songanddancegirl

Mr. Marty Blues

i grew up worshipping the boobgoddesses of 1960’s

Playboy   my big bro’s closet  stacked+mammary

at night he pounded  a neighbour’s wife  named Cookie

while her husband promenaded his mistress  Betty  thru

stale suburban streets   oh the golden years of conspicuous

consumption   in a wasteland   Finch+Bathurst way

another neighbour  plump+kitten heel   stood on the

pavement weeping over a small white dog  newly mangled

by the Canada Post truck   all of which my father prophesied

__

..that dog ain’t gonna see another sunrise..

Spring 2024  ..RIP Mr. Marty💔..May 19, 1946 – October 21, 2018

the sorrows of apesyphus

neighbours discussing my fall  into a crevasse vast

+ganglia  rage seeping angina  from this day forward

i will use the backdoor

where garbage+racoon shit accumulate  where homelost

squat to eat  smooth clean bones  drying in the early spring

heat      not the antlers of Georgia O’ Keefe

probably gnarly city-chicken  or Creutzfeldt-Jakob beef

but they cannot squelch my carefree   newly insouciant

+braintumour    call me apesyphus     or am i?     are u?

__

..the human race is a monotonous affair..most people spend

the greatest part of their time working …and what little freedom 

remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means

to be rid of it.. (The Sorrows of Young Werther.. J.W. Von Goethe 1774) 

Spring 2024  ..lighthearted jaunty debonair +breezy..🌻🌻

not the universes bitch

when they wheeled him out of the OR  he wore

a crown of thorns  +my left palm dripped blood

rubyred+stigmata

the  chordoma   corona of a king   prince of peace

+hockey +the Selkirk settlement  where he inherited

Cree genes   one crazy mo fo   full-blooded Scots-Metis

built to forage  to roam the great Canadian prairie   friend

to moose  made to fight   built to last   a late life malignancy

he’s trained his whole life for   arrived this April

whan that Aprill with her shoures soote

the droghte of March hath pierced to

the roote   Geoffrey Chaucer 1387-1400

his will forged in  forest  lake  shale  +creek   in the days of

Winnipeg winters  40 below  Portage+Main    fuck all on

the  BIG  portage  his favourite phrase

these days life feels entirely random  total chordoma eclipse

Al Eclipsé   his new name   we now need a referral to the

Oracle at Delphi    or can we at least get a witness?

from where i sit in the ICU  this panoply of Spring looks obscene

what are all those little humans doing  genuflecting to cherry trees?

By God!  i think they’re  hoping     HOPE    HOPE      H  O  P  E

but look there  over in the corner

where bloody rags  multiply

a small girl

with ringlets  +tragedy

screams           MUMMMMMMMMMY

__

Spring 2024  ..and April is the cruellest month..

after i said cheese i screamed bloody murder

i knew something was up with this place  a place where

the continuum runs between  terror+hope   i knew the

adults were feigning   a can do   attitude

as the vicissitudes roared out there  and father hung his

head sometimes  in the midst of laughter+glory  +walking

on water     we kids knew   it don’t come easy

messy deshabille  +envy   some families cruised  or so it

seemed   until the mother ran out on the porch +fainted

her son  killed by a tree  in Zermatt

school-trip

blood meridian

a bro liked their daughter  fairhaired  brotherless  princess

went on to live happily ever after  he met her on a beach years

later    all her sons named  David

her dead brother’s

soul

released  3 times

now who is that in the corner?  aiming arcane hand-signals at

my husband’s head   like a crazed deathcatcher   why it’s Jolene!

hey don’t mess with me  bitch   +don’t take him

just because

you can

__

Spring 2024   ..uncharacteristically bitter..

the tao of what is to come

chordoma  sounds like a place in Spain  right?

NO  it is a site in husband’s brain  a word meaning

a  1 in 1 million  tumour

he is rare too  a rare fuckingstorm of a man  who

dropped on me  like a ton of bricks  from a Winnipegsky

wild  stoic  shy   BIGGUY    scots-metis   +shaman

his neurosurgeon  a babyfaced man  who reminds me of

Giannis Antetokounmpo  another brilliant greekfreak    i

can only hope that he has his way with  our  chordoma

and i do not say  our  lightly

__

Spring 2024     ..want more..

oh hello mrs. soul

there are 3 things that can happen to one’s soul:

it can be sold

it can be lost

it can be saved

selling one’s soul is a bit like pawning it   take Mr. Johnson

for example  his payment was guitar-god chops  his redemption

was   the blues     the blues   his immortality

BUT  when you  lose  your soul   there is no redemption   just a

gaping  hole   on a positive note !  at least you were not some

soullessfuck    your entire life     but you are now

*(private family shiva tuesday)

so where did you lose it?  just somewhere  along the way?

u poor wayfaring stranger  to yourself   almost unrecognizable

now   joie de vivre vivisection   chunks fetched a high price

soulsuckers scored   she was lithe  a blithe spirit  silkysweet

to-the-tongue  but grew gnarly  as a snake   sprouting the

horns of Lu      poor little jubu

all the zen in the world   ain’t gonna save you   that rock you been

pushin    steamrolled right over you baby   even the beaten down

furnace man   saw it yesterday   in your fridakahlo eyes

here comes the bus!

furnace man cried for his father  and his burntout dreams  bending

old ladies ears  with his syncopated reveries   GO AWAY !  i’m busy

with surgeons    did you know cancer docs  never use the word?

they say  malignancy  helps them deliver their  Kavorkian news

as your soul flies out the backdoor  of your cavity  (no! not there)

it ESCAPES    couldn’t it have taken you with?    faithful Sisyphus

well i have happy news for you   i intend to grow a new one   i feel it:

germinating

gestating

genuflecting

to the setting sun  (what was was)   to this next chapter  of your life

it’s gonna be  much gentler   amazing grace   methinks you’ve been

fucking saved !

___

sky of mercy  sky of fear
sky of memory+shadow
sky of longing+emptiness
sky of fullness  sky of blessed life..

(Bruce Springsteen  The Rising  2002)

Spring 2024   ..cancelled..  or is it?! 🌹🌹

all things must pass

at what point do you realize your dreams are those of

your younger  immortal self?  now infirmly in the rearview

sad but true  or maybe glorious  + a huge fucking relief

ALL THINGS MUST PASS

even the Higgs boson guy   he died yesterday  at 92   discovered

the God Particle  won a Nobel   +the Reap found him  in Edinburgh

at his pub    bub     enticed him into the alleyway

+whispered sweetbosons in his ear

so what do i mourn?   young joints   the slinkything   riding high   my crack

memory   this final seedcrop of my mind  a force to be reckoned with   pulsating

in the murk   spark it up old bitch    glorydays on the trail ahead  !    (uh huh)

dreams of ocean living  a dimming tide  why not move right into the hospital?

it’s blocks away  with a fabulous food court !  from which  your old mother couldn’t

be pried away    or  run for the fuckinghills   on knees eviscerate

to a place where there are  no hospitals   no ghoulish surgeons   ready with their

whippersnippers   the view from my nirvana is spectacular   almost beats the

solar eclipse   yesterday

where in my local park  a little boy shouted  el eclipsé  over +over   while another

peed openly on a tree he’d been whipping    it grew quiet   ears pricked up   hair

on the back of your neck  too

dark descends on the promised land

fancy boutiques   light up at noon    the last bird falls

+it grows as cold  as a witch’s teet   (like father used to say)

and then  another of those feelings of  euphoria  like in the pandemic  +your other

near death experiences   what exactly are these?   awe?  gratitude?  nirvana?   am i

even alive anymore?    what’s the difference?    you’ve been down so long

up   is a mere rumour

__

..angels often don’t know whether they’re moving among the living or the dead..

Rainer Maria Rilke   The First Elegy   1923

SPRING 2024  ..more slink..

cam’s gams

recently husband #3  spent time in 2 CAT scan + 2 MRI machines

calm   and metastatic ?  they’re scanning his bodyelectric 💥 but they

cannot locate his mind

a frigid nurse told me   it is undetectable Aprill  but i already know that

you see  husband #3 lives mostly  on  the Magic Mountain  with Hansy Castorp

how appropriate for a man(n) whose bricks+mortar home  is Buddenbrooks

Cam loves Thomas Mann +has lived a Mannian life  simple +committed  without

clutching at the complexities  of reality  existing on his own plane   Calling Cam!

Calling Cam!     +in his absence i am   at the mall

i actually cried when i read the last page of  The Magic Mountain   ..and so, in the 

tumult, in the rain, in the dusk, he disappears from sight..Farewell Hans Castorp,

life’s faithful problem child..

And thru the recent horrors  of his bodycavity search  he remained  friendly+doglike

accepting the yoke of the Reap  with equanimity  the only person i know who doesn’t

need to meditate    he is the meditation

his mantra   fore!  pancakes  bakeries  trees    i currently cannot see the forest

lost in the bowels of Sinai  where an old brother  searches endlessly for my carcass

desiccate +glowing    but i am a hardcore troubadour    leave no trace ape

i sing the body scan

the godless tube..

+the metastatic drummer

can kiss my skinny white ass

__

..has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?  i hasten to inform him or her

it is just as lucky to die..i am not contained between my hat and boots..

what do you think has become of the young and old men ..of the women

and children? ..they are alive and well  somewhere  the smallest sprout shows

there is really  NO DEATH..   Walt Whitman  Leaves of Grass  1855

Spring 2024  ..i’m sick of love..💔

two norths strong+free

we came upon a dark wood  i believe the Inferno of Dante

begins this way   in any case the dark wood is here to stay

but this stretch of life    presents   another way

exitfinal   lastchance   lastdance

today my barista fell in love with my  glo in the dark  skull pin

she collects them  too  headhunters of the macabre  we waxed

poetic on their smooth chaulkybeauty   brainsalad removed

she remarked: this may sound strange  but by the look of your

head  i can tell yours is beautiful   best pick-up line i have heard

in a long time

Prince Hamlet opined: We are born astride a grave   but some are so

afraid  it colours how they live   in fear   in flight    indentured slaves

to Mr. Reap   + an eternal night

husband number 3  is currently dealing  with an NDE   this morning he told me

about  magnetic north  and  true north   you see he is a forest ranger  boy scout

red beard   red chuck taylors  who often slept in   shrubbery

it’s secluded +warm  +you rarely find a hobo there   apparently they know the

best  sleeping-rough places   which often reek of urine  cigs  +freedom    i wish i

had realized sooner that he is  entirely  undomesticate-able

a bear  or horse  or buffalo   here incognito

i would have seriously lowered my expectations  he belongs on the river  with

Becky Thatcher  a now brawny woman in Greb Zodiacs  with muscles  +the faint

scent of sourmilk    she  a wet-nurse to otters  and the like    ie., his 1st wife

he would agree that he loves me  for my bitchy  urban-queen  vibes  though as a

child i wandered ravines   chased wildducks   +was chased  by lostboys  +a future

matricidal maniac   in a Javelin

it seems to me that if there are two norths (!)  you never have certainty about where

you really are   so  STOP  microplanning  everysinglefuckingminute  of your existence

eat the worm   sleep rough   seduce many Gods

it beats aimless success

+the worship of mammon

__

..it does?..

Spring  2024  ..L’Chaim..

NOT SO MELLOW YELLOW

my bros want more cheerful poems  + have suggested daffs

the latin word for daffodils is: narcissus  but there is no latin

equivalent for:  kiss my ass  or  gay kucken offen yom  

it’s not that i’m angry at them   i understand   these poems can burn

rust off a car  but what about food  for the human soulhole?  all verdigris

+mold   from a general lack of  free   (+freedom is  not   just another word)

the smart existentialists say: always act through the fantasy of freedom

lest we be nothing more than passive playthings of an indifferent universe

+ capricious gods   

these poems are  wordy

freedomfighters

+that ain’t always  pretty 🌻

i have been acting out the  existential rebellion  since 3   no  seriously

always attempting to remove clammyfingers  from my arm  ie., back

away from the curly haired girl  or i will bite the hand that feeds  jails me

and i still will  though now with teeth   not quite as securely fastened

Narcissus  (also the son of a greek river god)  was a celebrated beauty

arrogant+selflove   dripping

i have known a few of these  all dying inside   i would rather chase  free

than my  withering physiognomy   beauty the ravaged whore   a lifetime

of  devouring me

__

..i am dying on the outside  all cellmutation+dribble.. inching closer to 

the  GREAT WIDE OPEN.. as the inside explodes with   grit  colour    +

ecstatic confessions of the highest order..

SPRING 2024       ..let my people go..