songanddancegirl

HANDYMAN

THE  HANDYMAN     CAN

I spent my Tuesday with 2 young

handymen  Tony was thick  with

dimples  & a cherubic smile   Grant

a simple man   was clumsy  yet honest    (I’ll throw in the gasket Miss)

It turns out that Tony loves Mozart

& Grant the Bible   He spoke in parables:

It’s like cheating on your golf swing   You

only cheat yourself

At the end of the day we were $877 in the red

Grant left whistling a tune  & Tony headed off

to bed his wife with matching dimples   *(all true)

At 4 a.m. I was wide awake   It is highly likely

we overpaid    I heard Amadeus cackle  & saw

Ben Hogan shake his head   Suddenly a bright sign

flashed at the foot of our bed   Suckers  Suckers

it seemingly read

__

Hey girls, gather round, listen to what I’m putting down.
Hey babe, I’m your handy man.
I’m not the kind to use a pencil or rule, I’m handy with love and I’m no fool.

James Taylor  1977 

SPRING  2014

GOODLUCK

TODAY  IS  THE  1st  DAY  OF  THE  REST  OF  YOUR  LIFE

PRESIDENT  GOODLUCK  JONATHAN

First they said 100   then 200   then 286 schoolgirls

abducted by terrorists in Nigeria   The military has

remained inexplicably absent    How can President

GOODLUCK  be trusted?

The hostages are being used as: shields in battle  cooks

& sex slaves  some were sold as brides for $13 a piece

On Saturday at a book signing event I met a young woman

who leaves this Spring for Congo   where she will adopt

runaway child soldiers:   We’ll take as many as we can

They careen toward one another   the lost children  & the would-be

mother   Like the chicks of cuckoos she will raise the young soldiers

as her own   They will never know their parents     Many will lose

their children to the terror-machine    in double-orphanings

This circle now   routine

In Rwanda alone  100,000 children were  displaced    in the genocide

(100 days of genocide 1994)     On Tuesday GOODLUCK’S    Minister

of Defence said:  All but 8 girls have been freed by security forces    

He retracted this statement on Thursday

Out in the Sambisa Forest  the girls lie     Why couldn’t Canada or the U.N.

send a cargo plane  along with our lone young would-be mother   to drop

blankets   food   & ladders?    Then GOODLUCK would be a hero  instead

of just a fool

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Angry parents & all able bodied men from the schoolgirl’s town

are taking to the forest   Some have swarmed the tribal chief’s

home   other’s are en-route to GOODLUCK’S

SPRING  2014

SLEEP

TO  SLEEP    PERCHANCE

At the 3.5 hr. mark the BELL  (310-BELL)

woman assures me that:  from our end 

there is no problem   Except that from

mine   there are many    I could have a

a short labour  in the time this is taking

Martin Scorsese may call to option my

book     & James Franco for coffee next

Tuesday    So I beg of you Anya at BELL:

re-instate my bleeping beep   bitch  

When I think of all the broken hearts I have

ministered to   who knows  maybe Anya herself

is in the throes    But for her I have so little

compassion   The modern machine  has weakened

my moral fibres

Today I asked a handsome young man to join me for

scotch & cigarettes   Did you know that the    10 Commandments

are suggestions   and  Mono-gamy  a social construct?

I learned all of this at U of T  during my undergraduate

degree

Where a bug-eyed Don propositioned me  in 1st yr. Poly-Sci

His Datsun 240Z  a pasty yellow   Years later I saw him on tv

in the little square beside the weather    Middle aged & spent

kicked out of our Government   he opined:  The insomniacs

best defence is  sleep   

With this  my squinty eyes smiled  & my pinched little face

broke into a grin    Gary Gary    you brilliant ex-politician

re-instate my beep    light my  fire!

__

SPRING   2014

MAGIC

DO   YOU  BELIEVE     IN  MAGIC?

Chocolate mess on ruby ring   hand sticky

Scent of rotting sweetness   Girl of 13 looks

like 36   Was she fresh faced at 7?   Now top

knot displays 6 inch roots  Face pinched with

transcendence gone wrong

She looks more like a beat up doll  than a human

girl    Wait!    those are stitches under her mouth

not  stainsofdisdain  And look  one foot is raggedy

full of holes   Even my beatnik doll  circa ’63  had

more joie de vivre

But she has her dog   flat & woollen at her feet

Is he made of socks?  His tail moves ever so slightly

in would-be merriment   It’s as though he knows

that glaring is   the new compassion

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SPRING  2014

DUST

ANOTHER  ONE  BITES  THE    DUST

I have voles in my backyard   I find them drowning

in the bucket   with bulging eyes and wistful smiles

Backstroking their way to Paradise   They will be the

first to enter the gates  when the trumpets blow and

the meek in droves  arrive home     Swing low

___

EARLY  SPRING  2014 

ETERNAL

ETERNAL   RETURN

We live in a world where 100 teenaged girls were

kidnapped from their school  in a copycat crime

Lagos Nigeria  late last night   And here at home in

Calgary  a gentle would-be law student rampaged at

a party with a knife    Also a copycat crime

In these first days of Spring we’re focusing on

renewal  but some darkness has moved in from

the edges   The gentle boy tweeted: the world needs

a hero    He also spoke of  dread & the fugitive mind

quoting the metal band  Megadeath

It’s likely that Yeats was right   The rough beast on slow

thighs has arrived  and arrived     and arrived

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EARLY SPRING  2014

FOOL

APRILL        YOU  FOOL

Wicked wind snaking up my back

Ides of March long gone   What can

be wrong  in the Heavens?  Or is April

the cruellest of months?  Hitler born on  20th

Passover plagues:  frogs locusts blood of 1st born sons

A comprehensive study funded by Bill & Melinda Gates

found: In April people brought up with fortunes of $25 million

or more  are dissatisfied with life   prone to depression   deep

anxieties about family  love   & work   (a.k.a. affluenza)

If you have ever wished you were an eagle  or a prairie vole

you will wish it more in April   Most have just crawled out

of snotty influenza   And don’t forget  you must discover

light again   and disappointment

But today you ride high citydweller  for the giant flies who

attacked you yesterday (18C)  are lying dead in gutters   And your

pink Springfling lipstick tastes of strawberries     & resurrection

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FALSE SPRING   2014

ATHENA

ATHENA     IN DYSTOPIA

Crusty bookseller Edwina places my

slim volume  next to Bukowski  nearing

ee cummings!

On the way to  BOOKMOBILE   he

would share his dreams    A cowboy

ideology   the farm  horses  grasslands

Ever planning the Great Escape from

suburban netherworld

Flat cement parking lot  beat up trailer

near  Overbrook  (street names decidedly  Utopian)

Cigarette smoke curling out of window

Green Impala   Cowgirl dismounts

thumbs crooked in pockets   Enters temple

of the  BOOK 

Neat rows coloured spines  slight smell of

mould   Looking for a crack in the universe

to crawl through   Now down the stairs   Impala

growls   Cowboy watches me carefully   flicks butt

Black poodle stirs      Giddy-up

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SPRING 2014    for the Horseman  Lee Atkins  1921 – 1989

RELIVE IT

YOU  WILL  HAVE  TO    RELIVE  IT

Has psychiatry medicalized  human suffering?

In his  Book Of Woe  Gary Greenberg has stirred

up a ruckus  He says: The new *DSM V  is a charade

of non-existent mental disorders   Akin to the 1st DSM

of 1952: Homosexuality is a sociopathic personality

disorder   Causing untold suffering & persecution

So much for the Hippocratic Oath

Will there be a DSM in the afterlife?  Even King Tut

(who was run over by a chariot & charred beyond

recognition when his embalming went wrong)  was

rehabilitated   Incest with his sister became: Dynastic

Inter-breeding   How many times must we crucify

Christ  before  Resurrection  finds itself in the next DSM?

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*Diagnostic & Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders

SPRING  2014

ITALIAN MEN

BEWARE  OF  ITALIAN  MEN   AT   THE  RCM

When you write at the Royal Conservatory of Music

you rub shoulders with  future flautists   Men with rich

baritones   Today an opera singer so beautiful  my inner

Aida wept

Statuesque  Italian  Loads of black hair  White aviators

Almond skin   Oh there he goes!   With a sneer so severe

my fantasy explodes   all over the bloke beside me

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SPRING  2014