songanddancegirl

what is the scent of absence?

Paris by Yves Saint Laurent

Paco Rabanne

Toe Jam Football

falling stars streaking thru the sky  in daylight? !

asteroids? comets? the end of days? apocalyptic

crazed dreamscape  long streaks of light  like

lysergic trails  seen at 14  frog blotter in burbs

walking home at dawn  teen warrior minted  in

david fuchs bedroom  long haired freaky people

need not apply

morning after the dreamy light shower  newsflash

daytime meteors !  the Arietids peaking  like me?  50

was the ultimate  still robust-vibrant  a rock n rollin bitch

for you   now penultimate    powers simmering   in the

crucible of ape

stew of old jew

eye of newt

flowerpower interruptus

don’t despair rebirths do happen  right up to the last

second  +afterward too  martino a brand new babe

with a brand new bladder  not the frankenstein one

from the florida cancerward  father married!  looking

dapper  in a wedding suit

mother in capris  cardi  +cig  ohhh so Audrey

luminescent-incandescent  +waving   Hi Mum!

swoooosh   flying past   bumps my head   now

windshadow💥streakinglight

i’m slowly getting used to being here without you     (is that even possible?)

you can’t imagine how different it is  how it feels

from 30,000 ft   above our city   the first time

returning after you died  so EMPTY   now 4 yrs

later  the strangeness commonplace  ingrained

a motherstain

..the work of grief is to face the reality of the absence..

__

Spring 2026  ..you want more..

the motherlode of marian apparitions

i watched her coiffure  the toilet paper ceremony

mahogany skin  burnt cinder of a woman  clothes

meticulously placed on fence  suitcase on the brown

sodden ground  soggy rivulets  sacred substances

monsoon rains for days  she remains encrusted

muddy+golddust  like Frida K.  when she lay under

the bus   crucifixion thru pelvis   future gangrene

waiting in the wings   27 doves crushed  along with

Frida’s right leg

golddust woman in park finishes her coiffure  places

a checkered jacket over her head  sleep of the near

dead  for 3 hours  as poet in silver pants + Jackie O

tee  tries to give her some dignity  by not watching

someone’s  motherdaughtersister  hobbled

but is that even the case?

she is always smiling  + has a kind of  flotsam-freedom

hey  i don’t need your dignity handouts   comfort queen 

but wait!     she levitates

are those doves?

is that a leg?

is this marian?

Frida?

Frida?

Freda?

__

Spring 2026  ..mother sighting trinity bellwoods park today..🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️

THE BIG PINK🌸🌸🌸

..all your sorrows have been wasted on you

if you have not learned how to be wretched..

Seneca

who among you is not tired of wretched? what would

i be without my grief  my cancer non-interruptus speak

my failures  marriages  quagmires of human stain  stink

my pink?  we don’t wear pink!  my old mother was want

to shriek

so it was blues all the way  gloaming hues of periwinkle

lilac-mauve  cobalt  almost descending back into cancer

cobalt-60 gamma-rays  turn hulk-like tumours  into dustmite

NO!  WAIT  YOU HAVE  ALMOST  ESCAPED

there are a mere 3 weeks when pink is  BIG + fragrant  later a

rotting pinkstink in local park  but for now  lush heavy blossoms

of every demeanour cling  in fragile moments  leading up to corruptus

so why not revel in what you still have time to be?

a washboard player  like Chaz

oldest point guard in the wnba

alien abductee (can u be the same thing twice?)

raving extrovert (a fate worse than death)

uh oh here comes the Reap  +a bird has just shat on me

but seriously  the end of spring pink  heralds the autumn winds

in between  why not make something new of wretched?  old sinew

black lung  spirit sprung  from 56 cm of yellow snow   go ahead

GLOW  GLISTEN    RESIST   

i may never go back to being death’s barker

fuckthereap!

..all who are 

faithful

follow me..  

(Mordecai 475 BCE  The Book Of Esther Ape  2026 AD)

__

Spring 2026 ..this is a happy poem..can you dig it?..

haint magnet

red tee   gnarly +ogle   ogre with red wine bottle  watches me

mouth dripping +unrequite  as i write  i use Frank Stanford’s

The Light The Dead Can See  to prop up a sore butt-cheek   burst

bursa bleeds   nothing hurt  in New Orleans  walked miles  saw 11

bands   sucked the craw-head jelly    spit+repeat

now i have a haint  so heavy  heavier than my big brother  who is 80

today  +dead   since 2018   bladder bled for months  the toilet filled

with blood ape  but i pretended not to see  metastatic denial morphosis

trouble knew where to find him    always did

so this haint i brung home with me  lived at the Camellia Grill  he

served up fries  a coffee shake +the ecstasy of living the dream  for

$1,000.00 a day  USD   i caught him mid-fantasy  looking at me  like

i was the risen shining

our eyes met  +now he weighs heavily on my chest   lung eviscerate

+sexual innuendo  my bed creaks rhythmically  hump hump  bump 💥

did i mention  he is heavy?   but not my bro   he ain’t heavy    now

light-years away

suffering beggars  decency  dignity  you grow emaciate  you would

do anything   love a leper  beat a dog  drive to Miami +ice the cancer

doctor who committed  motherfuckery  on your bro’s 72 yr. old bladder

okay enough self-flagellate!  fer chrissakes  re-wind  this tape

__

Spring 2026  ..i tried to bring you home to your mama..in a giant green suitcase..

O the Mississippi Delta shinin like the National Geetar🎸🎸

turbulence at 30,000 ft. above the formerly free U.S. of A.

the prez of the free world says he’s Jesus  oh wait  no!  a

gynecologist  i’m no rapist  or pedarast  he spits at Nora

on 60 minutes  Nora doesn’t flinch  perhaps he doth protest

too much?

about to land in New Orleans  13 yrs since i wandered the

Vieux Carré  since then apocalyptic leanings  tarot card

psychopomp prophesied the upsidedown Tower  i have

never  touched the cards since

life as i knew it blown to smithereens  fuck those handpainted cards!

from a friend who asked me to leave husband #3  for her fuckeye déshabillé

56 now 69  new life  new body  newly orphaned  de-brothered  cancer non

interruptus  pandemic refugee  (everybody’s got to fight to be free)   still

don’t inhale deeply in a crowd

on the way to the airport the limo driver’s breath stank of old chickpeas

wet dog garlic+denture  fuck me  i venture outta my comfort zone  my bed

my husband’s aura  scent of buffalo  he will never put down his canoe  come

plague  come the end of days  come chordoma redux  fearless maniacal viking

more at home on the range  great plains  27 staples to the upper leg  why?

why not?  they even messed with his eustachian tube  now when i speak

he hears birdsong +ancient oracle  beelzebub growls +farts  we’re coming

for you  we’re coming for you   back away  from the ranger  there’s no gun

to my head  motherfuckers   he says

but there is one to mine

oh  and a hellhound too

or is there?

__

Spring 2026 ..but i reckon i got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because

Aunt Sally  she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and i can’t stand it…i been there

before..   (Huck Finn & Ranger Cam.. indomitable vagabonds..)

i don’t know why i killed the room fly 🪰

with such violence  for one so beatific  so specific  so crucifixion

of late  then a spider  crabsized  crunched  not splat  southern gothic

serial killer  tale spinner  sputterer  wordsaladsurgery  OK!  enough

smartquip  making me nauseous  go on  shove yer scat-tered rhyme

voodoobitch

i have seen 11 shows  tasted Cyril Neville’s sweat  all salty+sazerac

i have seen the desecrate homeless  of dixieland   even the trees in

New Orleans are bruised +gnarl   twisted branches +rictus   this

morning  on my final day  i laid hands on Miss Emma  the waitress

at Desire   300 Bourbon St.  Vieux Carré

66  been there 40 yrs   last night she danced the bamboula with her

months dead husband  she told me how troubled her mind is  Emma

said: girl you gotta start livin again  who knows  maybe you die first!

with that  the cross fell away  i threw down my crutches  been servicin me

since 3   don’t touch my mother  or i’ll kill you   big bro screamed

hey  these are your crutches  not mine

your cancer  not mine  your raging bull

not mine   your life  not mine

as i am your ball+chain

so you  are  were mine

__

Spring 2026 ..laid some burdens down..in Dixie..April-May 2026 ✚☠️✚

my father was a Jewish bohemian

my mother too  model  racehorse trainer  +

salesman extraordinaire  one grandsonnyboy

inherited father’s riz  kid could sell a fish a bicycle

but back to the bohemians

how do i even begin to capture their beauty

their élan vital  how did they end up in a suburban

backsplit with 4 kids 4 giant dogs 1 rabbit 2 filthy

turtles 8 horses + 1 goat who developed an infatuation

with a brother   he remains quite goat centric

HOW?

my father’s tweed jackets  his cowboy boots  +reefer

his jazz + his blues  mother’s silk gowns chignon cigs

oh  + her blues too  life is not a read thru  messy 1950’s

marriage   slowsuck of aging

once we left the backdoor open  bears  snarling hogs

+a lion rampaged  for years  yet there were worse things

they did not need an open door  or invitation  to enter

our house still stands

so too

the laughter

the love

the protection  when were you ever so protected?

there is a house in Bathurst Manor  they call the Rising Sun

*(I can’t possibly rip off Eric Burden or can I?) the sun rose+set

on that house  a beacon to which I return again +again +again

I write this poem on the front porch  where I once dropped a large

mastiff puppy  named Auggie

I’d tripped down the stairs  in red clogs  a new bride  at 19

inside  Frances+Lee  in the livingroom  on turquoise sectional

making-out  laughing  sharing a cig  Basie wafts  Aprill in Paris

this is eternity 

one

more

once

forever

__

*(..House of the Rising Sun has no known authours..go ahead google it!)

April 2026  ..no birth no death..the eternal return..

dragonfly on a chain

on Sunday u cried when a girl named Chains

(it’s really Steph..but i like Chains..said she)

Chains with a booth in the park  told you her

summer project is travelling coast to coast

sewing buttons+tears  i sew tears  anything

+everything  torn  bring me  your patches  

your sweaters  your tumours  

your

unwashed

masses

but Chains  can u sew me back together? one fucked

scarecrow  seen things better not to tell  now every

year  chattel  to the big cancer buildings  where shards

of me cling to parked cars  +everyone greets me with

the warmest of hellos  hey  you don’t have to kill the

fucking dragonfly in order to  breakthechains

now do you      motherfuckers

or maybe u do..?

__

Spring 2026 ..death he say he give you credit..better not sign..

Frank Stanford  1976  

at 26  

3 years until

3 bullets to the heart 

lord of the flies

with the spirits of the boy poets flitting around me

stanford

radiguet

renard

atkins   (oh they were poetic alright!)

commes des garçon   i muse on the unspoiled land

that was my former life  that strange country of 

childhood.. like a dragonfly on a dog chain..

(Frank Stanford 1976)  

a group of unwashed boys  blubbery slackjaw

+unsmart  1 rotund sweetmeat told a cousin

he named his dog after me

another sat on the hill across from our house

everysingleday   waiting for me to emerge  +

somehow guide him away from the cement

truck  that would squash him   one day

gnarly outpost of Jewish quarter  circa 1957

holocaust skeletons  found row-house shelter

their screams echo under suburban moon

most nights   unstill

you  this tiny speck of consciousness  controlled

by the vast unconscious of parents+ancient history

the rednecked rabbi with 12 kids a couple blocks

from your street  so tell me  what remains of your

own  infinitesimal?  

__

..it is generally customary to avoid grieving

on Jewish holidays..as they are times of joy..

(this idiocy on the website of my parent’s

gravesite  !!  unlock the gates dumbkopfs

grieving is a sign of the sacred love for one’s

ancestors..i will grieve wheneverthefuck

i please..)

Spring 2026 ..let my people go..

simpler times

The Manor Ghetto

circa 1972

meet u on the dark side of the moon

if you watched the lift-off of Artemis II today  you will have

seen the lawn chair crowd lolling about  drinking shasta

sucking on chilidogs  at least they were not watching the

portable electric chair spectacles in days of yore

Mississippi Delta until 1994   children would be present   the

streetlights would dim   Gruesome Gertie  all a crackle + hum

she often failed to deliver enough voltage  i will leave y’all to use

your imaginations here

in childhood i had wanted to be an astronaut  an old brother recently

said: there’s still hope Ape!  John Glenn was older than you on his last

mission   i actually witnessed  a shuttle launch  the one that exploded

just after lift-off    there were several astronauts on board

one with a daughter watching   Christa McAuliffe   a young teacher

fulfilling her dream   my mother is in space too  apparently she will

never return

__

Spring 2026

..the lunatic is  in the hall  in the White House..hey we the people ..leave that moon alone..

the moon wades a creek
Like an albino with a blade
Fixed to a stick.

Now the moon was a fifty-cent piece
It was a belly I wanted to cut open

the moon in the woods flashing
Like a girl running in her panties.

(Lunar Phases  Frank Stanford  Poet  Mississippi Delta 1948-1978)