songanddancegirl

I AM

I AM    DEAD

The  walking dead   the walking wounded

Night of the   living dead    Nights these    days

so redolent with  awake   Can’t possibly

be ready for the  wake ?   Read the clearest

tale of a man’s  lastday    Mugged in Brixton

punch  in side   is a knife    glint    too late     Girl in yellow dress jumps onto the bus

He knows what’s been done   but like  Anna K.

he cannot rise up   the  slow train  is upon him

Walt says:  Has anyone supposed it lucky           to be born ?

It is just as lucky to die

Bird against window  legs twitch  then stop

mid twitch   plump    slash of yellow between

eyes      Father says:  Let’s go –   and boards

the  slow train     In Mexico picnics  on graves

O Walt   who need fear   the merge ?  

Not contained between my hat and boots  

I come again    and again

__

May His great name be exalted and sanctified

..And he will resuscitate the dead and

raise them up to eternal life..      Mourners Kaddish Prayer

Spring  2013   Songanddancegirl     Zadie Smith     Walt Whitman

LOST

LOST    BOY

Dropped you off on a clear winter

morn   No one knew that you were

alone    on the porch until 5    Xmas

presents now with frost   tears frozen

around nose & chin   Will you ever see          her again ?

She calls you   loverboy    Now  abandoned        boy

Rage filling veins   future angina   motherhater

Who might have saved you ?

We sew a           crooked heart for  Mother’s Day

You trash the room    and threaten to slash me

with Captain Hook’s     hook    But there are no   theory

books  or maps    for heading into this territory                     

__

I was a lostboy that was found
Drowning underwater
I was a lost toy now I’m found
You patched me back together
Sewing up the leather on my arms
On my arms        (The Subways)

Spring  2013

EN-DARKEN

EN-DARKENMENT

Radio blares:  Fire in Russia today

at a  remote Psychiatric hospital  The

dead are 26-76 yrs. old   many drugged

Firefighters couldn’t get  to them    Ferry

not running  Many died trying to climb out

windows    windows barred

Fires  smoke  ferryboats  screaming  running

burning flesh   Sounds like a trip on the River        Styx

How many had visions like these ?  Where the

visions became the psychosis they were sedated

for   Precognition can be a mental health condition

All reminiscent of   The White Hotel* –     A patient of

Freud’s has visions    of a bloody siege    & a bayonet

wound near the heart   She ended up in a ravine at         Babi Yar

Have my child clients dreamed their torments

envisioned their  dungeons ?    Some certainly

Once in  a dream   a crumpled old man said to me:

Savior Complex eh ?  I wonder  if perhaps I am not

saving them     but it is they  who are saving me

__

*The White Hotel  D.M. Thomas depicts scenes from Babi Yar a ravine in Kiev and the site of a series of massacres by the Nazis . The most notorious took place on September 29–30, 1941, when 33,771 Jews were killed in a single operation. 

Spring  2013

DO YOU

DO  YOU  HELP  BULLIES    TOO ?

He had cribhead until 10  black eyes      crooked grin

relentlessly pursued by cool kids             dehumanized     with regularity

He so wanted to be   one of them            & go to their  California parties

He always knew he was smarter              than they were

Used abused discarded   hair grew          on flat part of head by 10

Began to feel human   fight back               go psycho if hands laid on him

Always a monster here   a moloch            there

Mouldy sandwiches   feces smeared        on door handles

LET ME OUT OF HERE  I HAVE       TO GO TO SCHOOL

__

Mother Mother bulge-eyed fat,  dress       unbuttoned    barefoot in the pharmacy

Allen Ginsberg   Kaddish   Paris  1958

Spring  2013

THE BROTHERS

THE  BROTHERS    TSARNAEV

He is lying in a hospital bed now  a  19 yr. old  jihadi ?

Teaches swimming   at Harvard   Brother a flamboyant

boxer  *(I have one too)      Dzhokhar   worshipped him

Ran him over   with his car during the standoff

last week   Grenades (bought online)  bullets

flying through the MIT night    27 yr. old cop

dead     Brother crushed   not a militant anymore

Now Dzhokhar is nodding and bleeding as CIA

agents decipher motive   And the papers say that:

This should send a message to other terrorists.     JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED

Which is of course    paradoxical

They are serving  (jihadi) justice    & dying

for the  Cause    is instant martyrdom    Your        PETIT-JUSTICE

is meaningless to radical militants      on streets, and trains, and planes,     and boats

___

Spring 2013   *Radicalization on the net is the #1 homegrown threat to civilization

EVERYTHING

EVERYTHING     IS  BROKEN

I don’t want to be in Lady Liberty

when they  blow her up    I do want     them

to leave the Sandyhook parents alone

and stop dragging them to banquets &

marathons     *(Boston 15/04/13)

I don’t understand how a boyman  in

North Korea has his finger on the trigger

I wonder what Walt Whitman would say

about  all the  haters  on rampages  today

The gorillas  guerrillas who use kitchen

equipment to maim and kill   Then walk

steadfastly through   the streets of your

town  in baseball caps  one black  one white

Walt Whitman an American rough who said:

Whoever degrades another degrades me   For

every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you

Does this mean that we are all the 2 brothers from       Chechnya ?

Osama   Mark David Chapman   Kim Jong-il ?

That this Human Tribe   is ONE ?

Are the atoms of Gautama and the Crucified Fisherman

and the Liberators of Auschwitz  inside of us    too?

In this  I defer to the  father & mother of American     verse

How different his Boston Ballad would read  on April 15 2013

__

Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken

Spring  2013    Songanddancegirl    Walt Whitman   Bob Dylan   Harold Bloom

JUST ANOTHER

JUST  ANOTHER    WORD ?

I’m failing high school  bored  no interest

going through the motions   Pretending at     becoming

in these concrete halls   (was anyplace uglier?)

Then I remember :  I already have a Master’s

degree !  And I don’t have to wander aimlessly

anymore   It’s like being rescued from inertia

Like the majestic white lion  in a cage    full of    rage    + resignation

set  free by a large hairy rat   who gnaws through

the bars      The cage door now  ajar

How many think that    freedom   is the most natural

thing to be ?             (99.3%)

Will the lion stay inside    lazy & complacent ?

Or wander the plain  as free as the wind blows    (as free as the grass grows)

Would   the watchers  on buses and streetcars  bolt ?

Or sit there  stupefied

__

..the heartbroken salesman lights another cigarette ..the stars are out

dusk has fallen on a Colorado road..

Spring  2013   Songanddancegirl    Allen Ginsberg      Matt Monroe   Janis Joplin

SO YOU THINK

SO  YOU  THINK      YOU  CHOSE  YOUR    ROAD?

The road taken if not chosen

The road chosen if not taken

Dangling on the precipice    between choosing

and being chosen by   and faking it completely     Wing it  Ad lib  Ad Nauseam

Among the cheerful robots of the MASS society

LIFE IS NOT A READ THROUGH

__

Spring  2013  Songanddancegirl  Cara Benson  C.Wright Mills  Chili Peppers

ASCENDING

ASCENDING     & DESCENDING

Taylor had  D.I.D.*   so did his mother

His father (who is also his grandfather)

babysat when he was 2    It is thought

that Grandpa died in the morning and

that Taylor sat with him   and on him

until  mother arrived at 5

One day in a session  after we called 911        (who didn’t come)

I said: Why the hell don’t you  HURRY!

in a flurry of countertransferential rage

Taylor was not impressed:  Therapist never say  hell     it’s a bad word

Later when he was 10 we practised  the future:

dating   marriage    dinners at Olive Garden 

a daughter named Brit   and a bunker in the

basement for storms or the apocalypse

Therapist:  I will protect you

Taylor:  But what if they have guns?

Therapist:  I will always do the best I can   no matter what

__

Spring  2013

* Dissociative Identity Disorder: a rare disorder in which two or more

personalities with distinct memories and behavior patterns exist in one

individual; attributed to disruptions in memory caused by trauma

ALL VIOLINS

ALL  VIOLINS       BROKEN

They  showed you  to me   today

You looked about 70   chic   salt & pepper       & dashing

You circled around me as though you

would  reach out   I knew they  orchestrated

this because I won’t be here in 46 yrs. to see

you    in your   dapper glory

I knew too that  I was standing between       dimensions   

And maybe your 70 yr. old self is looking at me

thinking   how can this be?

It’s like when I saw my father approaching me

down in the subway   an old sick man shuffling along     in his slippers

__

Spring  2013    Songanddancegirl     Allen Ginsberg       

Walt Whitman 1855  Who need be afraid of the merge?