songanddancegirl

NUMBERED

OUR ENDLESS NUMBERED DAYS

creep into house after dusk  drop bikes on floor

of garage  cat with kittens  eyes glinting  it’s 50 yrs.

since  +you still remember this   grab a kitten in the

morning on the way to school  take a long scratch to

back of hand   worth it   something alive in your pocket

+in the coat closet

more alive than teacher droning on about the Voyageurs

canoes  traplines  James freakin Bay   stole your mother’s

red silk robe for the play on French Canada!  teacher impressed

you knew how a bishop dressed   not so your mother   glamorous

montrealer   hats+gloves+gowns

later at u of t studying shakespeare   a mid summer night’s dream

mother’s gown dressed the Faerie Queen   professor patricia moodie

stuck her hand inside  tickled your fancy  +read the label in near ecstasy

by GOD she cried   it’s a fucking Schiaparelli !

__

Spring 2015

ANIMAL

I AM NOT  AN ANIMAL

Maybe there is a limit to how much of a good thing

is a good thing   There is a car in my neighbourhood

with every kind of plastic flower glued to it   I have

never seen the person who inhabits it   Surely she has

risen above this melancholy   +can hook me up with the

Oracle  just beyond the gate

__

Have you forgotten what we were like then   when we were

still first rate  and the day came fat with an apple in it’s mouth

(Frank O’ Hara  Animals  1950   dead at 40  crushed by a Jeep) 

Oracle of Delphi

Spring  2015

REAPING

THE REAPING  &  THE SOWING

time  love  death  religion  life   What if

these are real  +not just illusions?  What if

wild men who caught and sang the sun in

flight  did not go gentle?

Somerset said: dying is a dull+dreary affair  

my advice to you is have nothing whatever to

do with it    History will keep grasping for you

anyway

The poet Clive James (Sentenced to Life)

dying of leukemia+emphysema   He with bandaged

head where carcinoma radiated  said: I was faithless

sly  deceitful  I regret it all

Clarity seems to unite the death memoirists    Clive writes

in a recent poem: when did you ever see so much sweet beauty?

Why wait to smell Mr. Reaper’s acrid breath?  Take the cutting

shears to your life   leave only what is vital    Oliver Sacks  the

psychiatrist with multiple metastases in his liver says: I want to

travel!

So can the living learn to think like the dying?  Self-flagellation only

works while flagellating  Egos are almost immune to death  otherwise

who would get out of bed?  And episodic amnesia is exactly what it is

cracked up to be    Each day brings another shot at immortality

the day they will find the cure

ban the bomb   resurrect ronald reagan

who finally banned the neutron bomb he

considered the perfect death-ray!

What if your favourite places: the last bohemia sinking into the sea

a whaling island packed with Range Rovers until Labour Day  exerted

a magnetic pull  greater than your  grey city with dirty mounds of melting

ice +dog shit everywhere  The one that has an iron grip on your soulless glory

Cry UNCLE   or   gnaw off your left foot   + RUN

__

I am taking percoset to sleep, and I have

become an addict, and don’t care!! 

Drugs are wonderful. Looking forward to Spring!

(excerpt from 97 yr. old mother-in-law’s diary)

Spring  2015