songanddancegirl

IMMORTALITY

I WANT MY IMMORTALITY NOW  MO FOS

WHILE I CAN STILL ENJOY IT

Dentist said: It’s very bad  while poking around inside

my head   But I already knew that   Mouthfuls of blood

since Xmas   Yet here in bleak  Reaper-friendly January

the crucifixtions of 2017 begin to evaporate  As the pull of

Spring seduces  with bunnies  chicks +chocolate   Carlton

card hell  around the corner  Won’t you please just let me

bleed out in peace?

Easter  manufactured from the pagan celebration of Oster

Worship of the egg   The Great Round  Giant hips+thighs  All

that the fame whoring culture of now despises   No you are NOT

woke  as Ms. Steinem + other hip intellectuals would lead you

to believe

Last night on the Grammy’s  scantily clad young women gyrating

on the knees of men   Hair flicking  Soul eviscerating   How do you

expect to get behind #TIMESUP  amidst all of this vibrating?  I mean

to really make a dent  +stop worshipping the objectification  of breast

vagina  +penis  alike

In the Neolithic  when the naked ape was naked  the body was worshipped

as fertility God/Goddess  Mind you  we still performed human sacrifice  of

young virgins  But that is just the duality of the human being  From sublime

heights to profane crevices   Sacred substances to cesspools of the mind

Powerful men dropping like flies

And the humble dung beetle wagging a finger: I told you Apes  water finds its

own level  Ditto depravity   But today there is hope!   You know  h o p e   That

which springs eternal  Lurks in the darkest corners  Even among  the just trying

to survive  the mildly depressed+worried   It is that twinge inside  when humans

see:  a road  a mountain  an alcoholic at the LCBO counting out pennies for four

tallboys

The twinge of hope  as I stand in front of the gallows on Bathurst St. each week

(where my old mother paints the Jazz greats in a dingy room)  And shout at the

top of my lungs: OPEN FUCKING SESAME!  The creaky doors of fate creak open

Take the step!  And all will be provided for safe passage  You can relocate to Peru

where reportedly the government is seducing ex-pats with $12 pedicures   Or do not

take the step   And continue to play checkers with the monster in your basement

__

I want my immortality now  bitches..

Winter  2018

SEEDS

PLANTED SEEDS WHILE I WAS SLEEPING

Did you know that there are 3 dark sky sanctuaries in

the world?   Chile   New Mexico   Great Barrier Island

Places where darkness must be protected   As we seek

only enlightenment  endarkenment is frowned upon

So too  sanctuaries of the flesh  where one’s face might

be preserved   So that it will be recognizable to oneself

by your 6th decade

One day you awake  +you might as well be in the southern

hemisphere   Where the night sky is unrecognizable  Bearings

lost  you grow boisterous in company   And while you used to be

animus possessed  now you are just  possessed   Ditto your dear

old friend with the spirit of a dove   You find that he will spend

6 mths at a Sally Anne work camp  No cell phones  No lubrication

No candy coating of vicissitudes  gone to pot in vats of craft vodka

You know you’re in trouble  when you cannot tell the difference

between a hole in the ground  +your new condominium  Maybe one

+the same   But take heart  for in exactly 2 weeks  the seeds begin to stir

On the pagan:  Imbolc  (Feb. 2nd)

All despair will implode  +out of the seeds will explode  unshriven

possibilities    Like a job at an ad agency (seriously)  +your MIA dignity

__

Winter 2018  ..bring on.. IMBOLC.. Rise Up..

.

King Cake Baby  Mardi Gras  New Orleans

SING

WHAT U GONNA DO WHEN THE BIRD WON’T SING?

There are no stars there  just fallen worker bees   Rising up

from bellies  through contemplation   work  +abstinence

Inebriate starvation at the Salvation Army    There but for the

grace go we   While here on my street a jack hammer  jacks

constantly   And the foundations of my beliefs badly shaken

Not stirred   Ditto my soul in the bosom of Abraham !  Pardon

the flights of baroque     Or do not

Out here in the world  everyday  another man is destroyed by rudely

asking  or not asking  a teenage girl to fellate him   See these televised

downfalls daily   See the un-leader of the Ontario Conservative Party  Boy

next door haircut  shaking  +flailing   Boy next door no more    Just another

man-pig   And yes  everyone is innocent  until proven guilty    Have they

never heard of masturbation?   Too easy?   No chase?   No power to force

down anyone’s throat?

So  will the #Metoo movement trickle down  +help child survivors?

Some raped orally by age 3   Isn’t that about an abuse of power too?  Or is

it just about madness?   I seem to have more questions than answers   Shall

we abolish certain members of the species?  Or just subject them to the acts

they have enacted?   Forgive me  or do not    Vengeance is no longer PC

__

I am the end of a gorgeous line. But there’s no comfort being

who I am. Forget. Forget. The stars are out. The marble moon

slides by.    (Mark Strand  Blizzard of One  Pulitzer Prize  1998)

Winter  2018  ..when the tip of the iceberg doesn’t begin to cover it..

BONNIE

THE REAL BONNIE WAS NOT A SIREN OF THE SILVER SCREEN

It’s difficult to write about familiar topics: decrepitude +

death  on day one in the silver lamé  Bonnie   A shrunken

little Moto jacket  designed by the feisty  Rosa   Named after

Ms. Parks  + Luxemburg    My bro gave it the thumbs up:

Elvis would approve!

Bonnie Parker Barrow  never officially wed the illiterate

bank robber  Clyde   Her first husband at 15  Roy  died in

prison   Dropping out of school early  Bonnie had designs on

poetry  but was destined for bloody notoriety   A clip on Youtube:

Bonnie’s face smashed against the glass  of a bullet ridden car

Circa 1934

Bonnie wanted more  than life in abandoned shacks  +riding

shotgun with Clyde   Ride until you die!   Her motto was

prescient   A bullet-deflowering  on her way to the wedding  in

the hereafter

BONNIE’S BLUES 

*(as imagined by poet in silver lamé..Write until you die!)

Clyde is coarse  Roughly handled  and non-consensual   I gaze out

at wildflowers along the roadside  Miss my mama  and wonder about

her own servitude in my birth-house  Where all I ever wanted was to

imagine words erasing the grimy days  +the dirt roads leading to open

faced slaps by broad-handed men   Made you quiet  wary  +flinching often

Escape looked like a man   Squat  +dirty   Pedal to the metal  hair blowing

in the breeze  Finally free of daddy’s bellowing  Just plain free  (bitches)  to

be whatever I want to be   Teacher said I’d never amount to anything  But

she too  caught rough hands with her cheek  no matter all her book learning

Maybe it’s just these times we’re living in  The girl I’ll raise will drive her own

car  and hit back whenever necessary

__

RIP  Bonnie Parker Barrow  1910-1934 

Write or die!

Winter  2018

SMELL

I SMELL LIKE A DYING BREED

A tooth is rotting in my head   Root of the problem:

A general lack of magic in the air   This will soon be

remedied  at Carleton University  Where a program in

the  Conjuring Arts  is newly offered   Magic  Deception

+ Illusion   My triple major  come September 2018

Husband: You’ll be a master of manipulation!

Me: Be?

__

Winter  2018   ..you just stink a little bit..   H. Atkins  coined 1962 

SOMETHING

DO YOUR BEST BUT FUCK THE REST  BE SOMETHING!

Bowie’s face on a pillow in a window  in a place called

SPACE   Ersatz glam  workouts for the holier than cool

David’s face now mashed behind a snarling Torontonian

There are no girls with mousey hair  there   Has Bowie been

dead for 2 yrs.?

I step into  SPACE  +place my craggy hand on the growling

hipster’s shoulder   Have the decency to un-mash David Bowie

I flail  grabbing the pillow  +make haste along John St.    It is

65º today    In layers of mothy wool  I begin to feel quite faint

Though I have not fainted since packed against hard  Drive by

Trucker minions  at the Phoenix

Husband + brother still traumatized   Follow my every move with

hound-dog eyes   At our next concert  where if truth be told  I almost

swoon  at the feet of the sweet Afro’d singer  Benjamin Booker   The

room begins to spin  + I focus on a psychedelic eye  high in a corner

Whereupon   I am transported!

Up+up +up  into a stratosphere where: 40 yr. old cousins with 5 yr.old

sons do not die of lung cancer  on gorgeous Spring days  at St. Joes

(a hellhole  with no working oxygen machines in the Emergency)  In

this sphere  David Bowie + his mother  admire my new found joie de vivre

Newly freed from having to  be something   there is an undoing of the

stress fractures   My face relaxes   Teeth unclench   David’s mum says she

will find me a kimono + slippers    And David blows me   kisses

__

Back on Earth  Husband’s refrain:

What took you so long? What were you doing?

I was tying my bootlaces

Husband:  Oh  I thought you were having a stroke

Winter 2018   RIP David Bowie  January 10 2016

OPRAH

I DON’T BELIEVE IN OPRAH

Another tv star to run for Prez   She never said she was

bigger than Jesus  or better than Jesus  but  neither did

John Lennon   Now there would be a fine president!   But

you know what happened to him  post character assassination

Cold pavement  bleeding out  at 40

Oprah may not be barking mad  as is the current resident of the

all White House  but there is little doubt as to her outsized  ego

Each +every copy  of her magazine has her photo on the cover  For

there are no other personages the world over whose causes are as

saintly

Oprah is gunning for beatification   The Pope is a fan   Genuflecting

before her large assets regularly   He will waive the part where saints are

Catholic  for Mother O   It’s just hard to trust her snake oil lust for a throne

Last night she spoke in near tongues at the Globes  where La Streisand  face

nearly unrecognizable from surgeon’s knives  squinted  +shuffled  before her

Crude jokes were lobbed at Harvey  +meaner ones at Spacey  but it really just

seemed all highfalutin  +hollow   More self-congratulatory than: We are the

vanguard of a new world order   Some even used their  plus one invites  to

bring an  activist  along!  And there in $10,000 gowns  +$300,000 diamonds  they

forgot that these activists  have  always  been around

Last year  +the one before  when the fame whoring Hollywood horde  did not invite

them to the party   Left them in obscurity  to claw their way past cops  smothering

a black man  selling cigarettes  on a Jersey street   Freeze this frame  + in your mind’s

eye travel to their mansions on the hill   Closing ranks against Harvey  who last year

was called  a God  by Saint Streep

Surely to God  someone knew that he was a serial sexual predator?   But whistles

were not blown   The power dynamic is a poisonous brew   Far be it for plebeians like

you to judge these powerful women   Souls were sold  +it is no secret that the human

conscience has always fallen victim to hubris  along with the other deadlies

Especially gluttony

I’m not saying I am bigger than Jesus  or better than Jesus   I’m just saying   Let’s

turn the high beams off of these glam-ladies  who gesticulated madly  as no female

directors were nominated    Let’s address instead  the real age old power imbalances

around since  the naked apes crouched in caves    might is right

In 2017 world orphanage tourism was being  phased out  because:  the dirtier the

rooms +the hungrier the children  the more $$ tourists bequeath   So now all foreign

money will disappear  +children  especially girls  will be left at the roadside  or be

drowned in rivers

__

…#themtoo…#girlslivesmatter…#whypatrilineality…#kickstartmatriarchy…

Winter  2018  …for all children living among debased tyrants..

IDIOT

IDIOT WIND

..eyes dead and sightless  crouching there pale and naked

The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell.  It swung its head

from side to side   gave out a low moan  turned and lurched

away..    (Cormac McCarthy   The Road)

Post apocalyptic treatise   The creature  reminiscent of the orange

beast  currently terrorizing the world  Finger on a VERY BIG button

Bigger than that of the stout buffoon with a mushroom cut   He who has

his sites set on California   Then make your way east!  Insane young man

It finally seems possible in our lifetime   The much vaunted apocalypse

Set in motion by an idiot-stand-in:  for a president  for a God

Times like these stir up memories of simpler times?  When we huddled

under our desks at school  +an alarm sounded in the hall  Drills for some

distant apocalypse  Not yet the teenaged gunmen with weapons of mass

destruction  picking off students like bobbing apples in a barrel   Heads

exploding willy-nilly

Or a most perfect day from your childhood   One you’ll want to savour as

the button kings continue their pissing contest  Both of small mind  +absent

soul    1965  parents out   Old grandfather in front of tv  watching wrestling

+wrestling with invisible men   In a vinyl+metal rocking chair  purchased for

his yearly visit   Until emphysema claims him in a sanitarium   Sainte-Agathe-

des-Monts   But first a family trip to visit him

Your father bridles at the uncut pizza  tears it apart with his hands  +declares:

Dumbest bastards God ever created    A cousin who wasn’t thought especially

swift  but  in reality  his brilliance rivalled that of Heidegger  intoned his own

 version of: beings unto death   When in a Montreal singsong  he pointed at us

children  like a balding Jewish reaper:  You’re gonna die  +you’re gonna die

We’re all gonna die!

45 yrs. later he is still alive   Your father not so lucky   nor the cousin’s only son

Who perished slowly from a strange Legionniares’ like disease   During his

protracted illness  his wife would call our mother  quite high on her declining

husband’s medical marijuana: I hate him like poison  she’d say   One supposes him

to be in a better place   than the one where we contemplate a crossing   Over stinking

scablands    Once the button boys have their way

__

WINTER  2018

RESURRECTION

RESURRECTION BLUES

Packing for Big Sur   Moving there   8 unopened boxes

after 16 yrs.  still in the crawlspace  Straight into dumpster

Separating the wheat from what is trash   Piles of detritus

feet deep     What + who  to keep?

The demarcation point of New Year’s day  stirs anxieties

Resolutions  for the faint of heart    Things to grab hold of

in the 364 days ahead   Lives broken down by some ancient

mathematician into: seconds  minutes  hours  befores  afters

Keep the naked ape counting   Trick him into believing that it is

not onelongdayandonelongnight ever repeating itself    But rather

an ingenious treadmill  of beginnings  +endings     More illusions

Like happiness  +freedom    Suitcases strewn  Hiking boots packed

Big Sur is mountainous   +there are handsome Argentinians   Miraculously

you have lost your fear of the San Andreas fault!  And of leaving this frozen

wasteland of a place    Where 21,900 days have come +gone

There were large dogs   horses   a pack of grimy brothers    And yet each

morning as you prepared to walk onto the stage  +increasingly so    You

know  that they cannot keep extending the run   And you have read the

manual: Surviving Earthquakes  most thoroughly   Stand in a doorway

It is the strongest place in any dwelling  Or don’t trust me +be crushed like

a flea beneath your bed

Doorways are liminal   So too the limen of New Year’s day  a tricky beast

Still groggy from tequila  + 6 bags of Skittles  you believe in new frontiers

But what you really long for is one last Cormac McCarthy novel  +a blanket

Perhaps even a pacifier   It is the coldest winter since 1960  And what are all

those suitcases doing on the goddamned floor anyway

_

..handsome Argentinians of Big Sur..

Day 1  2018     Can I get a witness?