Forgetten Poetry and the underside of rocks

Laudanum













Girls will wait in meadows hoping to catch unicorns
Conceiving a thirst that begins and ends in your body,

Drinking it's white flesh. The way they put their hands
Together, in prayer- it is like a corset: the whittled

Stone in the vial of a whale. Someone shall put an ivory conversation in a box. Another will whisper of lace.

Spoons. They are all listening for the small moment when the temple's last stair falls into the sea.

Herons begin their landing.
In the kingdom of the lynx-eye the palm-tree splits the rock, greedy for rain.

For this is the room where the door comes close. For this is the limestone gallery, the well of dreams, their dormition.

They shall prick themselves with silver sewing needles.
And in the morning be silver and lake; a tincture of snow.

-by Monica Ferrell


It is indicative of my debaucherous lifestyle of the past that poems will show up written in journals that I DIDN'T write but that sound exactly like something I WOULD write, that I have no recollection of transcribing. Like the poem above. Underneath is written,
"What does this poem mean? What is it talking about? Contact Her"

Over the poem is a line drawing of a single magnolia blossom.

Photo by Imogen Cunningham


I have been thinking of Antarctica a lot lately.
The folks down there for this summer season are leaving now, taking the 6 hour ride back to "The Real World" of Christchurch, New Zealand. After all of my resentment (Write this down about me: "I have resented an entire continent before. Kai Smart resents a continent.") I realize that The experience was one of the most incredible ones anyone could ever hope for and I, and perhaps we all, must STRIVE to make our lives that interesting ALWAYS.
I am inspired by my friend Arline, a traveler who just came back from Venezuela, and before that Nepal. My friend Richard is leaving Antarctica after another season and going to Costa Rica (3 weeks), then India (5 weeks), then East Africa (3 months). It's really inspiring. I am such a homebody that I can only stand travel in small doses. 2 months max, usually. Not that traveling solves things. It's just that the world is so wide and so complex. It's inspiring to see it.

Here are some things I wrote "on the ice".

I relate to the monumental range of mountains (that exist! That we can see every moment as we termite away at our little jobs!) only in mystery terms. I do not want to relate to them so much in the terms of science or adventure or discovery. I want to think -and I do- of all the nothing we know about the mountains. I want to think there are secrets there under the sliding glaciers that we will never learn. Not us as a race, not us as a species. I want to think of the place that no one will ever see. The ice, the cold, the remote frozen land, the killing weather,, they will keep an outrageous and surreal secret. A crystalline palace, or a second sun, or perhaps just the underside of a rock that no human will ever touch.

What about those things that are never touched by something living? Is inanimacy the lonliest thing or is it nothingness?


This attitude may seem depressing but I assure you- those vast landscapes brought me awe and joy which I can't replicate here in this part of the world.

Kai the robot dog

My coworkers in Antarctica miss me! Where I was at the electrically-charged front counter of Warehouse 211 (is that right? I don't remember) is now an empty space. There has been no mention of a replacement, but the US Antarctic program has fallen on hard times these days and are cutting personnel like crazy so that's probably why. That or else I am just irreplaceable. No one else that applied was up to par. There just aren't too many tattoo-apprentice antique-book-dealing bohemians that want to sit in a windowless warehouse counting troffers all day long.
Anyhow, to deal with their sorrow (haha) Denise and Mike named a robot dog after me. You can see the resemblance in the family portrait above.
It's funny to see the couch with the stained pink sheet on it where I drank coffee every morning at 7, trying to get psyched about pickling things out of a snowbank. Old, rusty weeping things, in sodden cardboard boxes. Sometimes we would find the invoices for these things and discover that they cost as much as one month of San Francisco rent. Damn.

Photo of a "pickle" from Sandwich Girl


Antarctica is now the can of worms that I have constantly at my disposal in conversation. I can choose to change the conversation dramatically just by mentioning it. You cannot mention Antarctica and then not talk about it for at least the next 15 minutes. I should write a list of answers to the most commonly asked questions. Then bring up that I went there and calmly hand the person the list and wait patiently for the next topic of conversation;

1. I worked in electrical supply.
2. 5 months
3. No, polar bears only live in the North Pole.
4. Drink, a lot.
5. No, the sun never set once while I was there.
6. 1,000+ souls at the height of summer season.
7. Science stuff.
8. No, they are not building nuclear weapons.
9. It's down, not up.
10. I will go back if every other opportunity in life fails. I like my friends and family and trees and cities and living things and decomposition too much and besides I really don't like the cold.

I have been constantly spellbound at my friend Sandwich's Livejournal, in which she is now detailing her experiences getting "off the ice" after a whopping 13 months. It makes me laugh out loud, and feel all misty too. I really was a bit worried about some of my friends who chose to stay and work through the pitch darkness of winter (to pay off student loans1 Well, that was some of them anyway). I could not have made it. I would have gone CRAZY. Anyway, Carrie, Sandwich, Kevin Williams, Kyle, and Wade.....I salute you. Now you're all filthy rich. I am glad vampires didn't bite you in the Antarctic Vampire massacre that I predicted. Now go spend some money.

Nouveau Iris

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Presenting my first actual no-holds barred tattoo design, executed on Marni Valenta. We drew tarot cards before starting the tattoo, and pulled Success. I tend to agree. I am making her travel to Davis to let me shade the waves and add some slight watercolor-ish color to the petals of the iris.
Marni was the first person to ask me about tattooing her in Antarctica, and she told me that i could do ANYTHING I WANTED. She said "I trust you, and I love your art and I want some of it on me." Marni is extremely in touch with herself and solid in what she wants, so I felt comfortable in that aspect of things. I knew she would'nt change her mind or regret it later.
But still, I didn't know Marni THAT well.
Whew.
Talk about pressure. I often get overwhelmed by the amount of things I want to draw and make, but tattooing opens up another WORLD of things to express. And express. And keep expressing forever!
Marni has another tattoo, on her arm, that was a realistic iris. i decided to keep with that theme, but do the Kai intepretation of an iris. So thus, the Art nouveau iris with simple Japanese waves was born. There are also two other small round iris's that span the main design and sit on the back of the knob of each of her shoulders, but I did not have time to do them, so I focused on the main design and told her that she has to come get it finished in the future. She lived in Seattle. It's pretty close- especially for a tattoo.

Ladies and Gentlemen......

We have....OPEN WATER!!

The icebreaker cut a channel into the dock (made out of ice...of course), and the winds lately have blown the ice chunks apart to reveal THE OCEAN!! There are reports of whales (orcas) surfacing there!

Now there are boats and whales where a couple months ago my plane touched down....

All the electrical workers inventorying decaying chunks of urethane pipe-insulator in giant wooden boxes say YAY!!

(we have a nice view from our boxes though..)