Michael P. Smith

Assemblage #3
     after Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z.

Chaos never dies. Primordial uncarved block,
sole worshipful monster, inert & spontaneous,
more ultra-violent than any virology:
shadows before Babylon.

The original undifferentiated oneness-of-being
radiates assassins, random & perpetually
intoxicated.

Chaos comes before order & entropy, is neither
    god nor maggot.
Its desires encompass & define
every possible ground, every empty ether,
its masks crystallizations
of faceless violence, clouds like nature
perfectly real, including
                                           consciousness.

The Empire never got started. Eros
never grew a beard. No, listen, what happened
was this: they lied to you. Sold you guns,
—good & evil, ideas of god & devil—
gave you distrust of your body & shame
for your prophethood of pandemonium,
invented words of disgust
for love, mesmerized you
                                            juggling pistols,
bored you with empire
& its loan-sharked motion.

The chains of Law have been broken;
Love never existed: daemons rule the stars.
There is absolutely nothing to worry about.

There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle,
no path: you R the monarch of your skin.
Your freedom
awaits completion
only by other monarchs, urgent as a red sky.
Shed the illusion of history;
go naked for a sign,
bard-lord, hunter-cop, shaman-priest.
gatherers of stone laziness,
gentle blood. Go naked
for a sign.

Chaos casts a burning glance
at anything or anyone capable
of bearing witness to their condition,
their fever.
We are awake only
                         in what
                                we love
      & desire
to the point of terror.
Everything else
is shrouded furniture,
everyday amnesia, shit stains,
sub-reptilian, totalitarian
ennui, censorship &
                                 soulless pain.

Chaos acts as saboteur, not selfless
or selfish, accessible as a child, mannered as
       a barbarian,
chaffed with obsessions, unemployed,
a handsomely deranged wolfangel, a mirror
for contemplation, eyes like flowers,
pirate of all signs
                                  & meanings.

Here we crawl racks
between walls: church, state, school, factory:
paranoid monoliths. Cut from the tribe,
we tunnel lost words, imaginary
bombs, our last meal perception itself,
the cord that connects us: illegal dancing
in the courthouse corridor.

If I were to kiss you here
they’d call it an act of terrorism—so, let’s
take our pistols
                                  to bed
& wake up
the city at midnight, and,
like drunken bandits celebrate
with a fusillade, the message and taste
of chaos.

Cobain

I am just getting to this guy I’ve known a while.
He’s very frightened
of the thing
that will make him
who he already is in everyone’s eyes.
Not the mask and game.
Not the thing that will ever-change, but
the one thing that does not fall away.

He-man toy for
                      everyone with
every woman, every man; something
sad and holy.

In Seattle, Kurdt, I dream your release
from the tyranny of promise, the lie
your father told you

the thing you can’t possess
the whim they want for you

the whole thing water, waiting as a baker, the thing we’re supposed to be.

Great things become heavier being
all day beat with rain,
mulling rip-offs and estrangements,
bastards invading space,
yourself dead, your grip bored,
feigning thanks.

I thought kindness was peace,
       that
my hunger didn’t make me a killer.

I thought the olive in my drink
meant peace,
not a glass-burn
through the fingerbone,
my ears imperfectly sucked and
her left hand on my belt buckle.

Being weak, the world sex,
the underside, poets, the wonders
of sorting out tangles,.
R bent to serve—chosen
to smack and slip and stick
exploding shotguns down their throats.

Alexander stole everything Gandhi.



Born in Spokane, Washington on September 21, 1962, Michael P. Smith is the third of four children. The early death of his father, a bartender and merchant marine, informed his early up bringing.

"I am not trying to control anything or anyone. I despise power-abuse and authority-seeking behavior, any form of "force"ment. I am an intense, intelligent (I think) man with little spirit for phonies, liars, manipulators, passive-aggressiveness, self-abuse, false sincerity (over-patronization), mediocrity and un-professionalism."

Since moving to Puget Sound in 1994, he has explored the streets of Seattle and been a principal participant in rhetorical art around the region.