songanddancegirl

FAITH

SHOW A LITTLE FAITH

most people don’t know that i wanted to be

an astronaut  i told someone that recently over

borscht  +he got a faraway look in his eye  he was

telling me that the earth is flat  and i suggested that

he look at some footage from space

i imagine the view of earth: absafuckingspectacular

little blue planet 3rd from the son   the one who is out

there now  trying to get back in   though my sources tell

me  i.e.., the tibetan book of the dead + google  that things

begin to calm down for the wrenchedaways

but for those who stay  it is a difficult time  of trying to reconcile

the why didn’t i’s   with the  i know full bloody well why i didn’t

but none of it helps   i may need the mother of all therapists  or

the therapist of my mother  to recommend warm milk +lobotomies

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Fall 2018  ..for M.A. ..now casing the Promised Land..

moon

to the moon alice!  to the moon!

your pain is your rocket fuel! said someone in the

film I saw today  about the first man walking on the

moon  the 2^ndwas my father  1989  on the night of his

mission  a full moon in eclipse  watched it from parent’s

balcony  next to perry weinstein   and drank out a bottle

of courvoisier  as my mother was want to say

the 3^rdman on the moon was my 72 yr. old bro  also died

on a full moon  ditto a balcony  this time sans weinstein  and

tequila flowed not courvoisier  my pain does not feel like rocket

fuel  but like a weight  still finding its way to the bottom of the sea

have u hit bottom yet?  they like to ask addicts  and desperados

like me

as if we can possibly know  for it is only in retrospect  that place

of 20/20  where one knows how low she can go  and just how

much she loved her angry bro   come the spring a ladder will

appear  along with a new mission  leave no stone unturned until

u find him

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Dr. Patricia Valcke, a palliative care physician at St. Pauls hospital in

Saskatchewan , said more people seem to die during full moons, and

also noted odd behaviour among dogs, daughters, and sisters. No one

wants to be on call.  (Teen Vogue  February 1, 2018)         

Fall 2018  ..august 16, 1989 …. october 21, 2018.. the moon missions of lee+marty..

baptisms

baptisms of fire

did u know that the rusty blackbird has already

lost about 90 % of its numbers  +there are a billion

fewer blackpoll warblers than there were in the seventies??

there has also been a sharp decline in the brother population

a world without songbirds is a world without brothers  and i

know too that all of u are growing weary of this poet’s madness

grief the stuff of tragedy  all greek to me  a baptism of silence if

i ever heard one  hey does anyone out there have a voicemail of

his voice?  please send it to me asap  the silence is deafening

__

Fall 2018  ..5 weeks today..a protracted grief they say..

gyre

widening gyre

in a hollow  hollowed out  hallowed ground

no where to be found  ashes winging way to

jerusalem  as i write   not to me  canada post

screwup  should arrive in early 2025  backlog

causing mayhem on mean blackfriday streets

once there u will rise again  when the messiah

crawls on slow thighs  and cups your handsome

face in her hands  and all the bullshit of last days

fades with the desert sun  and re dos will be granted

to guilt ridden sisters  and everyone

__

Fall 2018  ..here’s to sleeping at the foot of your bed..+february in mexico bro..

MAD

MAD APE

“prophets who cannot attract disciples  who cannot

make themselves understood  are just madmen”   ditto

poets  and grieving sisters  this pith re: a McLuhan play

having its day on mean streets  TO

everyone done with this mad sister’s grief  enough of your

doublespeak  they unclamour for your every word  and clocking

in at one month (!) since his meeting with our darklord  that sounds

about right  in a sound bite world   long drawn out +dramaturgid

your pain is obsolete  sister

so you can take your pulsing light  and stick it where the sun don’t

shine  your smell of burnt toast   the toppermost!   a visitation in hell-

hole resort  where doorman named Allan with 4 family members cancer

ravaged +skydwelling  hugged you passionately each day as you dragged

your smelly carcass back to the hole away from home  as brother lay  draining

but today you will jump up from your flannel clad bed  and throw down

your crutches  knowing that:  he was long gone by the time Cremations R

Us came for him   he’d come to bid u farewell at said hotel the day before

and fit nicely into your left ventricle   where he remains    disciples are

overrerated

__

..Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole,

lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps.

(Waiting for Godot  Samuel Beckett  1954.)

Fall 2018  ..waiting for godot  +the smell of burnt toast..

*Consult your doctor if you experience the symptoms of phantosmia,

so that your doctor can rule out any serious underlying disorders that

may be causing the detected smell. Unless you have suffered a loss in

the preceding 18 months when out of body: pre and post death visitations

often occur, smelling like something is burning.  (Mayo Clinic 2018)

STRETCHED

SAW YOU STRETCHED OUT

in this room marty atkins bravely battled

the behemoth   cancerinterruptus   people

came and went  but he stayed  couldn’t walk

or talk  or pray   so i did for you  and now regularly

howl my grief at the moon   some say:  just don’t

focus on these memories   yet certain ones remain

etched into the grey matter  brain now reeling with

footage of those days  but in the moments before fully

awake  we laugh  and plan my trip to buttfuck  your little

one horse town in Mexico  where you found peace  and

bought a donkey   i’ll come in february on an ice floe  +

follow the path of the monarchs over lake ontario

so wait for me  and make me the salmon risotto bro

__

..energy can neither be created nor destroyed ..

it can only change forms..

some people say he’s with you  just in a different form

but i don’t care much for this pleasantry  i don’t want a

monarch for a brother  i want a football player

__

Fall 2018

SISTER

SISTER CHRISTIAN

watching the fatted calves holiday in a

place faraway  women with intense cleavage

cleave to waiters carrying extra crisp bacon

+ spanked children crawl  willynilly

every unholy millisecond shattered by anticipation

of suffering  a brother going down for the count in a

hospital nearby   i find myself beggared  +begging  one

more once  last time for daddy  68  this time for big bro  72

he clearly cleared for take off   except no one will LISTEN!

going home  his face now the boy’s i met when we still believed

we’d be together forever  11 year old brothers  they stay

yet here comes the redheaded cancer doc with the skinnyneck

i grab him by said neck and shake the dweeb  long  +hard   repeat

after me Abe: the survival instinct is strong in the naked ape  we who

would gnaw off a hand to run from ghouls like you  who charge 5,000

bucks for a shot of immunogunk   a glue like substance  to hold us fast

like the mouse  caught in the trap  (where food is free)

you doctor death  afraid to say the word die  only: pass  will leave those

pristine lips   pass the salt   passover   mountain pass  with azure skies

where snaking lines of the dead wrest  survival instinct fluttering in the

breeze     nearer my God to thee

__

Fall  2018   ..RIP M.A. ..October 21, 2018..

AL

AL PURDY’S CAGE

did you know they’ve corralled Al Purdy now?

at Queen’s Park  park   he’s in an enclosure

a giant black granite poet   girthy Al + all the

leaves   Euthrie unconsolable  + in a hell hath no

fury  fury

like a woman left for her best friend   who Al Purdy

married   impregnated  +dumped   for Euthrie!  who

also had his son

he’s being kept in a cage  post assisted  riddled

with cancer death   so that his ghost cannot break

another heart   except mine   with his words so

Canadian sublime:

Oh beautiful as an angel’s ass   No, I do not love you 

each time i return to his stanzas  chills rush up my spine

and a fever burns when thoughts turn to sharing a log cabin

with Al sometime

he of the thick lumberjack fingers  +deep baritone

wide lapped  +bad to the bone

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Married Man’s Song   (Al Purdy  1970)

she stands above him as a stone goddess

weeping tears and honey

she is half his age and far older 

and how can a man tell his wife this?

In rare cases among the legions of married men

such moments of shining never happened

and whether to praise such men for their steadfast virtue

or condemn them as fools for living without magic

answer can hardly be given

__

Fall 2018  ..RIP Al..   born 1918 – assisted death 2000

i am a sucker for

girth   +guys named Al

broken

everything is broken

both zippers on pants broken  now sliding down my legs

then key chain  broken   keys flung under car   then lost keys

momentarily  in LCBO   right eye twitching as i glare at bulk

barn lady who tells me i am 2 days late for 5 buck coupon

fugue state continues as i drive to billy bishop  always wanted to

show up at airport + jump on a plane  next flight leaves for florida

in 10 minutes   hasta la vista bitches!

i once had a quasi-boyfriend who would end evenings by driving

to Pearson International  +dare me to runaway with him   the drive

back to the city was bleaker than bleak   all the things that might have

been   fading fast    he ended up down+out in Keswick Ontario

i really don’t know if he is still alive   he  who answered the phone: Happy

Happy!  Merry Merry!   +bought barrels of the best olive oil money could buy

had it flown in from Sicily weekly   one of my brothers really got under his skin

I can melt him   he’d say

__

Fall 2018

..that brother would grind your ego to dust..and feed it to your mother..

..or something along these lines..

grunt

gruntwork

so you think giving birth is hard   the other kind

of gruntwork   escaping the bones+mortar of this

mortalcoil  makes birthing a thing for sissies  though

death throes ending in a peace unbeknownst to most

who have never witnessed the deed

but first  one must wrestle the survival instinct  +family

too   who’d rather see you writhe in ecstatic confessions

cancer-ridden +spectral   than have you leave them   and

nurses in the ward  midwives to the darklord with forceps

on your balls  +dibs on your soul

__

Fall 2018