songanddancegirl

FREE MAN

FREE   MAN    IN  PARIS

There is no shortage of inspirational

jingles out there   And a self help industry

for the theraphobic   But how many actually

move to their  dream city?   Or camp out in

Big Sur   for a decade?

When I was there my hiking  guru  said:      JUST SHOW UP

But he was having an affair   with a work scholar

from Texas   She took his advice and messed up her

life   but good     So when some rugged guy suggests:

There is but a gossamer veil between you and your

dreams    Find out if he’s married   and desperate to

have you believe in     parthenogenetic birth –

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Fall  2012      for Hadley Richardson Hemingway        The Paris Wife

Hadley and Ernest Hemingway in Switzerland, 1922

GEHRY’S FOREST

GEHRY’S  FOREST

Intestinal stairway to heaven

In the atrium of local gallery

Redwood quivers  giving off

scent   of forest at dawn                    Describe    the light

Maleable     Closed Mondays

Were the trees happier in

Virginia?    Sometimes they

whisper secrets to art patron

who scurries  to  &  fro in search        of martini and olives

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Fall 2012     Ode to A.G.O.

MUST BE THE SEASON

MUST  BE  THE  SEASON    OF  THE  WITCH     YEAH

The disruption of the  seasons changing

again     No more  languorously laying

in the garden   tanning my legs   &

dredging  up words   amidst scantily

clad co-eds    pretending to learn

Now it’s chilly   my legs a garish yellow

and I am walking the halls of the A.G.O.

alone    Except for the   bearded tourists

who ask to take my picture  &  touch my                hair

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Fall  2012

DARKNESS

DARKNESS  AT  THE      EDGES

Maybe I can   tell you    dusk    like

Lawren Harris paints it:   All teals

gunmetal    shadows    black peeping

through the cracks    Utter stillness

&  world receding   Chill  creeping         into bones

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Fall  2012

TINY DANCER

TINY  DANCER  IN MY  HAND

Writing is such a sedentary

preoccupation  It is glaringly

egotistical too    But for you  –

my words  remain in a dark

bin  with a dried up millipede

or 2      If I were a dancer   I

would PLIÉ   my way   out of

here   For I am starting to sound

like   Dr. Seuss

No doubt I will be pilloried    in my lifetime

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Fall 2012

RISE UP RISE UP

Our house was a   very very very    fine house

We had a goat   &  a father    A horse  &  a  mother

&  a farm    We had a home on a ravine   on a street

near our school   &  a Grandfather on a stool in our

kitchen    Now life is meaner   and we   have some

plates & our mother’s vacuum cleaner & the toe bone

of a dinosaur     Who is as extinct    as we are

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..We’re makin new plans gonna start it again..

..O  rise and show your power..

Summer  2012           inspired by   CSNY     &     The Parachute Club

HE AIN’T CHAUNCEY

HE  AIN’T  CHAUNCEY  GARDINER      HE’S  MY  BROTHER

I have a brother named Illinois   and mostly he’s okay

Except for today   when he waxed poetic on my proposed

tat site     He suggested   only flatbone surfaces  or risk

wobbles  later on     So I ask you here Illinois:  Has the

Rising Sun  on your 6 pack  begun to  set  yet?   Because

that’s gonna be one sad day        Et tu, Brute?

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Fall 2012   Illinois is named for Illinois Jacquet   and known for his simple wisdom

HE’S NO JOHN

HE’S  NO  JOHN    F.  KENNEDY*

Tonight is the 2nd Presidential debate  &  Obama

took a drubbing in #1    A Harvard pundit wondered

if  he hadn’t received dire news   just prior   to appearing

live   on the tube     His face looked pale & his hound dog

eyes   watery     I wonder if  maybe he was told  when we’ll

be blown to  oblivion   by that tiny country run by    Ahmadinejad

This news may have in fact    dealt his bonhomie   a blow   –

                     So Good Luck Tonight    Barak O

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*Globe & Mail   pundit    October 16, 2012          

THE TIMES THEY ARE

O    THE  TIMES  THEY  ARE  A  CHANGING*

Mark Rothkowitz refused to hang his ART    in the

temple of  lunching & munching    Instead they grace

a church in a suburb  of  Huston    So I ask you  what is

the magical number of   loons   for which I would write

a jingle?   Or sell my soul to the Devil   so I could play   guitar?

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*Bob Zimmerman   plugs    BMO

Fall  2012

LAKE HURON RHAPSODY

LAKE  HURON  RHAPSODY

Lap  suck   lap   suck  white   gold   blue   Lap  suck  sizzle   don’t   fizzle  –  Come on –

Lap  suck   lap   suck   whew  wow  uh    I   could   really  get  used  to  this    By  the

shores  of  Lake  Huron  I   am   made   anew  &  know    beyond   a   reasonable   doubt

that   I   am   hopelessly    tangled   up    in     blue    Oh   and   by   the   way    how   is   it

that   I   spring    from   a   ravished    Russian   Jew ?    Not    Nabokov’s    daughter    or

the   Tsar’s     or   even  Akhmatova’s    No   just  a  little  bluebell   sprite    born   of   a

Cossack  kiss    Lap   suck   lap  suck   lap  suck      Now  I  really  got  da  blues

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Winter  2007