songanddancegirl

LONELINESS

LONELINESS  LONELINESS

Hate hate   Love love   Loneliness cannot

be turned into a verb (go ahead & try)  It is

a stand alone noun   The lonely feeling will

alert you    You are about to become prey

Too close to the perimeter of the group

Social animals used to rely on one another

to survive   Loneliness meters now broken

Irreparably mutated by the Vollmer M35

and social media technology   We all live on

the periphery of the tribe

A new kind of post-industrial anomie   Prey

to loneliness   and 12 yr. old home grown

terrorists   Though loneliness trumps alcoholism

smoking and obesity   40% of Americans   (especially bartenders)

die of loneliness each year

Loneliness is not depression   which should be

treated by  a professional   There is no treatment

for loneliness  But there is an  APP  simulating the crowd

Beware   this will only confuse your fight/flight instinct

& you will loneliness yourself to death

Pandora Mclean-Hoover clinical social worker in

Pano Texas   cautions: Feelings of loneliness will

not go away on their own   Go to a bar & talk to

a bartender (Globe & Mail November 2013)

Or just be still   in the dying days of our tribal

consciousness   and you may hear   the last laugh   reverberating

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Late Fall   2013

Please Give

PLEASE  GIVE  AS  MUCH  AS  YOU  POSSIBLY  CAN

Yesterday 3 men gave me $20    2 in a restaurant

1 in a shoe store   My book seemed the reason for

the largesse    All 3 were Italian  & amorous   The 3rd

sold me a pair of shoes made in Italy

One man was smooth & hard all at once   one was doleful

the other earnest    Today no one has approached with

money   though I wish someone would

It is late Fall   crisp & sunny   and I am receiving sidelong

glances   My Italian shoes are dust magnets   and a lack of

sleep has corroded parts of me    generating a well hammered

exhaustion     One dream will have to be removed surgically

A black market has sprung up for my book   and a committee

struck to explore the enforcement of:  sleep   happiness   &

suave Italian men    I am especially encouraged by this   development

Fall  2013

SHAKE

SHAKE  YOUR    MEANING-MAKER

I am aware that you have come to expect

meaning  from me   No 1/2 way crucifixions

You want the words nailed-down   Yet it was

Picasso who railed  at being nailed  to the wall

And I do want to satisfy you   But sometimes

meaning is muddy   and I have not crawled this

far to be your meaning-maker   modern Sapien

Meaning is a relatively new gene variant in Homo erectus

We used to be able to tolerate not-knowing   some 1.6

billion yrs. ago   Genetically predisposed to spot danger

we now struggle to see angry faces in the botoxed crowd

You wear your mortality like a bullseye  under a sky of cosmic

blue   where the clouds are moaning  over you   And like our

newest planet   PSOJ318.5-22    (no poets at NASA)   which does

not orbit a star    you have been cast adrift   in a world with a

serious shortage of  silence

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Fall  2013

ZOO

ZOO  OF  THE    HUMAN

The entomologist Renzo Perissinotto

has had a new species of Scarab Beetle

named for him (G.perissinottoi)   Sacred

in ancient Egypt  their images were imprinted

on amulets & funerary objects  A recent study

found that Scarabs mate  quick & dirty  with just

about any bug around

While 64% of Canadian students (age 18-24) said

they’d had a sexual encounter in the past year

without any method of birth control   Sexual health

expert Blondie Chaplain said:  There are gaps in knowledge  for sure     

A more interesting observation is that regarding the

Higgs boson:  Primary particles are almost all the same  it’s

just their juxtaposition that makes your flesh flesh  and wood   wood

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Late Fall   2013

HOG

HOG  TOWN

A frigid wind whips up my    pant-leg

Where are those tiny vagabonds  of

Summer?  Shrieking   simulating sex

and unspeakable acts of violence

*as witnessed by poet   Philosopher’s Walk U of T

Summer camp in down-town T.O.  gone

terribly wrong    Now warehoused in

schools   Un-holy little havoc wreakers

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* Marc & Craig Kielburger (Free The Children)

encouraged parents to choose peaceful Halloween

heroes this year. Reportedly Toronto children in huge

numbers  went out as Mayor Ford   and he as a T.O. Maple Leaf

Late Fall  2013

MELANCHOLY

MELANCHOLY  MAMMAL  LULLABIES

Today a 100 yr. old tree came crashing down in

the park   & the crack addled Mayor was caught

on video   Last night at a Halloween party a 90 yr.

old wore a T-shirt: 2nd virginal birth  Her sister said:      It’s a boy!

More and more the centre is imploding   as rough

magistrates & Prime Ministers    clamour to be    re-born

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*small brain  large face tucked below braincase   rounded

cranial vault   small brow ridges   no capacity for art   symbolic

thought  or full blown language   this creature lived 1.8 million

years ago 

Fall  2013

BIRD BREATH

BIRD  BREATH    AND BEE  STING

square suburban yard   in the vinyl

swimming pool   lightening overhead

groundhogs tremble in bushes before

attacking youngest brother    father never

believed him  but the rest of us do

other brother stung repeatedly  fell into verdant

ravine  one day late spring    mother & neighbour

mother carry him to local doctor   who loves

mother’s best friend

older brother waits for us  menacingly    we who

have plucked every flower on street for Mother’s

Day   police catch baby bro  chubby legs  too slow

friend asks why we stole the dinkytoys      because we wanted them!

blood-red cardinal falls from tree & shivers in the snow   as

boat-loads of freedom from childhood melodramas    wing their way

but haven’t arrived just yet

—

Late Fall 2013