Joel Smith/ “It Is Acceptable To Sit Here …X”

Poetry doesn’t seem to be as popular as it used to be. Today if it isn’t coupled with music, it isn’t even accessible. As a result I have developed a formula. Well, we’ll call it that. It might actually be more accurate to describe it as a haphazard-habit. The “formula” is this: Write poetry. Make music that fits the general meter of the poetry. Then make the poetry into verse, edit, and repeat as necessary.

Over the years, I have added another step to the formula: civil disobedience/public performance. I’ve started shoving my poetry and art into the public realm, like a child that can’t get enough attention. I am taking back my environment, one line, stanza, or symbol at a time. Most see a drab concrete structure, but I see an open forum.

While I have ventured into spray-can art, I’m not particularly fond of a medium that wastes so much paint and is so dependent on calm winds.  I have also spent some time in holding cells, which is more torture than watching TV, and as a result I try not to get caught. Hence my recent use of the paint pen. Get in, get out. Hell, I can usually write something while in the middle of entire crowd without anyone taking notice until later.

I started on my most recent tear this summer, while I was wandering through an undeveloped area of Spokane, Washington. I was barefoot, shirtless, and under the influence of a potent, psilocybin tea. After wandering for hours alongside a narrow river, I climbed the bank to find a road. From the road was an panoramic vista with a view of the valley below and the mountains on the horizon. At the side of the road and in between large, volcanic boulders was a lone bench on a square concrete slab. Like a cut-out from downtown, dropped in the midst of nature.

There were countless numbers of better places to sit and enjoy the view, but the bench beckoned, as if to say, “It is acceptable to sit here.” The bench seemed to be implying that sitting elsewhere in this “free country” is not allowed. I thought of the power of suggestion and how we as individuals are conditioned by our society to fall in line, autonomously. I decided to point out what had just become obvious to me. “It is acceptable to sit here X” I wrote, and I saw that it was good.

I am hoping that once thoughts have been provoked, the status quo won’t be enough anymore.
-But to be completely honest, I do it just for the hell of it.

Being the poem,
JS