Modern poetry collection by contemporary Cleveland poet Steven B. Smith
reading room #15
the rejeculation blues - 4.23.2005 / sham of mammon - 5.5.2005 on the state of the state - 1965 / final answer - 5.13.2005 / want ad - 5.18.2005 over the rainbow - 6.3.2005 / fruddlehump - 1964 / death dance - 7.9.2005 & - 8 from 1965 - for season / past dance / garden uneven / rat rut race / quantum stereo love letter / for sooth / get along little doggerel & prey has no name - 7.16.2005
The Rejeculation Blues
I been rejected ejected infected
Unprotected e-jacked and rejeculated
What I ain't been is respected
Or have inspected by heart
My inner aspect art
Made against the ever blind
Committee un-minds
Who deal don't feel
Game shame
Fart arts diarrheic dribble
To artmart whores
Where less is less more more mess
Lost from past the subtle blast
Of tried and true destroyed by new
At such cost and psychic scam
They may as well vote Republican
Since fact must bend to lesser end
Talking undead
Grown fat and low by need not know
Heed to slip pink slip's misdeed
Coach art to couch and color shape
Once firebrand, academic bland
Teach our young to sleep like sheep
Embrace the dead but not the deed
To safety flee the thinking free
loved the video of the jet thru the bridge cables... there's magic there on multiple levels.
enjoyed dancing video lines on the painted lines in a silly sort of way.
3-4 good decent others.
a lot of expensive calendar art. others should have been in the Inside
Outside gallery's Bad Art Show last month. much surface, little content.
words like vacuous, vapid, amazingly mediocre ooze to mind. can almost see
Corporate Art stamped on the bottom, art school mind over matter.
maybe republicans will like it - cuz nothing there to threaten any one,
or stimulate thot. a george w bush kind of kulchur show.
Take this world
Rather round
And topsy turvy
Turn her upside down
Then all the oceans
Which cover her face
Would soon drain off
Into outer space
Without the water
A bouncy ball
Drop it out window
Watch it fall
How it falls so fast
How it hits so hard
It bounces
In pieces
All over the yard
Take a stick
And stick the world on top
Voila!
What a lollipop!
But o alas
What's the use of it all
I can't take a lick
Cuz my tongue's too small
So take the world
Apropos of the square
And cut off the corners
One here
One there
Practice makes perfect
So do it again
For cutting corners
Is the way of man
I like walks in the rain
I like licking pink stains
There's good and bad things baby
Crawling through your hair
Old lumps of new grown gravy
Calling from your lair
You wanna bite me baby
I wanna bite me too
Bite me three times
You got a deal
jim lang mentioned his early poems were moon june croon-ish . . .
so, here - fresh from past trash ! ! !
8 of my early earlies from 1965
at the u.s. naval academy when i was old enough to no better.
what can i say? must be the whore moans.
For Season
You meet a girl
Your heart takes wing
Your senses whirl
Love – it’s spring
You’d give your life
For one another
No hint of strife
Love – it’s summer
An acrid word
You feel so small
It’s so absurd
Love – it’s fall
You have a fight
Emotions splinter
Words of spite
Love – it’s mostly winter
Past Dance
The widow’s face
Tragic, forlorn
A dress of black
A man to mourn
The bleating drum
The lonely horn
The funeral march
December’s morn
A gun salute
The gods to warn
Into the sea
To be reborn
Garden Uneven
Last man on earth meeting
Last woman
Reaches out hand touching
Bare breast
Sadly
Last woman on earth taking
Last man
Agrees no conceiving
More beasts
Gladly
Rat Rut Race
Hi ho cheerio up and away
And so I begin another day
Another day of two less thoughts
Another play with two yes plots
Two yes plots, three of no
Turn the key and away I go
Quantum Stereo
You ask - is there life after death?
Holding my breath
Intending no mirth
I reply - is there life after birth?
The graveyard’s filled
The graveyard’s full
And still the dead are dying
This lifeless life
Makes death look dull
I wonder why I’m whying
Love Letter
Please sign form
where indicated and
return in enclosed envelope
Thank you
For Sooth
As the fan efficiently whirls
Air throughout time and space
Those lore-laden history filled swirls
Are now used for cooling my face
Breaths inhaled by Caesar abroad
Then exhaled by Christ when cross strung
Those wavering wistuals of god
Are now used for filling my lung
Wind whistling through hand pierced by nail
Wind whittling the whining as goal
These winds wild in wanting to wail
Are now used for soothing my soul
