AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

9 fotos from 2021/07

9 fotos from 2021/07


The Smithsonian Experience by Lady


bad road ahead


yellow submarine


valid void


motherwell


lady


go to do not do not


flux flow


get air

shadow of the not-Yeti

Stopped by MetroHealth Pharmacy for vitamins and found the underground parking lot and most doors blocked off, with a metal detector at the open main entrance.

Perhaps gun violence is reaching corporate concern level and the money being lost will finally push gun control in Congress, for as we all know most politicians care about money more than anything.

Strange thinking about population numbers versus social development. There are arch building ants, I believe in Africa, who keep trying to build arches, but they keep collapsing until the ant population becomes large enough that (seemingly) mass-mind kicks in and they suddenly know how to insert a keystone. This boggles my mind.

On the obverse side of the situation, there are some Texas rabbits who bang and breed until there are too many per square mile to support them all so they develop a nervous condition and start dying off until there’s enough room to bang & breed again.

Perhaps the ever escalating gun violence in the U.S. is our people-version of this rabbit-neurosis. Wife pointed out in a rabbit warren, rabbits at the top of the power structure eat better and live longer and happier than any of the rabbits below them, and the lower you go, the shorter you live (due to stress).

And of course monkeys and birds have been documented lying and thieving by uttering fake danger calls to try to scare companion away from found food so they can eat it instead.

So lies, and theft, and death by social order are part parcel of nature’s blueprint.

Hmmmmm.

This is but a few of many mysteries . . . for example, are sexually loose female trolls called trollops?

Or, if you ain’t a Yeti, does that make you a not-Yeti?


Shadow of the Yeti

back when I was almost cool

back when I was almost cool —

“Agent of Chaos That would be Steven B. Smith, the man behind Cleveland’s cult classic journal ArtCrimes, a limited edition lit/art publication that emerged during the mid eighties. Now you can order up your own at Steven’s agentofchaos website, launching literary outrageousness, entertaining criticism, art slide show, plus 900 pages of collage, mixed media, photography, guest artists and everything your mother warned you about. He has consistently refused to be conditioned by the public, and it’s a good thing; we love his contagion of undiluted underground art / lit / philosophy / abuse.” – – – – – – Cool Cleveland.com 09.10-09.17 2003- Tisha Nemeth, senior editor

unhumorous

Unhumorous by Smith & Lady

Running on pain, caffeine, and weed
loss, and want, and need
past the winking abyss
and the terror of this
and the stain of the blood in the bleed

Five months ago I tore my bicep loose from my shoulder. Emergency Doctor said it seemed okay but swelling hid my torn muscle deformation.

Weeks later, the swelling started to go down. Then dog Marlowe lunged sideways on a walk after another dog and further damaged the arm. After that reswelling diminished, he did it again. After two months it deflated enough to see that my bicep had slid down to my elbow and was going horizontal rather than vertical.

The Wife and I decided to take Marlowe to a do-it-yourself dog wash. He promptly shit on the floor. I pivoted to retrieve a poo bag from the car and in my quick haste took one step down a two-step stair too fast, caught the non-slip rubber tip of my shoe on the non-slip rubber grip of the step, ran full-force into a wall display and crash landed my side onto the concrete floor.

I sat on the smashed display case holding my upper arm together and told Lady since we were already here, she may as well wash Marlowe before heading to the ER. Meanwhile pain so sudden and extreme I was nauseous and cold sweat broke out, washed down my face and dripped off my nose.

She tried to wash Marlowe, but the tub was too small for an overweight 150 pound Golden Labrador / Mastiff mix, so one broken-bone-no-bath laugh on me.

ER said I’d broken the humerous, three ribs, had lightly lacerated my kidney, and that my arm x-ray showed a rebreak of a recent break that hadn’t healed. X-ray tech was a short, stocky, middle-aged, muscular eastern European woman. She took the sling off my arm for a better picture, then hurried back and in a deep heavy accent said, “Put back on. Arm fall off.”

We laughed. Then I saw the x-ray – top two-thirds of my humerous pointed to 11 o’clock, its shorter shard to 6, the two pieces not even close to touching.

They gave me Fentanyl twice, which didn’t do much due to low dosage. They shot me with Oxycontin, which helped, but not nearly enough. Then they hit me with Dilaudid, which completely vaporizes pain and makes you feel reeaaal good. They put me in the hospital two nights to make sure the kidney wasn’t bleeding, then sent me home.

Two weeks later they cut me open and screwed my bone back together with a metal plate. They gave me a nerve block for the pain. The arm’s dead fleshweight hung uselessly from my shoulder. That night in bed, nine hours after the surgery, I leaned against the dead arm and watched Orphan Black. When I got up I felt wet t-shirt. I asked Lady what it was. She sad soft said, “Blood.”

Blood was all over the sheets, the blanket, and me. We went back to the hospital and sat in the ER four more hours. The 12” bandage had absorbed all the blood it could handle from the stapled incision, but the suture was fine, so they cleaned me up and sent me home.

You’ve no idea how much you use both arms . . . putting on socks, pulling up pants, buckling belt, tying shoes, hugging wife, rolling joint — every lift, turn, push, pull brought fire pain for five months. All of this made worse due to one fresh public pile of dog poo.

I’m 76 years old, old enough to know better, too old for this. My earliest memories are torn bleeding flesh, and they’ve continued life long. I’m 6’ 3” with size 9 feet waaay too small to provide proper foundation. It’s no wonder I’m so clumsy. Moreover, I’m impetuous. I bounce around changing vectors like a hungry quark. My body is aging, less reliable, my magnificent balance fast fading, my flesh weary worn, my brain spewing such mind worms as these . . .

First word of the day
pain
and the last

Things break down
until they stop
I go on

Hoping it’s fine
knowing it’s not
continuing anyway

Pain doesn’t go
life doesn’t stop
whatcha gonna do?

I’m a high-speed
hitting black ice at night kinda guy
and it’s getting old

I have no mouth but scream

 

– Smith & Lady 10.15.2022

be firefly

Smith (Steven B. Smith) has brought us his word-music this morning, with tales of Sisyphus and what it’s like in his corner of the world. Thank you, Smith, and keep on “milking each moment of sadness for joy”.
— sez Kathy Kieth, editor/publisher Medusa’s Kitchen

Be Firefly —
http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2022/09/be-firefly.html

my May 2022 Medusa’s Kitchen feature

short and mostly unsweet
9 poems, 10 fotos
“Smith is visiting us today with his usual music and color, and we thank him for his many postings across the years, even as “dark things/grow/fester”. We do indeed need to lift our eyes up from the ground once in a while. And be careful what you don’t say . . .” – Kathy Kieth, editor/publisher Medusa’s Kitchen

https://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2022/05/looking-for-old-sun-new-risen.html

The Bone Dance & Alarm Tag

cabinet doors #6 & 7, 3.2022, 13″ x 28″

left – The Bone Dance
right – Alarm Tag





the Liberty Lynne Green art corner

Libby’s Poem

The bigger the dog
the bigger the nose
the bigger it smells
the bigger it knows

This is the Liberty Lynne Green art corner post.

Above is her first spoken poem with us. She recited it to us in the car.

The 1st refrigerator poem below she did last visit, and added to it this visit.

Her head assemblage is her non-existent “brother” Bumblebee.

She’s 5 yrs 8 months and obsessed with doing art with her Aunt Kathy (who is obsessed with her).