Hope Hope Hope

 First Kiss

—Poetry by Lady and by Smith, Cleveland, OH
—Visuals by Smith

 

DAYS OF UNTROUBLE
—Lady

Realizing my chimpanzee wants to scream
is a relief from assigning words
to my tantrums, monsters in the wild mind
mercury in my pinball machine

When in grace, I think it’s like this:
I unroll my tongue
I unzip my face down to my bowels
I unfold myself onto the clean slate of a table
a salty finger bowl of bled paint and jellied intestines
laid open to the gentle cauterization
of room temperature oxygen

Lips, eyelids, hand, chrysanthemum

You know, thoughts don’t have to do anything
feet are a stone-cold path
a meadow runs through the holy cycles
of day, night, stars, gold, silver,
dew catchers, buttercups and
lightning bugs

 

 

 

Dark Heart

 

END THE BEGINNING
—Smith

You can tell the lay of the nest by the smell of the eggs,
the rot of the tree by the fall of the apple,
the way of the wend by the gin of the end.

I'm but a young man in an old skin
of fogged and fire-furred past.

 

 

 

Nightshade

 

 

MEAT BEAT
—Smith

So many dances this rock roll
there's the Sisyphus
the Rat Race
the Tortoised Hare
the ReRun
the Karmic Loop-d-Loop
the Follow the Leader
(running around the real wheely fast)
and of course the ever present
Let's Whine Again Like We Did Last Whimper

Guess we do the Do It Again
until we Get It Right

Never enough this almost done

 

 

 

White Light

 

A MIDSIMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
—Smith

Too warm the weather
too wet the sweat
where's Goldilocks when you need her?
I mean the little blond girl
peering into private places
breaking furniture
stealing food
averaging hot to cold to cool
too new to worry about curs and cues
looking like Alice in Wonderland
like Little Red Ridinghood
Cinderella, Snow White
Thumbelina, Tinkerbell
Sleepy Beauty MaryJane.

I wonder if any of that matters
when the three bears get back
and assess the damage to their shack
just how laid back and forgiving are they for that
and will they cook her first
or keep her as a pet?

 

 

 

Fedreserve

 

CURRENT COSTS
—Smith

Today rises
the bastard child of yesterday
and tomorrow

Too much change in my pockets
to walk straight
or float free

Yesterday's creases
carry tomorrow's dust
as interest

Pay now
pay later
pay in-between

Past interest
on tomorrow's compound fractures
give today's rate of exchange

Walk it
talk it
chalk it up to chance                             

The check's in the mail

 

 

 

Godman

 

 

LAUGHING IN A ROOM ALONE
—Smith

We rise by quark up through atomic,
nuclear, hadronic, molecular rule.

So then, just what is our expanding universe
expanding into, exactly?
What does our presence decrease?

I mean, if you can't talk to strangers
who do strangers talk to?

I know to get to wisdom
you amp up the circuit
then take out the filters.

You can't make everything better
but sometimes you can make less bad.

Dark cloud at the end of town
surfs this curse of worse
finds meaning the making machine.

Better fresh than foul
better worn than weary.

Life in the flesh lane—
keep shaking that Etch-o-Sketch, human
backside the mirror here in tarnished brain land.

 

 

 

Frontline

 

 

PAST DUE
—Smith

Each day's like starting over
except it ain't
due to the dried mud on your shoes
the old shat in your hat
and yesterday's pocket lint
stuck to your used mint.

Not to mention the governisn't.

Do the due! boss man say
Sign the lease! Pay the pay!

 

 

 

Hearst, 1938

 

 

... and we leave you with another from last year's Lady...

RAGE
—Lady

We’ve titillated ourselves with our absolutism
as contrary as a self-mutilating Texas Chainsaw Massacre
creep zapping and eating his own scalp skin, fingers in the chili
It’s all of us, it’s some of us, it’s raw, raw, raw.

It’s enough when the lint and the dimes in the pockets
yield no dividends, no fountain of generous obliviousness,
it’s enough when the water is yellow and smells funny,
when your parents did not have enough money to fix you
and you do not have enough money to have kids to fix
and kids are in the prison of disregard—and in prisons
it’s enough to flip the burger
of a mind to something that can crank, crank this
into better shape, please, that mind burger. Eat it with
some red leaf lettuce, raw onions, local cheese. Fuck
the pink slime. Fuck the Russians, fuck my hate I want
to mash it with a mortar and pestle.
I want to unfuck this fuckedness with big fat fists,
hope the saying of it is a cauterization and catharsis,
hope hope hope

 

 

 

Nutsack Chicken

 

Today’s LittleNip:

Got gas   
got road
got wheels
going somewhere nowhere fast

I get my pleasures where I finds them
in this bowl of pus

Vrooman Rd
vroom vroom vroom

no hole in my howl

—Smith

_____________________

Thanks to Smith (Steven Smith) and the incomparable Lady for their fine works today, polishing up the end of this surrealistic US Senate week in such a shiny fashion! Stay lively, kids, and stay safe . . .

Tonight at 8pm on Zoom, Andy Jones hosts a Poetry Night reading with Brad Buchanan, Indigo Jones and Rhony Bhopla. To participate, visit ucdavisdss.zoom.us/my/andyojones at 8 PM. Facebook info at www.facebook.com/events/355105622496183/?active_tab=about/.  

—Medusa

 

 

 

Updown
(For those of you who can’t remember 

which is which, these days~)
—Visual by Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

The Smiths