Homage Agent

"Self Centered"

Once and again Clevelander Steven B. Smith's AGENT OF CHAOS website features poetry and art-much of it from Cleveland's own underground, as well as his own work. it serves as an archive of the holy unholy.

the site he says he:

"started it September 2001 with 20-30 pages my friend had put up for me, then added another 3,000 pages myself."

it was quite a while before i knew he had been putting up my Green Panda Press titles. he kept track--while i never did--of what i was doing. fuck i still dont. i need an Agent....

get it?

"Moon Meat"

at some point..... the sculptor, photographer, poeter, publisher Steve met Kathy, aka Lady K, who i originally published as Kathy Ireland Smith and is now Kathy Smith.....anyway they got rid of ALL of Steves art, decades of hoarding--i mean, his studio home was wall to wall, floor to ceiling covered in art and ephemera, with enough books to keep a good boy from his sticks and stones for longer than i would care to live....

and toured the world. im not sure he knew that he would.....but he began a new blog WALKING ON THIN ICE in June of 2006, which was his and Kathy's art and words, often entangled, as they were in Morocco, Poland, Italy, Mexico...and the two love birds keep at it to this day, Kathy were her tidily kept quarterly online journal of some of the best indy poetry, littered with unique, intriguing artwork, which she calls  The City mag

in Steve's own words, this is how it all went down:

"Lady stayed over 9.9.2005 and basically never left.
She moved in 2 weeks later. Week after that we decided
to sell the place and go overseas. Married March 2006.
Left the country August 1, 2006. Came back March 2009.
10 countries, 3 continents, maybe 20 cities."

"Sold"

on AGENT OF CHAOS he put up 13 different artists but
BUT also ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE POETS
and the work of 513 contributing poets and artists, from 21 issues of ArtCrimes -the print mag he designed and made for no reason other than a mad compulsion (my own words) between 1986-2006

it is the only way to explain it---or i'll just say Steven B. Smith is Effin Undy.

ill leave you with a poem Steve posted 1/13/08  =he and Kathy collaborated on it....
and check in often as he and Kathy keep pressing on, at WALKING ON THIN ICE

WATER IS SNEAKY

water is sneaky. also, patient, and insidious.
it’ll beat against you for thousands of years
in big waves
until it smoothes you down
or breaks you apart.

or it’ll lie still in quiet pools,
and insidiously work
on the weakest
point

leaking

and

dripping

and moving.

And then when water does slowly sneak
inside, and lie in wait,

then it can FREEZE and EXPAND with

TREMENDOUS FORCE and BREAK

(so water is sneaky,
incidious
and
patient.)

while SOUND is slippery
(and sneaky)

SOUND slip slides off every flat surface

SOUND double or triple slip slides..

skips from here
to there

(so you think what came from there
came from here.)

SOUND plays tag with yr ears
and lies
a lot.

Plus, in destructive force, SOUND
(shatters)

whereas
water

wears away

--Steven B. Smith

Steven B. Smith's longtime business card

work in progress by poet/bee keeper now as well Kathy Smith