songanddancegirl

SURVEY

SURVEYMONKEY

Are you the blowsy embodiment of

the prevailing narcissistic delusion?

Do you have a chore whore?  Spend

your life wanting  getting  & emptying

only to need a re-fill?  Do you covet a

2nd tv  with fancy technology  invented

5 seconds ago  that gives new meaning to:

remote-control  soul-hole?  Do you have

 the words: wooden puppet on your t-shirt?

When was the last time you noticed a scent

other than the All-Protector  emanating from your

leathers?  Do you lead a master class in acting

every time you answer the phone?  Feign happy

busy   enchanted?

OKAY  I will stop torturing you  gentle reader

If you answered yes to 3 or more questions

something is festering in your pop-up life  & they

won’t want to harvest your DNA    Stand very still

something epic is about to happen  in 136 seconds

Did you miss it?

Ya me too

__

Bonus Questions:

* hands up if you think life is pre-ordained

*hands up if you wish you could start over again

SPRING  2014

DEVASTATIO

THE  DEVASTATIO

Now used to Winter’s wasteland

we stagger into Spring    Cherry blossoms

corrupted    covering our streets

In  bankrupt daze of Summer we’ll

run from all that blue: umbrellas  canopies

pools and Margaritas    O false beatitude

Winter our beloved   & infuriating Queen

will not be seen for 183 days    So here is a clue

city-dweller: quarry the light   fill your cups & barrels

Greet the coming rigor mortis as royalty    & you will survive

once more with your little white face   to witness the return

of   Spring!     March 21st  2015

When terrified spring flowers shudder at our feet

Your winter-devastations  likely the best thing about

you    will stubbornly retreat

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SPRING 2014

SUN RA

WHEN CHARLIE MINGUS SLIPPED SUN RA  THE ANSWER

Vatican releases molestation figures 3,400

credible cases since 2004   To sleep perchance

to control your dreams   zap brain with gamma

waves during REM sleep  (Goethe U Frankfurt)

Only 250 Blue whales left on the planet

A final frontier of debauchery   cheri?

Can we now return to the Mothership please?

Only if your heart weighs more than a feather

& your soul more than a flea   By learning how

to control your dreams   you may reduce the

emotional impact of life as we know it  & there

is hope that you may recover   though the Oracle

will be in a perma-state of PTSD

No more premonitions  No more déjà vu   Remember

when it was impossible not to be alive?  Now gradually you

will fall prey to: Scapadoobopbopaphobia   (*fear of freestyle Jazz)

A lamentable state  for which there is no known cure

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Le Sony’r Ra   1914-1993

SPRING 2014

SCAR JO

HER

She searches the urban streets

& country roads around Glasgow

She is the man-eater  An alienated

alien  landed in the  *(spoiler alert)

nude body of:   Scarlett Johansson

Much has been made of her eyes

(aren’t they always a touch dead?)

Less about her ears tongue fingers

nose breasts   Though much of the

western world longs to catch a glimpse

White Swedish orbs  pneumatic like

Lenina’s in the Brave New World

Scarlett now impregnated  always

impenetrable  I will never reveal the

father’s identity  or the precise location

of my G Spot

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Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month

we flood the whole system with adrenin. It’s the complete

physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects

of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello,

without any of the inconvenience.

Brave New World   Aldous Huxley

SPRING  2014

ANSWER

THE  ANSWER  IS     BLOWING

You couldn’t find a normal girl if you fell

over one   I said     Later in the conversation

he repeated this sentence verbatim   We were

on the same page   He wasn’t hurt   more bemused

Knowing too  that as his oldest friend my words have

traction   gravitas    fidelity

I am sitting by a fountain watching a couple of ducks

one with an emerald neck & orange feet   the other quite

ordinary   They kind of flop into the fountain   It’s not a

dive   & it’s not a jump   It’s almost unintentional    One

moment looking at the water   the next  in the water

So are we puppets of some other force that is driving us?

Or do we drive ourselves?   My friend would say: You make

plans  & the Puppet Master  laughs    He  who always ends up

with fire-eating  Go Go dancers   slim androgynes     This makes

him pretty interesting   But to this he responds: If I am so interesting    

what am I doing here?

This is understandable    His Bedouin parents circumnavigated

the Gobi until he was 9   then made a bee-line  for civilization

He knows better than most  that normal festers   & that the

Puppet Master is in fact one : Robert Zimmerman

A freak gust just tossed my statistics on pedophile priests into

the fountain where they will float amidst the detritus of winter

for all eternity

__

Oh hear this Robert Zimmerman
I wrote a song for you
About a strange young man 
called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
His words of truthful vengeance
They could pin us to the floor
Brought a few more people on
And put the fear in a whole lot more

(David Bowie    Song For Bob Dylan)

SPRING   2014  
 

MOTHERS

MOTHER’S DAY CANCELLED    CHIBOK   NIGERIA

1^st day warm enough to brave my bench

Phantom children scream under trees

Camp resumes in 7 weeks   Soon they will

be gnashing their little teeth in every crevice

at U of T   1 boy threatened to slit my throat

late last Summer   as I cobbled words on this

very bench

At this moment my main concern is that the

world pitch in to free the girls kidnapped en

masse in Nigeria   The same way they did for

the missing plane   Couldn’t the ships & choppers

be loaned?   How about a day or 2 for the missing

girls?   12-18

Head terrorist laughed giddily: I will sell them as

slaves   Infidel women must be sold as slaves or

married off  even if 9    Is there a connection between

the small boy wielding a knife   & the growing violence

seeping into the cracks?    Our Canada was home to

a mass stabbing   Graduation party   Calgary   2014

In Nigeria President Goodluck’s wife  Patience  had a

woman arrested for impersonating a mother of the missing

girls   The Mum’s were busy so they sent an envoy    Patience

was slighted   In the mean-time plaintive sounds of girlsong

can be heard  as the mother’s approach   in restless dreams

__

SPRING 2014

QUOTIDIAN

THE  RE-INVENTION  OF    LIFE

harrowing  beautiful  vital  intense  daring

rare   6 of 117 adjectives used to describe

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s  books   In Norway

he is such a sensation  there are days when

discussing him is forbidden

After reading him   Ian Brown wrote:  (April 26 2014 Globe&Mail)

Childhood is the last time we live entirely

and happily within our inner selves   It seems

that Karl depressed the shit out of Ian   Or was

Ian already depressed?  Was Karl?

I have read short tracts   I will not read the thousands

of pages   Apparently 573 chronicle the banality of

marital domesticity   & a bowel movement or 2

What I will do:

* sit in front of a tree planted in ’63  & remember when it was a twig

* conjure the cornstalks that grew & grew  10ft. tall  a pall over suburbia

* remember that the Magnolias will be bare in 2 weeks time

* ditto the Chinese Cherry trees (Trinity Bellwoods Park  &Robards Library)

For chrissakes  choose any ditch   & count the objécts found in it

Is the problem really that we replaced an all knowing God with

information?  That there is no mystery?

None of this is true modern citydweller   Do not buy into the propaganda

of depressed intellectuals   Go plant some corn  ride a horse  pee in a field

Don’t let the purveyors of glum ruin your un-lived life   Mostly don’t feel

like a failure when you cannot conjure the lightening of  the  first-time

That’s what first times were invented for   Ian & Karl

I implore you gentle reader:

lick a pole in January

work on your night moves

suck on a chili-dog

marry a Bedouin

__

* Dazed quail. 

**shortest sentence in The Alexandria Quartet   L. Durrell 1958   3,200 pages

SPRING   2014

ANTS

ROLL  IN  THE  GRASS    GET  ANTS  IN  YOUR  PANTS

Said Aunt May Gasparini   She took us to the Nutcracker

with her daughter René   & let us choose anything from

the Eaton’s catalogue    I chose a beatnik doll with khol

smudged eyes & black tights   My brother requested Pebbles

He later developed an unnatural affection  for Frank Zappa

May died young   just after she & Remo divorced    Our families

lost touch   But the back-split ranch house  filled with fieldstone

& terrazzo   remains a  psychic-shrine to 60’s cool     Hip parent’s   

laughter   cigarette smoke    Now somewhere back in  the Gatineau    

May of the sly smile   & red hair

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SPRING    2014

TEXAS TEA

THE  BEVERLY  HILLBILLIES

We lived next door to a family of 4

The Churlies    The mother had dimples

everywhere   in kitten heels by 8 a.m.

The dog was hit by the Canada Post truck

My father predicted this stroke of bad luck

The daughters were look-alikes  & prone to

tears   One day the father  a beefy&arrogant

man  went down on one knee  in front of me

He said:  I wish my daughters would read a book

It seemed too late  the dye was cast   It would be

swimming pools & movie stars for the Churlie girls

In their dreams  mostly   in their dreams

__

Granny: Elly May! Don’t spit from a moving vehicle.

Wait till it’s stopped. 

(Beverly Hillbillies 1962-1971)

SPRING  2014