Wide Bed Room
for Khanyi Mugubane

wait until she's back in South Africa
a million miles away

when we were together in Havana,
in Cuba

I could have cubed her, diced her,
spliced her like an electrician does wires
colors to connect
for electricity to pass through,
to pass on

cigarette between fingers
between lips, empty space to fill in

I'd have been a better fit
had I made the offer, had I said the word

eyes so wide, inviting me to enter

unaware until as apart as Jupiter and Mars

we were on one planet once
stuck to poetry, to paper instead of to each other
bed sheets to writhe between


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
9:07 a.m. 15/june/07

Cool It

pussy cooling for me to touch it
like bread jus' bake
jus' out of the baker

butter to put on it
as soon as I can handle it

even I will melt
when I get on it


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
1:48 a. m. 11/june/07

Fields To Cross

my computer collapses
like a horse's four legs

just when it is up and running
just when it begins to gallop


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
5:36 p.m. 10/june/07

Getting these persons money, providing them jobs, without first educating them, without emphasizing responsible citizenship is irresponsible of government.

The emphasis, without end, is jobs for all, income for everyone. Money in the hand for everyone, it is imagined, can only be a good thing. What though of fools and asses with money in their fists? What if, with new-found affluence, these persons decide to subject the rest of us to asininity, to stupidity - as many have chosen to do – with their numbers increasing by the minute – with them competing to see who can do it to us best?

Unable to afford to move out of town or into the suburbs, who is sensible and conservative, who is law-abiding, properly socialized among us, is subjected to who hasn’t much sense but has income sufficient to load vehicles with speakers enough to make our lives hell.

Why so many, including our politicians, including the police, whose job it is to enforce the law, seem so little bothered by what’s become constant disturbance, I know not but it is more and more tolerated and this problem gets worse and worse.

Why I am so severely bothered is because, with pen in hand, like a needle resting upon an LP, I am constantly engaged in very delicate work – reading or writing with these noises booming, knocking my needle off the track and out of the groove.

I am certain I am not the only person engaged in delicate labor, needing to be protected and respected. To what church do such persons belong, I’d wonder, not to have heard of the need to love neighbor as self?

A government is misguided to imagine wealth for all to be the way to build a nation - a fistful of dollars for everyone however s/he wishes to spend it – dozens of asses investing in noises to make the rest of us supremely unhappy.

This side of development must also be addressed otherwise, in spite of the signing of all these heads of agreements, in spite of all these billion-dollar anchor projects, this government can find itself out of office.

I live on Kemp Road, occupying once again, the house in which I was born just over fifty years ago and the noise vehicles passing, pulling up, parking constantly make, is a maddening nuisance, overlooked or regarded much too lightly by those in authority, making me long oftentimes to abandon this backward, awkward land.


Obediah Michael Smith
November 12, 2006
8:55 p.m., Sunday

Mozart

look like a note a rat left
on the bass or on the treble clef

but I don’t read rat music
I don’t read rat mess


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2004
7:09 a.m. 26/may/04


On A Flying Saucer

I’d like a big piece, a thick slice
of peace and quiet


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2004
11:30 p.m. 29/may/04


She Picks Flowers
for L.M.M.

a soft dick she likes less,
is less tolerant of,
than soft ice cream

she wants her dick
as hard as ice, as stiff

o.k. if it drips

if it wilts,
she’s as ready to dispose of it
as a bouquet of flowers

in her vase over a week


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2004
4:20 p.m. 30/may/04

Reba Poem

always wanted to know
what color she was all over
if she was that dark all over
like deepest, darkest night

so ideal to sleep in, to steep in
to slip into and be lost

I always wanted to be lost
in how dark she is

always desired to get
to the heart of her darkness


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2004
2:39 p.m. 12/may/04

Write to Yourself

my ears hungry fur Spanish
my belly growlin'
fur Cuban Culture


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
2:26 p.m. 8/june/07

Stuff of Life

I do not have the necessary cushions
for a woman, the necessary buffers
to place between her, between us
and life's harshness

unless she were a bird on a limb with a song
able to cocoon herself in verse as I do

like a worm in its silk outfit
it fashioned for itself


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
9:10 p.m. 8/june/07

Fish A Poem Up
for Helen Klonaris

man in white t-shirt
leaves the store across the street

gallon of water he just bought
weighing him down

all a we in life, here and there
wherever we are, in life drowning

skillfully until the very end, coming up for air
along with George Orwell
who now sends up –
sends us flowers


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
6:38 p.m. 7/june/07

Winsome Lose Some
for April on her birthday

first named storm of the season
weak though it was, did it affect you

left a Haitian family of three on GBI
without roof, without a home

oh to be in the right spot at the right time
rather than whatever’s opposite

what of being born a thousand years earlier
or a thousand years later

than when your parents came


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
1:21 a.m. 6/june/07

Drunken Boat

somewhere between a cell,
assail and adrift he met Asel

"lie down, lie easy," said he,
"let me shipwreck on your rocks”

Welsh belched poems
when he drank beer


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
8:12 p.m. 29/may/07

Coffin Nails

praying open, prying open,
box locked to me, success inside,
sex inside

what's holy, what's sweet
what's good for me, what's good to eat

praying open, prying open, crying open
box locked to me, success inside


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2001
3:08 p.m. 19/august/01

Sex On the Rocks

to war where you go
to ejaculate lead
to leave people dead


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
7:26 p.m. 2/june/07

when you're old and ill
and too full of weeks
you waver when you walk

Castro, Cuba, Caribbean,
hold on


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
30/may/07