NEO Poet Field Guide

Full name: Steven B. Smith

Age: 63 – born 3.9.1946

Habitat: Near West Side, Cleveland Ohio – a.k.a. Tremont

Range: Born in the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains and raised on a 40-acre farm on Paradise Prairie in Washington State, I've been as far west as Hawaii, as far east as Croatia, as far north as lower Canada, as far south as Oaxaca Mexico.

As for poetry: second Thursdays at The Literary Cafe; Second Saturdays at the Brandt Gallery; third Tuesdays at Lix & Kix; Maj Ragains Jawbone and Water Street Gallery readings; assorted free-range open mic venues wherever and whenever.

Diet: artist Marcel Duchamp; singer songwriter Bob Dylan; book Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu; musician Charles Mingus; movie Mind Walk; song Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen; rocker Elvis Presley; rock person John Lennon; spiritual person the Dalai Lama; group a tie between Meat Beat Manifesto and The Rolling Stones; favorite person of all is my wife Kathy Ireland Smith a.k.a. Lady K; favorite hyphenate poet/artist/publisher/writer/outlaw me.

Distinguishing Markings: Cleveland Poetry Scenes; Hotel Poem; ArtCrimes #1-21; Clevebland Rag-o-zeen; Green Panda Press; Taproot; Little Albert; Whiskey Island; Brain Cell; Generator; Troubadour 21; Hey Daddyo; Split City; The Coventry Reader; the Crisis Chronicles Online Library; Zen Over Zero; etc

Predators: "We're all perfect potential / cept maybe republicans, lawyers, / the true organized crime called police / the true whores called priests." Toss in CEOs, bankers, Dick Cheney, neoconservatives, the religious wrong, the flat earthers, the rich, the greedy.

Prey:

Prey Has No Name

We fish with human face
such depths of want
and need
heart drums beat
to pulse blood hope
in womb warm wonder
Lying lizard in the sun
in spring full breadth
of coiled light
our brain bridged push
mute witness
for those who died
in black and white
before elective gray

Call:

The Grasshopper’s Tale

My life’s dog food for do gooders
Hot dodgers dogging God’s zone
Fur sure of itself
Per path and position
Point portion pursued

We who rise in heat from dream
Lick recollection loose
From cold fire’s template
Futility’s fog
We bleed in abandon
Dance dawn’s dapple light

Contact info smithcrimes@yahoo.com
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