BIRDIE
BYE BYE BIRDIE
This is quite possibly the most spectacular day of our brief Canadian
Spring perhaps of our lives Syria promises a chemical attack tomorrow
I promise ice+biting winds in 180 or so days I suggest you squander the
Summer It will be unbearably humid+mosquito ridden And in close quarters
with the miserable TO herd you will sweat profusely +pray for a witness
2 robin redbreasts are pecking at each other’s eyes on the emerald grass of a
gorgeous enclosure bequeathed by an oil baron U of T Now inching ever closer
to me as I try not to kick at them with cloven Fluevog shod hooves Though they
sorely deserve it At present as well I have 2 women in their 90’s in my life 93+98
to be precise Both love an afternoon cocktail One will drink the cheap stuff The
other is Courvoisier VSOP all the way
($90/750 ml)
One is a prairie farm woman Built the railroads fer chrissakes The other an urban
beauty whose brisket won a national award back in 62 A few years after she hung
up her model’s gowns (+hats+gloves) All in my closet now which btw has a pail in
its midst to catch the Spring rain Everything is broken! Or is it Robert Zimmerman?
I for one am still not giving up on finding the Absolute Some of you who believe
these poems to be creatures unto death will find yourselves stunned!
I am in fact among the most hopeful on the planet Despite a lack of daffodils+
sunshine in my archive To you I say: Stick it in a very dark place For I am beyond
blown away by the Geworfenheit *(see Heidegger/thrownness) of finding myself
cast as daughter + daughter by proxy to the heroines of our story Yet now we head
back into darker territory Not surprised are you?
How dare the Gods give me this body + toss me here not as animal but as lowly:
Bi-ped Woman Jew Who? Too bad that the mother’s put one foot in front of
the other+keep on walking wizendom does not cut it with me Searching for the
Absolute makes a girl hungry Perpetually Now into our enclosure comes a man
dressed entirely in black carrying a giant camera Whereupon he begins to film my
denouement +catches me kicking the robin
__
He was obsessed with the arbitrariness
of having to have a body No use for him
to tell himself he shouldn’t feel this because
he felt this (Frank Bidart Metaphysical Dog Poems)
Lifetime Achievement Award Griffin Poetry Prize 2017
Summer 2017 Canada Day Eh?
songanddancegirl 