking crack
yet crawl long through lack.

This is horrible writing, I know, but true.

Subconscious creeps in dark unknowns,
un-no-able, control most times undoable.

I suppose were I in total command
I would not be me, but who would be?

My inner stark barely bound by due.

And so I smile at you, say hello,
measure knife to throat, offer toast instead.

My success rests less on best
than simply getting through.

How about you?

– Smith, 5.29.2016

dreamnotes1

May 29, 2016 Lady Poem

How unexpected a bird flapping down from the roof – decision and missive rendered. Thock thock thock thock thock. Cross between rubber and drum.

Bird chatter indicative of a quiescence when the traffic ebbs. Carousel cars turn toward then into rafts of away.

I lift my head up from the computer in a minute of liberty. The noise of my inner work alleviated by the novelty of noticing or not – of peering through and dreaming.

Husband brings the paper up from stairs of concrete reality. In luxury the pages spill on couch. I do not want to read the headlines, just ads and human interest stories. Better I launder what I have. Smell of soap, clean carpets, dishes, bath, bit at a time. Groom. Sweep – then palate refreshed for clean look

Hearing birds again – someone cooes an opening

~ Lady

The Spanish Truck Robbery

dreamthief

The Spanish Truck Robbery

Dream woke me.

I lived alone wandering high desert castle
swimming in pool beneath dark dungeon canyon

Robbed an armored truck in Spanish hills
can’t remember why
some sad thing not for money or adventure
robbery was fun exciting
desert storm dark night bright sun light

Robbery went weird
partner disappeared, ceased
I got away with money thru the storm
bought a brick of marijuana
hid it in bag in castle in mountains
in inner dungeon canyon with water
where I swam in solitude

Ring at door I opened
cops dressed in black big guns
I said of course had to be cuz was wrong
slowly spread hands far from body
like Zen gunless fighter
they saw surrender stood around me in circle
lady cop searched found marijuana
said aha I thought so
locked rusted chain links around each wrist
took me down to village
cops local people liked me sat real close
leaning against me smiling laughing
saw me as folk hero
I saw I would be famous
lady cop didn’t like this but liked me
so it was in sadness she
slowly poked out my left eye
I saw blood oozing down my face
she let me think about it, poked out other eye
both eyes grew back so later she did it again
they remained dark bloodless holes this time
but I could still see
wasn’t upset in pain afraid just accepting
but it made her sad

Woke told wife weird dream robbed armored car
lady cop poked out my eyes
wife sez good for her

It’s 5:37 in morning can’t get back to sleep

So much you lose – hard to capture dreams

(dream 2006.9.28, Krakow, Poland)

– Smith, 5.28.2016

dreamchamber

Lady Poem May 27, 2016

Fastidious ants granulate in
busy grasping-legged clusters
from cracks on the sidewalk
such slices of life appear

Season’s turned from gelid to humid
and summer’s undulating poshness catches me
by surprise

Kites at Edgewater beckon
blooming dresses in expansive recesses
of heaven on earth, the consciousness
of time’s luxury

Frantic to feel the ease of this dream
to lay on the top of a picnic bench,
canopy of leaves on bluebird egg sky
to peer at material so green
and so spiritual

~ Lady

private parts

privateparts1

Private Parts

Old sonnets of love long lost
live on in country western songs
of loves gone wrong
which must be saved no matter cost

Since time begun the song most sung
sings wrong will be all right
if only not alone tonight
cuz less than two rates one as dung

They all outcry before and after
praising first the hunger want
and then the genital blunt
which leads to loss of laughter

Best way to make it work
is first unmuck your mental
then set your heart to gentle
and get down in the dirt

For such sad words sung to happy beats
spring when private parts meet to meat

– Smith, 5.27.2016

privateparts2

kulchur

pastimperfect

Past Imperfect

Dawn comes.
Day’s spawn stirs
climbing light’s stairs to possible stars.

Or clings instead stark to dark
tossing hope to mope
on mind’s morass.

What was, was.
Soak in sulk of done gone past
or get off your ass.

Rise to wise.
Work the struggle puzzle.
Don’t rewalk past acts.

– Smith, 5.26.2016

Back 2006-9 when we were living for 31 months in 10 counbtries on 3 continents, this blog had a huge readership with many comments. When we returned to Cleveland March 2009, I still wrote a lot on the absurdities of returning to American kulchur and kept most of them.

Then I got tired of myself, my words, and went to posting a poem a day with 2 fotos. No one reads poetry so we lost pretty much every reader . . . although I’m surprised more folk didn’t follow the fotos.

So now no one’s reading, next month I’ll start writing stuff again. Of course there’ll be no one there to notice, which will make it hard to win readers back.

But there’s still a vague chance I’ll be recognized before I die for my art, poetry, and writing, so this will be a warehouse of delight if and when I am. And more importantly and logically, this is a storage locker for our future books.

It boggles my mind how large an audience a lot of famous folk have for their second rate output. Talent seldom trumps luck and who you know. Donald Trump is a perfect example of this.

freeclown

Lady Poem May 26, 2016

Cool breeze on a day going to get hot
whilst my intense frenetic quotidian thought
knits bird whistles chirps growing more insistent –
that and breeze lifts my attention to the open window
the nearer sparrow sweet and her fellows
on further branches cross the street less so
rasping straw ricocheting echoes

The potential of the day parlays
the scraping of the basin

~ Lady

high wire with no rope

safewtynet

Finally caught up on my daily May poems.

Been going through 10 years of archived blog posts searching for previous surreal dreams. Will start posting the special ones. Should be remembering my dreams better since this is day 18 of not buying grass . . . smoking every day seems to flush them from short term memory. Like to know my dreams because they’re clues to how I’m doing mentally and emotionally.

~ ~ ~

Balance Act

Before the light
after the dark
the spark of day hints rite of way

Write it fast
sing it slow
reach for high while working low

Things change
roles roll
you can fight or go with flow

On this high wire with no rope

– Smith, 5.24.2016

~ ~ ~

Storm Front

The clouds come in
through dark wet sky
pushing cool and rain before them.

We wait to see their anger.

– Smith, 5.25.2016

stormfront