songanddancegirl

why can’t we all just fade away?

she became upset when i grabbed the box

of 144 teabags  i will never use them all before

i die   so this is why she wants us to buy the small

size of:  everything

 

except i doubt she’s dying  she’s been saying this

very thing from the beginning   i’ll never make it to

your bar mitzvah   he’s 26  +she’s a very alive 95

 

when i said: i will take the tea bags home after you’re

dead  she was unimpressed   ya sure you will   i.e..,

she knows they will go into the garbage along with the

giant box of:  Replens     don’t ask  don’t tell

 

yesterday she told my skinny bro  (not chubbychubby

as the other one is known by the filiipinos at her retirement

home)  to bring one bandaid at a time  to stanch her near

invisible grief

 

mostly  since she lost a son  she appears to be in the kind

of cocoon i wish i were in   the kind where u feel:

zilch

nada

nothingissimo

__

 

 

 

 

 

Spring 2019  ..nothingissimo blissimo..

 

life’ll kill ya

at about 3 am we hurtled thru TO streets  in an

ambulance  bro’s girlfriend having an event  young

paramedic  slid needle into vein  without skipping

a beat

 

bro+i   bouncing

girlfriend trancing

+writhing

 

once at mount sinai  girlfriend projectile vomitting

bro+i still pre-ptsd   but barely   in corridor a cop

with a gun  guarding a woman  redhair  +slurring

 

i’m 48 yrs. old  +i look just like my mother

looking good!  said my brother

woman now flailing at his head

 

i’m 62  +i look just like my mother  there’s no guard

outside my room   yet   violent rambo fantasies

flickering   kicking doors down  at a shady florida

hospice  bilking another brother  too sick for his

last stand

 

sister intercedes

pulls pin on grenade

 

now hurtling down  interstate 95  old bro riding bitch

and very much alive  73 tomorrow  his hair blowing in

the breeze

 

when we get to canada

old bro will be free

a new man with a future  and everything

 

__

 

 

 

Spring 2019  ..M.A… May 19, 1946 – October 21, 2018…RIP

holy roe v. wade

would someone please send up the

bat signal for me?   people all around

me  entrenched in their  tics   one even

asked me to re-phrase an observation

as a question   so i did

 

why are u so full of fuckery?

 

the answer is blowing  and the winds in

canada can be fierce   in may they rip thru

machinations like shit thru a canada goose

 

i need the bat signal most urgently  so that

the caped crusader  a christfigure if there ever

was one  might rescue me from contraryfuckery

__

 

but much more seriously  the women of alabama

need more than jesus right now

 

the vote is in   no abortions  even in cases of rape + incest

so please do send up the batsignal for them too

 

*if passed the new law would make performing an abortion

a felony  punishable by 10-99 years in prison  which is more

than the penalty for rape

 

how’s that for fuckery?

 

 

 

 

Spring 2019

 

 

 

i’ve got to pull a lazarus and i can’t even shine my shoes

a day of glaucoma testing  now pretty testy  saw more

blindfolks than i can ever remember seeing   and

seeing is not overrated   talking is   talk a thing to

death   and it will die

 

like 11:11

 

talked it up recently  all spiritual newagey   and now i

see only  11:08  and u know u cannot wait for the universe

to give u 1’s   it will only give u chilblains  where u sit   w-a-i-t-i-n-g

 

and waiting is for godot worshippers  and i am all  heathen  

• a follower of a polytheistic religion; a pagan   i need to pull

a lady lazarus  but first

 

come poet    

shut up

__

 

my typewriter is

tombstone

still.

 

and i am

reduced to bird

watching.

 

just thought i’d

let you

know,

fucker.

 

(Charles Bukowski   8 count  1992)

 

Spring 2019

 

 

dying is an art

Sylvia Plath

 

 

who in this merry merry month of may?

i climbed the eiffel tower with ms. semolina pilchard

and trained for the big fight with rocky raccoon balboa

i can sound like a legend  at times   especially re:  my

recent work  isolating an isotope  in a petri dish

 

it will eradicate optimism

+prehensile giblets in the upper

arms of most women

 

i wish i could promise you more

 

optimism is actually not my forté  eh

and in any case it has been proven not

to be the quality  most likely to win wars

 

there is a certain grit involved in seeing things

for what they are   in knowing that the half full

glass will be spilled  and the unicorn dehorned

 

revealing a grizzled old white goat  with nubby

eyebrows like my 3rd husband’s   i implore u

don’t get too attached to the rainbow  or the view

 

do linger before the spring cherry trees  pinkpetals

mixing with mud of april showers

__

 

 

 

 

Spring 2019  ..1st mother’s day..

 

..💔flowerpower💔..

 

 

 

 

the real wasteland

i came to a flat + desolate space  there was

a shed where festivities took place  filled with

china + x mas dinner  valentine’s day conflated

with st. nick   hermes weeping for my captivity

 

carltoncarded   largely disregarded   100 yr. old

birthday celebrant in roses+pinks  slept long and

often  dreaming of the homestead   a dirtfloor farm

house  where life was rife with life +death

 

so what can we say about the day?

 

needed tequila restoria   pot-oil transmutation gloria

and as i flew home over the frozenprairie  i thought the

serialkiller guy beside me  may have spiked my drink  his

left middle finger  on my mainvein  all the way to thunder bay

__

 

..and april is the cruellest month..

 

 

Spring 2019

 

ashes to

tell

me

about

that

ring

 

he asks   for the umpteeeeenth time

 

it’s a broken heart

 

sometimes a broken heart is just a broken heart

he continues

 

cause he’s so smart

 

aren’t all broken hearts the same in their brokenness?

 

no they are not

 

my own reeking of an old maritalcorpse  diamonds glinting

 

i wear grief on my middle finger  more easily presented

to the griefdeniers   unholypacifiers   +fools

 

we’ll give u 3 to 6 months  then we’ll drag u to bellevue

another said:    fake it til u make it

 

so what scares u more

my grief

or my strength?

__

 

 

 

 

Spring 2019

..in the matter of my own ashes..

scatter them in the ravine behind 52 Purdon..

at Marty’s tree UCC    at Lee’s grave..

 

and at the munk school reflecting pool u of t

bits of me  colourful outfits  loads of silver  where

i sat for 12 years  writing depressing poems

almost invisible

but not quite..

 

..some deaths , they explain, will never simply be “gotten over.”

..some mourners will never quite again “be themselves.”

(David Chariandy   Brother   ..on complicated grief  2017)

O Brother

everyone’s weighing in on whether or not

i should   go silver   my mum +i  will be silver

foxes  together  we now look like sisters  95+62

better news  for who?

 

i used to call my old bro  the silver fox   but he’s

lost now   an anchor of love keeps me sane on a

good day  but most days i am want to say:

 

complicated relationships are brutal to grieve

and ours was

 

halfbloods    same womb    visions of him while

in there   the handsome 11 yr. old boy i am still

tethered to

__

 

 

 

Spring 2019  .. may 19th  silver fox bro with killer grin  would be 73..

feral dogs frommexico

 

we talked for 2 hrs 56 minutes  his earnestness boring

another hole in my chest  revelation at its best  catapulted

back to a time   but i have  squandered mine   on husbands

mortgages  +costumejewels  withfools+fuckery too

 

and with fireflying out of eyes i cautioned him about over

thinking  +flogging deadhorses   only flog what is living

sonnyboy  kill your own darlings  before the night weasels do

 

weasels of doubt

the anti-everything people

crotchety oldmen +their shriven wives

 

run for the hills with yer feral dog from mexico  who will no doubt

come back to bite old auntiepoet  for suggesting that:

 

freedom

is

for

the

free

__

 

 

 

Spring 2019  ..run..

 

 

does that make me crazy?

he’s prettycute  a little gingerish  takes

care of an oldold man  at the starbucks

on the corner  man parked in a cart  doesn’t

talk    doesn’t know

 

it’s spring in toronto  gnarlys out+about  one

almost bit my cankle when i said  NO  don’t u

dare snap my photo   and as every primitive

knows  one’s soul will be trapped forever

 

my own stolen at 3  by peter the busdriver  had to

have a pic of me  on his knee  (don’t worry)  my mum

hit him with a broom  but i still have a thing for stocky

guys named pete

 

go weak at knees

thickdark fingers

wrapped

__

 

 

 

 

Spring 2019

pete ..