songanddancegirl

STRETCHED

SAW YOU STRETCHED OUT

in this room marty atkins bravely battled

the behemoth   cancerinterruptus   people

came and went  but he stayed  couldn’t walk

or talk  or pray   so i did for you  and now regularly

howl my grief at the moon   some say:  just don’t

focus on these memories   yet certain ones remain

etched into the grey matter  brain now reeling with

footage of those days  but in the moments before fully

awake  we laugh  and plan my trip to buttfuck  your little

one horse town in Mexico  where you found peace  and

bought a donkey   i’ll come in february on an ice floe  +

follow the path of the monarchs over lake ontario

 

so wait for me  and make me the salmon risotto bro

__

 

..energy can neither be created nor destroyed ..

it can only change forms..

 

some people say he’s with you  just in a different form

but i don’t care much for this pleasantry  i don’t want a

monarch for a brother  i want a football player

__

 

 

 

Fall 2018

SISTER

SISTER CHRISTIAN

watching the fatted calves holiday in a

place faraway  women with intense cleavage

cleave to waiters carrying extra crisp bacon

+ spanked children crawl  willynilly

 

every unholy millisecond shattered by anticipation

of suffering  a brother going down for the count in a

hospital nearby   i find myself beggared  +begging  one

more once  last time for daddy  68  this time for big bro  72

 

he clearly cleared for take off   except no one will LISTEN!

going home  his face now the boy’s i met when we still believed

we’d be together forever  11 year old brothers  they stay

yet here comes the redheaded cancer doc with the skinnyneck

 

i grab him by said neck and shake the dweeb  long  +hard   repeat

after me Abe: the survival instinct is strong in the naked ape  we who

would gnaw off a hand to run from ghouls like you  who charge 5,000

bucks for a shot of immunogunk   a glue like substance  to hold us fast

like the mouse  caught in the trap  (where food is free)

 

you doctor death  afraid to say the word die  only: pass  will leave those

pristine lips   pass the salt   passover   mountain pass  with azure skies

where snaking lines of the dead wrest  survival instinct fluttering in the

breeze     nearer my God to thee

__

 

 

 

Fall  2018   ..RIP M.A. ..October 21, 2018..

AL

AL PURDY’S CAGE

did you know they’ve corralled Al Purdy now?

at Queen’s Park  park   he’s in an enclosure

a giant black granite poet   girthy Al + all the

leaves   Euthrie unconsolable  + in a hell hath no

fury  fury

 

like a woman left for her best friend   who Al Purdy

married   impregnated  +dumped   for Euthrie!  who

also had his son

 

he’s being kept in a cage  post assisted  riddled

with cancer death   so that his ghost cannot break

another heart   except mine   with his words so

Canadian sublime:

 

Oh beautiful as an angel’s ass   No, I do not love you 

 

each time i return to his stanzas  chills rush up my spine

and a fever burns when thoughts turn to sharing a log cabin

with Al sometime

 

he of the thick lumberjack fingers  +deep baritone

wide lapped  +bad to the bone

__

 

Married Man’s Song   (Al Purdy  1970)

she stands above him as a stone goddess

weeping tears and honey

she is half his age and far older 

and how can a man tell his wife this?

 

In rare cases among the legions of married men

such moments of shining never happened

and whether to praise such men for their steadfast virtue

or condemn them as fools for living without magic

answer can hardly be given

__

 

 

 

 

Fall 2018  ..RIP Al..   born 1918 – assisted death 2000

 

i am a sucker for

girth   +guys named Al

 

broken

everything is broken

both zippers on pants broken  now sliding down my legs

then key chain  broken   keys flung under car   then lost keys

momentarily  in LCBO   right eye twitching as i glare at bulk

barn lady who tells me i am 2 days late for 5 buck coupon

 

fugue state continues as i drive to billy bishop  always wanted to

show up at airport + jump on a plane  next flight leaves for florida

in 10 minutes   hasta la vista bitches!

 

i once had a quasi-boyfriend who would end evenings by driving

to Pearson International  +dare me to runaway with him   the drive

back to the city was bleaker than bleak   all the things that might have

been   fading fast    he ended up down+out in Keswick Ontario

 

i really don’t know if he is still alive   he  who answered the phone: Happy

Happy!  Merry Merry!   +bought barrels of the best olive oil money could buy

had it flown in from Sicily weekly   one of my brothers really got under his skin

I can melt him   he’d say

__

 

 

Fall 2018

..that brother would grind your ego to dust..and feed it to your mother..

..or something along these lines..

grunt

gruntwork

so you think giving birth is hard   the other kind

of gruntwork   escaping the bones+mortar of this

mortalcoil  makes birthing a thing for sissies  though

death throes ending in a peace unbeknownst to most

who have never witnessed the deed

 

but first  one must wrestle the survival instinct  +family

too   who’d rather see you writhe in ecstatic confessions

cancer-ridden +spectral   than have you leave them   and

nurses in the ward  midwives to the darklord with forceps

on your balls  +dibs on your soul

__

 

 

 

 

Fall 2018

SNAZZY

SNAZZY EH

yesterday  an old grizzled man  with a wide gait

sidled up and said: snazzy eh!   as i cruised by

in silver leather reeking of goat  mirrored glasses

shocking pink tote

 

he made me feel special  like i might just survive

happy to be alive  for those few seconds before

hospice +darkness spread warm tentacles up left

leg

__

 

 

 

Fall  2018

REDUX

TURTLE REDUX

back to the resort where turtles are massaged

by samoans  +young women vie for position on

cabana-boys tan laps   a decadent petit bourgeois

enclave  off a coastal hi-way

 

In a hospital close by  there is a hospice   where

visitors say things like: what  no IV?  no feeding tube?

as if these are choices in the Eaton’s catalogue   then

they eat the patient’s lunch  +talk loudly   mostly to avoid

the green pallor  fevered brow  and death rattle  of the man

in the bed

 

He will not get out of here alive   they will return to pink

stucco  +heated front walks   but I adore the man in the bed

+ just wish the prattle would end   how about some morphine  

people?  can a dying man not get a little high?   They look me

in the eye  they say: let us worry about the important stuff

old bitch  

 

so I get into my cab  +head back to the airport   on the way  the

sweet haitian driver whose wife has cancer  talks nonstop  about

jesus  and faith  and the lack thereof   and a vengeful God who has

placed us on a collision course with apocalypse   simply because

he can

__

 

 

FALL 2018

 

BITCH

RIDING BITCH AT MY BROS BEDSIDE

I left the small private hospital in Palm Beach Gardens

and returned to a resort right out of Disney  Outsized

people  listening to loud covers  dripping gluttony

 

Save me  No save my brother  He in the hospital  last

days before set free  He of the beautiful face +outsized

personality  Thick hands  powerful arms  the body of a

football star   ascending     Take me with you

 

And that night on the beach  his second last in captivity

there was such a profusion of falling stars  that the Gods

worked overtime to grant the wishes of the fatted bourgeoisie

 

another Porsche 

more money  honey

a new face  sans the fishy mouth?

more plump bubbas +scarletts  with dirt smeared feet

 

While I wished a meagre wish  knowing Porsches +honey

+money  were noise  to distract the Gods from the real ask:

Don’t take him    Give us one more once   You can have my

first born child

 

2 weeks later  now wretchedly pacing

writing a book called: I AM MARTY’S LIVER

__

 

 

 

FALL 2018  …RIP brother in arms..

WARNING

AND THE SIGN FLASHED IT’S WARNING

 

this will only hurt a little

__

 

*(the biggest lie ever told)

 

 

 

 

 

Fall 2018 ..2 weeks today..RIP M.A.☠️☠️

SORROW

THIS MUCH MADNESS IS TOO MUCH SORROW

just interrogated at the airport by a vuitton sporting

girl from the tribe  entitlement   probably 25  neurotic

as all get out   cut her off after she queried re: my dying

brother’s current marital status

 

i looked into the mid distance  +slowly placed my

pointy toed  metal tipped right boot  between our

blooming friendship

 

i also joined the mile high club with her husband whose

questions were more of a turn on:  workin?  he asked with

a dirtbag smile   all the while reminding me of a Polish loser

i dated back in 1982

__

 

 

 

 

Fall 2018