WALKING ON THIN ICE

blog bog

2 items of blog clarification:

1)
the 3 fotos which were my last blog do have have meaning – which is:
foto 1 = the way of the flesh (tiger and half eaten dead deer)
foto 2 = the way of the spirit (flower & sun)
foto 3 = it is up to us which of the 2 we choose (human hand)

2)
in my blog before last, lady thought my statement “there is no other side” depressing.

maybe, maybe not. i said there is no ‘other side’ because once you get from here to there, your there becomes here, your other side becomes this side, and you begin again.

the end of our 16 months traveling will be chicago – the other side of this journey. but once in chicago, we begin anew creating a new home, a new poetry scene, a new art scene, finding new utensils, new furniture, etc, so we start over with there as new here, with that side now this side.

it’s always going to be this side trying to get to the other side… it’s always striving today for a better tomorrow – but bottom line, it is always now and you are always here. so be here now as ram dass said. as long as you are alive, you’re living, and living ain’t easy… interesting perhaps, but never effortless. no matter what you’ve done, there’s more to do. you’re always a work in process, and the process is called life. you’re done when you’re dead – maybe.

Damaged Good

The doubting vessel
Strong, unbroken
Sours water, ruins wine

The damaged vessel
Holds its token
Service, beauty, duty, time

The one excuses
The other uses
Which in fact the finer find

The better bitter
The lesser greater
Truth is action, action prime

lion lamb solar stone hand

spider spin

i hear our commander in grief is adding a dash of rue with a wooden spoon. big fly buzzing back and forth. dog bark down the lane. sit in sun and ponder worth. wonder who to blame.

at least in my own life, i know my bad’s my fault. as for the good in my life, i have to give a lot of credit to luck, timing, and chance.

before lady and i cast ourselves off from our country, she said we were like the spiders who spin a bit of web, jump off the edge and fall until a breeze catches their web and carries them to the other side. if they don’t make it to the other side, they crawl back up and fall again and again until they catch their breeze. but i just realized, there is no other side… life’s all spinning and falling and hoping – with no other side. or if there is another side, it’s called death. so we spinning and falling and crawling back up and spinning and falling.

55 lady k’s

foto by lady k

here’s 55 fotos by Lady K from Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, England taken 2007. this is her best batch yet. have to do a greatest pics page of her stuff down the line.

by the time we return to the states in october, i will have spent 11 of 14 months in non-english speaking cultures. english is all i speak (besides poet). i find i like not understanding the language – it means i don’t have to talk to anyone. i have less and less to say the more i live.

two olde farts & a young chick

we read with Beat-inspired London poet Jazzman John Clarke under the banner Two Olde Farts & A Chick. John is 59, Lady 34, me 61, so I thought that a fair title.

it was a marvelous evening of 9 acts interweaving music, song, spoken word, comedy and magic card tricks. so now we’ve heard and seen more creative good than bad this london loop.

here’s what lady and i recited last night:

Lady & Smith – 7 poems recited at London’s Railway Pub
or
MY LUSTING RIBS by LADY
JANUARY AT THE BEACH by LADY
OUR BEST MEMORY by LADY
WHEN EYES WERE TERRIFYING by LADY
Bye Buy by Smith
Alone This Train by Smith
Marriage Proposal by Smith

homeless bound

lady and i each have 5 minutes to recite tonight alongside beat-inspired poet jazzman john clarke – we’re performing as Two Olde Farts & A Chick (john’s 59, i’m 61, and lady’s 34, so i thought the title apropos). this gives lady 4 reads and me 3, so london has been more than kind to us.

however, we are tiring of this grey chilled damp english weather. we’ve had 2 weeks of sun in the past 8 – which is a shock to my system because the 3 months previous were spent under moroccan sun. we left 100+ degree daze to come to 60 degree haze. of course the hot heat there had no cool poetry readings, while the cool readings here do have heat.

been in london 5 weeks. leave for france in 8 days. it took me 3 weeks this time to bounce back from our 6 residence changes in 4 cities on 2 continents the previous 4 weeks. the more months we’re on the road and the more moves we make, the longer it takes me to bounce back after each. i began tiring of our journey last april in spain enroute from france to marrakech. of course the painful spanish trainful to barcelona, the madrid airport food poisoning, and the multiple diarrhea attacks in morocco didn’t help me body or soul.

humans take comfort from familiar surroundings, from having a home base, a circle of known aquaintances, knowing where to buy what they need, how to get around, where what is. lady and my not having a link to the familiar has cost us enormously emotionally and mentally – even physically.

we started a ‘process’ when we sold our place, gave away our possessions, and began open-ended world travel. we more or less choose where we’re going next, and for how long, but beyond that, it’s been out of our hands because it’s always in a new place with unknown people unknown problems unknown rules. we’re in never-ending turbulant waters trying constantly to stay upright. we have little control, even less focus. we’re process, not procedure.

we began this journey knowing it would change us, refine us, strengthen us, fulfill us, charge up our creative databases. and it has – we’re just not sure yet how because we’ve not stopped in familiar grounds to evaluate where and what we are.

i’ll be good to stop our wandering after 16 months and settle down in chicago for a year or two in december (before we hopefully begin wandering all over again). i’m tired of being homeless bound.