songanddancegirl

MOTHER

THE MOTHER OF CONVENTIONS

bernie so cute  take him home to meet

my mother   michelle  giantess in flats

blue swirly dress   monica wore a blue

dress too  now it’s in smithsonian   she

can’t walk down the street  or hold her

head high   so kneels daily in synagogue

thirsty   +unrepentant

if hillary  the best changemaker  aw shucks

bill knows  is not elected  monica may be

beatified by bernie’s tribe   bill  feeble +

hoarse  holds his head high  but leaves out

lewinsky   juiciest tidbit in mundane speech

about wife’s perfection   if she was so perfect

why bill  why?

double standard  though impeached  off scot-

free   would you buy a used car from this man?

Yet his was hardly the 1st oval office/cum brothel

Jackie kept kids in another house down the road

so that when marilyn visited  her barren womb

would not cry a river for soon slain brothers

their pool parties with starlets  included a future suicide

+another  beheaded in a collision   would bernie do that to

jane?  he spoke with such fervour on monday  you want to

protect him  from  good men who do nothing  +mad donald’s

mob  who will make america hate again

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Summer 2016

TEARS

BRISKET & TEARS

he grew more pinched each time i appeared

even when books sold i had to be bold   ahem

want to settle up?  oh ya sure   perma-sneer

firmly in place   face pleasantly porcine

today he handed me 2 remaining copies   we need

room  lots of new poetry stuff coming in   sharklike

grin   but you’ve sold 10   have you sold 10 of liz smart?

or gert stein?

prostration stopped short of damnation  or the hundreds

of words in next collection will wander west queen west

dispossessed  alone  moaning periodically   +giving off the

scent of desperation  +gertrude’s final brisket

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It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much

doing nothing, really doing nothing.  Gertrude Stein 

Summer 2016

KIDS

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT?

1/3 of all Ontario high school students are

suffering from moderate to severe depression

+ anxiety   This an alarming leap from 2013

when only 1/4 rated their mental health as fair

to poor

Why would this be the case?   In a world where a

man with yellow hair +a perma-tan is the newest

opoid  of the masses   Forget hillbilly heroin  the

Donald is: cultural heroin  according to the Atlantic

Monthly   Then there’s  Melania  real housewife from

hell   teasing us with bromides cribbed from  Michelle!

Let’s face it  the kids are spending 5 hrs a day plugged

in   wondering when the next lone wolf is coming to a

theatre near you   And worrying about a virus found recently

in  Culex quinquefaciatus  a mosquito 20 times more common

than the one behind Dengue

We have yet to find an exotic alien civilization  +are faced with

the cold realization  that humanity may be truly alone   Except

for the man with yellow hair: Americans call them hillbillies,

rednecks, white trash, but I call them friends +family

Kids  your life is ahead of you  the world your oyster!  Bromides+

platitudes   Grab hold of the chair in your parent’s kitchen  + don’t

let them pry your fingers off  or tempt you with slogans like:

Real war heroes don’t get captured

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Summer 2016

MADONNA

LADY MADONNA

men are gesticulating menacingly   i see them

in the rearview regularly   my driving is not all

that it might be   no doubt struggling with ptsd

the last lone-wolf attack in Nice  has left me

scanning the streets for white cube trucks  with

refrigeration

why did he rent a mini morgue?   had he intended

to store the crushed bodies for experiments?   no

that was Mengele   wrong war   Today i did see a white

truck  +imagine it running amok in trinity bellwoods

park   eviscerating the curated calm

when a woman runs smack into my car   she hits with a

thud  +falls to the ground   then up on her feet  she sprints

down queen street   i make eye contact with the driver next

to me  his eyes suggest a shrug  of complicity?

i step out into traffic+honking   +run my hand over the

madonna shaped dent   i wonder if this speaks of a turning

point  as marian apparitions often do

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In the spring and summer of 1916, nine-year-old Lucia Santos and her cousins 

were herding sheep near their home village of Fátima, Portugal. They claimed to

have experienced the visitation of an angel on three occasions. The angel identified

herself as “The Angel of Peace”.  This visitation was deemed belief worthy in 1946.

Mid Summer  2016

REVOLUTION

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION

The next revolution is of the Pokemon variety

Just download the app  Pokemon Go  +your

smartphone GPS will lead you to monsters

embedded in historical sites  like:  Auschwitz

the Holocaust Museum D.C.  +the National War

Memorial

Just be careful if you play the game in a state where

open/carry  is all the rage  or  stand your ground  is firmly

in place   You may bump into a gunslinger at McDonald’s

where 3.6 million Pikachus have been hidden   And if it is

after a U.S. massacre where an AR-15 was used  it is likely

your gunslinger will use one on you +blow your Pokemon

ass from here to the Pecos

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*in the wake of all U.S. gun massacres the shooter’s gun of 

choice sells out in seconds

** west of the Pecos River  a 19th century place of wild west mayhem

like much of the continental U.S. today where in 2013 there were 

30,636 deaths by gun violence

Summer 2016

SHAKE

SHAKE YOUR MONEY MAKER

Does man want to prove that there is life

on other planets  or  that he exists?   Theories

abound re: human consciousness   A mote in

the eye of the Lord gone rogue  stuck on ON

Meaningless static

Today my significant other said the next revolution

will be  the revolution of meaning  When the bloom

falls from the rose of materialism  +those who have

never sought meaning  (mostly because it’s free)  will

sharpen their forks  +fight you for yours

Culled in the desperate hours when you pined away for

2.5 vacations annually  +a cottage on a packed peninsula

where you would sit  sweaty+corpulent  Blissfully unaware

that in Jeb’s boathouse over there  unspeakable things are

being done to the fatted calf

__

Summer  2016

KILLER

THE KILLER IN ME IS THE KILLER IN YOU

He was a sturdy spider   A jumper  with thick

juicy legs    I chased him for 20 minutes

pulling a muscle  +smashing a $5,900 Meisen

clock   The cherubs wept bitterly  resisting my

efforts to placate with minuscule gummy Mary Jane

+copious amounts of crazy glue   Louboutin shoe now

securely glued to fashionable jacuzzi tub

Spider juice runs an obscene blue+kelly green   Every

night I hear hopeless cherubs moan  as spider guy’s ghost

bites me through 400 count Egyptian cotton sheets   Luxuries

not distraction enough from headlines  or creeping paranoia

Mary Jane gummies finally getting the best of me

Osama’s son Hamza: #WEAREALLOSAMA  (are we all Gautama  +the

crucified fisherman too?)  now in his mid 20’s  threatens a  9/11 re-do

Lives in a bunker to this day   Father’s blood paints walls inky red  obscene

brain splats  a Rorschach for the ages

__

In another twist  Aspire Assist  has been developed by U.S. doctors   A weight

loss tool  both effective +profitable  A device is surgically placed in the stomach

with a port just above the belly-button  to jettison a portion of one’s meal   How to

deal with juxtapositions?   The sublime+ the ridiculous   The sacred+ the mundane

What would Jesus say?

__

Brad Pitt + Hermann Rorschach

a juxtaposition for the ages

Summer  2016

MONEY

NEW CAR  CAVIAR  FOUR STAR DAYDREAM

THINK I’LL BUY ME A FOOTBALL TEAM

When you buy a lottery ticket does the glinty-eyed

guy wish you GOOD LUCK!   Does he want you to share

the truckload of cash about to fall in your lap?   This week

30 million   I expect he may want lunch  at least   or a

deeper piece of the action?  I promise him a house  He cries

salty tears of gratitude  +tithes me his first born child

__

Summer 2016

CHROME

LONG MAY YOU RUN WITH YOUR CHROME HEART SHINING

All the girls have slick legs  chunky sandals

carved calves   Long medium brown hair   ever

so gently curled   Big sunglasses   Black Mercedez

+white bulldogs  de rigueur   The men drive souped

up cars in garish colours  wear too skinny suits  +have

too dark tans   One has a silver tooth  glinting in the

curated sun    A girl beside me says: twenty-five is a 

power age    Yes    Just like 5 was the age of immortality

+60 the age of a creeping yearning for  more brave

__

Summer 2016   Notes from the Thompson Hotel  Toronto

HURTING

I’VE WALKED FOR MILES MY FEET ARE HURTING

Running down a narrow path  black night  freezing cold

Snow   I know it’s dangerous +check over my shoulder

periodically   No boogieman after me    Silly

Path leads to door  inside is a slot in the floor  where the

top of a ferris wheel pokes through  You can either take a

seat  or stay in the closet like space    Believe me  I check

carefully for alternate exits

The only other one is the way I came   Dark path  black ice

remember?  But I am not good with heights so I linger in the

closet  +ponder my fate   I notice that the wheel is powered by

huge elephants  who are hosed down  mercifully

Otherwise they walk in slow circles methodically  Does this scene

remind you of anything?  Is the black icy path the birth canal?  The

ferris wheel  the wheel of life?  The elephants  we humans  chained

for eternity?

Wait a second!  I notice an area adjacent to the closet like cell   There is

a guy  +a girl   youngish  who are gatekeepers of a sort  Gods?  Parents?

The he  tells me  as he slides a needle into my arm  that the drug called

____   will make it easier  + I will now be able to handle the job of the

elephant

I will be the power behind the ever turning wheel!   Does this make me feel

better?   More in control?  I will be a giant beast of burden  with huge ears

+a trunk   I can crush the evil-antlike humans at will   And wait   I think he

said the drug even takes the burden out of being a beast    Yes   Please

I get it    When you are born  you go to sleep  forget all of the wild in your

being   Then life  the drug   the dopamine  becomes addicting  +you sell your

real-estate  to get onto the wheel   Why  it’s only a carnival ride!

Much later  when your old elephant bones are weary  they spray you with

cool water  + it’s glorious   You even begin to love a little  being a beast

The very one who powers  the goddamned machine!

Now sitting in a cafe  mid-summer’s day  A girl with tanned bouncing breasts

glides by   ball cap  iPad   wicked grin   The breeze is heavenly    I’ll have some

more of that needle    Please

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In memory of Elie Wiesel  Jew #A-7713  who walked the wheel in Buchenwald

and later Auschwitz  until age 16  when in April 1945  he was liberated 

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Summer  2016