songanddancegirl

17

SEVENTEEN  A BEAUTY QUEEN

Hadn’t seen each other in 44 yrs.   I remember her at 17

Sephardic  Jet black hair  Horsey voice  Married a Rockefella

I approached warmly  not sure she remembered me  even after

our 2 hr tete a tete   But how could her husband forget?  Showed

up at my office one day  Just sat there  +smiled +stared  Nostrils

flared

 

I was on the phone  with her!  Get Dickie to take you for lunch

Today she is haggard  Vestigial   And what am I?  Encased behind

giant pink Mui Mui frames  even after twilight   Windows to my

soulhole shuttered   Now sotto voce  she goes into how a brother

died in May  +father-in-law 6 months prior on a Monday  Married

off her son the same Friday

 

Was that fear glinting  when I mentioned that the dead are just as

pre-occupied with immortality as we are?  Perhaps even more so?

She did stop taking down my contact info though  +bumped into my

old mother as she beat a hasty retreat from the party

 

Mother snarled  Incisors bared  Life in the bardo having changed her

From sweet+gentle  to cantankeousasfuck   94  +tired of waiting for

her close-up  Mr. DeMille

__

 

“If I can only recover, I will have her.  I will sell the shop. We will travel.

In many new cities, I will see her in dresses of many colours. Which will

drop to many floors.” 

(Hans Vollman   in heaven  still unaware he is dead  after a beam has fallen

on his head..  Lincoln in the Bardo  George Saunders  2017)

 

 

 

 

 

End of Summer 2018 ..

DREAM

ALL OF LIFE’S JUST A DAMN CODEINE DREAM

If we’d had kids one would be a Colter Wall ginger

cowboy   Come by it honestly   Grandfather Lee  6ft.

under now   but he was the realdeal   Cow dung on

cowboy boots until 50   Real job killed him   Sold his soul

real estate to feed us

 

Horses glue  Farm paved  to put up an industrial complex

His brother executored him with an iron fist    Lee stood by

him   +taught us that you guard brotherly love with your life

And when Lee died his bro was nowhere in sight

 

It was about 20 yrs later  when feeble +dementia-ed   said

brother woke with a start   He found Lee stuck in his bathroom

mirror  where he fed him tea +oranges all the way from Poland

And at night they’d ride out onto the range  where the coyotes

howled their children’s names

__

Some cruel night cycle 

Leaves me crying’ on a motel floor

But I don’t cry for you anymore

(Codeine Dream  Colter Wall  2017)

 

 

 

 

 

August 16   Lee  Elvis  Aretha  RIP

 

PIG(S)

OUT YOUR PIG (S)

A confessive poem re: the woman who was punched

in the face at a Paris cafe just yesterday   Long hair

flowing  chic black combat boots  Courage to shout at

her aggressor: You lout  You pig  You Trump   just prior

to being attacked  All caught on camera!  A man (or mouse)

at next table  jumped out of his chair  +sat down in fear

 

Though we hear these bullies are cowards   Think Agent Orange

now Prez   Pussygrabber in Chief   Whose mail order bride  thought

his sexual harassment of numberless women  locker room braggadocio

Maybe that’s how he wooed her  That plus the 10 carat Trump diamond

her soul is currently chained to

 

Some true confessions:

In Florence at 27   Solo   In front of the Uffizi  7pm   Boys cruising me

Catcalling  Then spittle  wet on cheek  Wiped the degradation off  but

humiliation left a stain requiring Borax   Some of it remains

 

20 yrs. later  busy Toronto street  young man with a stroller  gaining on me

Whispers  peaches  close to ear as brushes past  I freeze  I’m not your peach

Pig   Never leaves lips   So who is the coward  him  or me?

 

10 years on  still prancing city streets  Kitten heels  Capri jeans   Neighbour

with clubfoot +mushroom cut walks behind me   Wet kissing-sucking sounds

I hiss silently   +never tell burly husband  who might end up on front page  for

clubbing disabled man   Ignominy every time he passes  Howdy neighbour!   at

hardware store   Violent fantasies galore   But I’m still his bitch  though he’s

moved to a fishing village out East

__

 

*A perp in Belgium verbally abused a female cop this month. He was the first

convicted under new anti-sexism laws. But it will be decidedly harder to stop

catcalls directed at women not carrying handcuffs + a badge.

Unless we all do.

 

**$1,130 fines on the spot in Paris now.  BalanceTonPorc. OUT YOUR PIG.

 

2018   Summer of The Gun   Summer of The Pig

 

 

 

 

 

HEROES

THEY AIN’T NO MORE HEROES

(The Orchard Keeper  Cormac McCarthy)

Except  the people who have had chemo   Genuflect +

near delirious with almost    94 yr. old mother  Nothing

hurts today!   Miraculous news for 60something daughter

with a visage hoary + peregrine  (everything hurts..)   68 yr.

old by-passed father   By-passed into oblivion  (they’ll cut me

from stem to stern..)

 

The Bedsloe great grandmother  +her daughter’s 2 children

5+7  Died in the fire  Redding CA  yesterday   Decidedly not the

orange liar  who doesn’t believe in global warming  fidelity  morality

or condom wear   Recent article in national newspaper  says he is

teaching world leaders how to lie  except Putin  hero of disinformation

 

Not all heroes are human   Take the 3  little reds  for example:  fuzzy ginger

buffalo calves  1st to be born in the wild   in 140 yrs.   When Europeans

arrived there were 40 million  Hunting them to near extinction took a mere

2 centuries

 

Sisters of the 2  gunned down in Toronto  on the Danforth last week   +the

girls themselves  18  +10  she in front of her family   Ice cream blood splattered

Father shot too    Maybe all heroes  except for the most evil?

 

We who arrive gesticulant +screaming  wade through the 10,000 things  until only

1 remains   The body  mostly treated like a donkey   Only the heroes know: this matter

a roughhewn casement for the poor apparitional bastard who fell into your path  as

you flew from the Gods   +the forceps   +the rabbi collecting foreskins  Inextricably

enfleshed until your last breath    Did you dream him  or did he dream you?

__

 

..the dead sheathed in the earth’s crust, at peace with eclipse, asteroid, the dusty

novae. At one with Tut, Agamemnon, with the seed and the unborn.  

(The Orchard Keeper  Cormac McCarthy  1965)

 

 

 

More Summer of the Gun  2018  ..let my people go..

EYES

SHE HAS MEGHAN MARKLE EYES

She looked into my tequila eyes +said: Say yes to the dress

with pockets   I mumbled how it was very Meghan Markle

Muted pink  like Meg’s lipstick  Faux Roland Mouret   Flared

skirt  tight bodice    Lean +duchessy

 

Dress with pockets a crunchy synthetic   Monsieur Mouret

wouldn’t touch with a 10 ft pole  Tequila eyes glinting in change

room  where life+death decisions not made   Sell my soul for

129.99    Splayed tanned toes on thick rug  a soft cocoa

 

The colour of Meghan’s skin  She who will give Harry gingerbrown

children   Poet dwells on details of life in Kensington Palace  ad

nauseam   A lifelong penchant for:  princesses  +escape from the

bourgeoisie  Tequila eyes all twitch+envy  Plotting quick exit before

salesgirl who loves pockets bars the door

__

 

 

 

Summer of Meghan  2018

 

..the coy little duchess..

BEAR

DOES A BEAR SHIT IN THE VOLGA?

He is not just kicking the bear  He is fucking the bear

Or is the bear fucking him?  Helsinki headlines: TRUMP 0

PUTIN 1  which is another way of putting it   But any way

you cut it  Trump  in addition to not being up on history  or

the geopolitical strategy of his country for at least a century

has never watched  The Americans

 

Wherein a Russian family of spies  the kids too  infiltrate

suburbia   A modern day Jetsons  with all the James Bond

bells+whistles thrown in   Meet Donald Trump  dicktator

Meet Melania Trump  dicktator’s mail order bride   Has orange

Donald been poisoned perhaps?  Was it the urine back in the

USSR?

 

You know  back in the hotel room  where golden showers were

de rigueur  (please see explicit CIA dossier)  Is this the real reason

he genuflects at the tiny bear’s feet?  Since his return from Helsinki

he has given new meaning to the word: doublespeak   But then he’s

the guy who has not yet grasped the concept of: No means no   And

we can only hope that when in London  he left the Royal Pussy  alone

__

 

..a tremendous paunch slung in a gray and ragged undershirt drooped

pendulously over the waist of his trousers like a sacked hog carcass. Out

of a meaty face , jowled and white stubbled with beard, two porcine eyes

regarded them, blinking. 

(Cormac McCarthy  describing Trump’s doppelgänger

in the mountains of Tennessee..  The Orchard Keeper 1965)

 

 

 

Summer  2018

HONEY

SHE’S AS SWEET AS TUPELO HONEY

She is covered in red freckles  from head to toe  this

human Dalmation from high school  some 45 yrs. ago

Not walking all that well   One leg doubtful   Same smile

+curly red hair   Sweet Cheryl  something ??  She’s seen

the last of carefree

 

Now visiting a frail mother   Wrapped in recrimination  +guilt

Said mother eyes her warily  +bites her wrist hard  as she tries

to exit   I watch from the sidelines where I sit with my old mother

who has not tried to bite me  yet

__

 

 

Summer 2018

 

STRANGER

YOU’VE GOT THE EYES OF A STRANGER PLUMBER

This morning’s plumber said:  I can tell by your eyes  as I

groped for analogies between plumbing+psychotherapy

His company is called HTO  because H2O was taken   I

suggested he change it to  HOT  But then he got the wrong

idea  +suggested a beach holiday in Playa del Carmen

 

I demurred saying Baja is more my speed  He made out the bill

for $516.94   For you I added the heavy duty putty   Listen buddy

I am heavy duty enough  laid waste by the trenches of humanity  He

became garrulous  Your voice too  There’s just something about you

I seem to have this effect on plumbers   Car salesman too

 

The two I bought recent cars from  attempted moves so brazen +corny

it was a total turn on   That juxtaposition of ballsy  +thick as a brick   As

plumber +I traded wet dreams +moist chitchat   he burst into tears  Water

dripping onto my ankle  wrapped around the leg of his chair  But what future

is there?

 

He scurried back to his sink holes  mould  snaking pipes +the like   And I

back to the business of wrenching souls from holes  some of their own

making  others the kind where fate has taken them kicking+screaming

To which they return again +again   Pipe dreams of escape are free   Not

so  psychotherapy

 

In the midst of this reverie  water exploded out of my new Moen faucet

(For you only $333.00)   I realized there+then  HOT plumber was the man for

me   Upon his return we exchanged choked pleasantries as I packed quickly

I left a note for husband #3:

 

Playa del Carmen beach with Poseidon of my dreams  I told you there would

be consequences for cunting in the fields instead of fixing the leak –

__

 

*(cunting in the fields.. stolen from Griffin Poetry Prize winner  2017..

$75,000 awarded for said mouthful)

 

 

 

Summer  2018

EXTINCTION

HANDS UP IF YOU’RE FOR VOLUNTARY HUMAN EXTINCTION

The very rotund man from the adjacent fire escape just

walked by fully clothed    We generally confront each other

half naked from across a parking lot  between our homes  He

is found each morning outside on a rickety metal stairway to

nowheresville  Whereas I am enshrined in my 4th floor bathroom

also fast tracking  to nowhere

 

As I spend inordinate amounts of time applying one or another

of some 96 shades of MAC lipstick with names like: Pucker Up

Handsome  + I Am A Juicy Predator   It was Virginia Woolf who

said that most women spend as much time making-up as it would

take to learn Greek   Brilliant Virginia  who walked into the river Ouse

at 59  with stones in her pockets

 

And Virginia is one of the authors we will read in: Post-Humanism +

Modern Fiction  come Fall at U of T   There we will ponder artificial

entities i.e..,  A.I.  + animals too  who have subjectivities  interiority +

might have self-determination  but for humans  The post-humanists

posit a human free future   Encouraging us to embrace our coming

demise +not freeze human evolution at the  puny  human level

 

The newest  it girl  of modern fiction  Ottessa Moshfegh  encourages

writers in an essay entitled  How To Shit:  to go where you are least

comfortable  which she has her latest protagonist do   Describing her

alcoholic mother’s body after death by suicide:  She’d be a stiff husk

like the sloughed off exoskeleton of a huge insect  I took the liberty of

running this through the A.I. App now clonining Grimm’s Fairytales

 

I conflated  Virginia Woolf’s death  +the as yet unwritten death of my own

mother  And here is what the A.I. App came up with:  She is lifted up by 13

angels covered in feathers+honey  to Leonard + Lee  respectively   They 

atop white stallions riding like there is no tomorrow  toward the Ouse  + up 

Bathurst St.  where the Jewish community has numerous cemeteries  

 

Leonard + Lee  see their human wives as more than exoskeletal husks  They

pull them close +dance the tarantella  neat+perfect  The air rank sweet with

their smell    It has been reported this week too that A.I. will soon be able to

produce  deepfakes   bogus videos of faces  invasions  mass shootings

terrorist attacks  to name a few   So whether you vote for a human free future

or not   A.I. as a form of post-human immortality  is upon us already  Our dead

the  deepfakes  of heaven

__

 

We have entered a brave new world  where it is going to be difficult to

know how to believe what we see.  A.I. knows no borders. It’s impact

will ripple around the globe.    (Globe+Mail July 2018)

 

 

Summer 2018

JULY 11  1987  5 billionth human born on Earth..

When the UN reported this it sent a shiver down

the spines of scientists + citizens alike   A reminder

of the planet’s finite ability to support human life..

 

 

HEAVEN

HEAVEN IS A DEAD END STREET

Few want to admit this  Unless you are lucky

enough to find a black hole up there into which

you might jettison your dead self   Ditto  that

resurrection is a pipe dream  This line of thinking

held at bay most days in a secular age

 

Cancer patients have more crucial things to consider

As in: Should I have another round of chemotherapy

or succumb? Suck on freezies or kiss the sky?  I am

familiar with this predicament as I accompanied a

friend many a Friday to a hospital named for a brook

 

Where a needle shot chemicals into the portal in her

chest   And the metal taste was erased  by freezies

After her final treatment we made out on the couch

as her husband readied champagne in the kitchen

 

Her gift for my ministrations was a giant silver heart

shot through with many babbling arrows  We haven’t

seen each other for over a decade now   The heart

turning black from a lack of polish   But I hear that

she is still alive

__

 

For miles on miles the high country rolled lightless and

uninhabited, the road ferruling through dark forests of

owl trees, bat caverns, witch covens.

(Cormac McCarthy  ..on heaven.. The Orchard Keeper 1965)

 

 

 

 

 

Summer  2018