...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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My last book of poetry – Where Never Was Already Is, 2018 , Crisis Chronicles Press – consists of all 244 poems and 29 of the illustrations that appeared on Medusa my first 27 months.
I wrote a short review of Wred Fright’s new comic novel “Edna’s Employment Agency” cuz he seems like a nice guy.
~ ~ ~
I stopped by Edna’s Employment Agency.
Meeting their misfit employees and questionable clientele, I wondered how they all survived, what with the staff spending more time getting through their damaged lives than finding jobs for others, while the job seekers drag out the process as long as possible to collect unemployment – all this drenched in TV sit-comish humor (a lot of it rude and crude).
Wasn’t sure I wanted to spend time with these folk, but kept reading, and I’m glad because beneath this chaos lies a sweetness… by the time I was done, they were my misfits, whom I actually cared about.
At first the employees seem inept, shallow, selfish (and they are), but page by page their humanity surfaces, revealing an office family sort of looking after each other and their clients. Their often surreal and slapstick office adventures are interspersed with outside slices of the customers’ lives, so the job seekers slowly become someone to care about as well, rather than something to gawk at like cultural roadkill.
This comedic novel captures the acerbic humor that dominates most places I’ve been employed, as well as the tenuous friendships developed with co-workers you may not even like.
One blurb likens Edna’s Employment Agency to “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” (which I’ve not seen, but feels right from what I’ve read).
The book is short, humane, gentle, absurd, and should put a smile on your face. By the end you might even like Edna.
“A big thank-you this morning to Smith from Cleveland (Steven B. Smith) for his musical, mythical land of poetry and his eye-popping visuals. “Cool Cat Copacetic”, for sure!.” – Kathy Kieth, editor/publisher of Medusa’s Kitchen/Rattlesnake Press.
Here are the Lady K & Smith poems (1 each) written for Rufus last month. Rufus is our monthly poetry workshop that’s been going for decades. December’s included host Wendy Shaffer, Jack McGuane, Linda New, Russell Vidrick, Terry Provost, Lady K, and me. Jack’s the oldest at 91 or so, Lady K probably the youngest at 46.
First poem by Lady K.
~ ~ ~
Peace like paesano bread, ecphasis,
aegis, sacrament for serenity to hold off
venerers in the zebroid woods who
salt livers and kidneys on the sindon,
cast clean picked flageolets from the inglenook
to the midden, worser natures abluting
xerotic throats with pure
fidicinal zegedines
The beele quains the
glomerate chattering diamond
damned inesculent mechanomorphic lotus!
Fresh kerfed ravelins
are thrown on the compost pile
the worms puzzle it into trichroic castings
gastrolith for the innominate’s neogenesis
Crows dig doggedly
at a nubigenous bandaeau the zumbadors
ushered to garland the pomiferous
virgultum
– Lady K
~ ~ ~
Anthropocened
I was born in Dead Leaf Montana
raised near Brown Grass Gone
my momma loved walking the ridges
daddy was the Devil’s son
ate insects in swamp water for dinner
for fun watched roadkill drying in dawn
trying to catch our breath
as pus oozed from corporate spawn
so took what we could from the dying earth
knowing we wouldn’t be here long
November’s feature was my 36th consecutive month – started December 2015, basically 9 poems and 10 fotos a month. Huge thanks to editor/publisher Kathy Kieth for this gig.
My latest book of poetry – Where Never Was Already Is, 244 poems, 29 collages, 324 pages, $15 – consists of the first 27 months of Medusa.
I have a 45 minute reading followed by Q&A coming up on February 19 at the Art on Madison gallery. There is no open mic, just me… although I’ll give 10 minutes to Lady to read our collaborations. Here’s the blurb.
Steven B. Smith published Artcrimes (1986-2006) featuring 517 poets/artists, including Bukowski and Harvey Pekar; per the Plain Dealer: “with the publication of 21 issues of ArtCrimes, Smith has made a vital and indelible mark on this city’s history.” In 2012, his 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” was published by The City. In 2018, Crisis Chronicles Press put out “Where Never Was Already Is” – 244 poems 29 collages over 54 years. He and his wife, Lady K, spent 2006-2009 living in 10 countries on 3 continents recharging their word wells. He’s run from the cops 10 times, got away 9.
Art on Madison, ?14203 Madison Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio, 7pm, February 19, 2019.
My 37th feature will be this Friday… I get the 3rd Friday each month. It’s reassuring to have a monthly outlet.
My recent book “Where Never Was Already Is” consists of all the poems that appeared in my first 27 months on Medusa’s Kitchen… 324 pages, 244 poems, 29 illustrations, perfect bound, $15, 6″ x 9″ — http://ccpress.blogspot.com/2018/04/098Smith.html
Someone asked for my black bean soup recipe. This is a first for me.
Smith’s random black bean soup
3 segments of garlic
1 very large onion or 3 smaller ones
3 carrots
4 stalks celery
chop the above, add to large pan with 1/3 cup olive oil
and saute
add tablespoon ground cumin, black pepper, some smoked salt
add large can diced tomatoes. 3 cans of black beans with juice
3 caps sherry, 1/3 cup miso, 1/2 cup black beluga lentils,
1 container vegetable broth, msg if desired
bring to low boil
lower flame and simmer for 1 hour
take 1/4 of it and put thru a blender
add back in
add chopped green onions, chopped cilantro, chopped parsley,
and some frozen corn
bring to low boil, lower flame to simmer
and slow cook for an hour
“Where you come from is gone.
Where you thought you were going to weren’t never there.
And where you are ain’t no good unless you can get away from it.”
You want strange? Comedy? Absurd? The Church of Christ Without Christ?
Then you need “Wise Blood,” from 1979, the movie John Huston made from Flannery O’Connor’s first novel (1952). With Brad Dourif and Harry Dean Stanton.
I saw the movie at the Cedar Lee when it came out 39 years ago and was wondering if it could possibly be as good as I remembered. Finally found it again (on Filmstruck). It is. 5 stars out of 4.
~
Another Filmstruck film – His Kind of Woman, 1951, Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, directed by Richard Fleischer (although uncredited, he redid the film after John Farrow’s failure) – a film noir of piranhas in a pool fighting over whom to eat – I used to see these as entertainment, but today realized they’re education, prophesy, life as it’s actually lived — we’re all meat, just looking for a mouth.
~
Wine More Than Women
Dead poets sing tall towers
of empty icing,
of love without helping,
love without caring,
love without sacrifice,
love without being there,
of loving land more than people,
people more than person,
strangers more than family,
of women who wait without complaint
while men fight wars,
drink wine,
cry.
This is not poetry,
this is not love.
This is masturbation,
this is licking one’s self in the mirror.
Love is changing diapers,
love is getting up before dawn and going to work,
love is not eating the last piece of pie,
love is looking, watching, sharing,
caring.
Love is not thumping chest,
love is not beating brow,
love is not patriarchy,
love is not lies.
Their poet love is empty love,
self love,
love of sound and whistle
minus meaning.
titles of the 27 reading rooms
each room has its own collage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1: Men as Birds and Women as Water
2: Broken Crumbs in the Snow
3: The Melancholy of the Cycle Calling
4: Weren’t for Monk, I’d Catch Coltrane
5: Yesterday’s Gone, Tomorrow Ain’t Here
6: The Homework Ate My Dog
7: Red Wheelbarrow, Dusky Attic, Dancing in the Dark
8: No Wrapped Supply of Fly
9: We Who Rise in Heat from Dream
10: With Drum and Tune of Bone Prevail
11: That Little Snake
12: Eating Dirt While Dreaming Sky
13: Light… Dark… Light… Dark…
14: Unbowed Before the Bacon
15: Shadow in Search of Sun
16: Womb Warm Wonder
17: for Lady K., wife, collaborator, partner, friend
18: Sometimes Sleep Slides Us
19: No Heart to Pierce with Truth
20: East of the Sun, West of the Moon
21: Ghost Dance of None Against my Skin
22: The Lying Moon Whispers Untruths
23: Light Like Liquid Zen
24: Do Again the Done Before
25: Surplus Meat in Land of Sharpened Teeth
26: Just Cuz It Is Don’t Mean It is
27: Meet Me in the Meat Lane
My first appearance in Medusa’s Kitchen was after meeting D.R. Wagner at the annual Beat Celebration poetry reading at the Barking Spider in September 2015 hosted by Dianne Borsenik. He liked my opening found Ferlinghetti poem so he included it at the end of one of his weekly Saturday features the next month, and I used that introduction to slip in the door monthly.
