1st dream she was part doll but she was always that
beautifulbarbie marilyn liz ava lauren old hollywood
glamourpuss born to diva born to be fodder for
handsome charlie come lately
sydney with his 5 children
the stony schwartz’s
long after the beautything all is quiet in the upper chambers
of heaven where a handsome God genuflects +offers 3 wishes
she asks for
more
more
more
i rest my case
__
Fall 2022 ..and shrimp the size of your arm..
Hamlet will always have to say the lines written
for Hamlet (James Hollis From Misery to Meaning)
do you know the author of your lines?
or have u realized that your lines are written by
suffering a life by ecstasy by moving toward death
with aplomb
my mother did everyday make-up on orange lips
pearl hair-clip bejewelled hands like buttah i miss
her hands
the one bent finger where my own begins to slant
we held hands every Tuesday +sang Stevie Wonder
until Tuesdays ran out
her hands by her sides began to rigor misshapen
curling into deathgrip skin still so soft +birdclaw
things of great beauty
did you know that you can change the script? at any time
you can jump ship go to a dengue ridden rainforest in
in Grenada!
cavort with thick fingered cartel members in Mexico GO!
or you can swing your chains above your head just be
careful someone doesn’t lose an eye
___
Fall 2022 ..sit complacent by that fork in the road ..or just stick a fork in it poet..
a smallish man with a penchant for
cart+pony show jokes picked up our
mother’s dead body last Monday
his name was Mordecai
after beating him about the head+neck
for insensitivity +near idiocy i allowed
him to proceed
with one caveat hurt my mother + i hurt you
at 5 foot 2 he’d intended to lift her model’s
frame corpulent+decompose ALONE!
our largish death doula administered karate
kicks as my old bro + i each grabbed a side
+began to heave-ho
mother believed casting pearls before the swine
the 8th deadly sin she began to spin +dance the
meringue
old flames appeared too Tony Curtis (aka Bernie Schwartz)
and Joe Dimaggio father did not dance ever he grooved
like a beat poet deeply invested in Coolsville
__
..Think Pig! Think!.. (Pozzo Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett)
Fall 2022 ..what was was..
last week at this time mother is still alive
about to begin her deep dive her wings
unbound +blue i knew early on that my
parents were birds
all their chirping at us +at each other a dead giveaway!
i named them accordingly mummybird +
daddybird not terribly original but hey my father
named our black dog blackie
i come by it honestly
her last day was her bravest incensed she was
dying what’s this! she felt quite strongly that
being 98 was not a good enough reason
she lay for 15 hrs fluttering a breathing virtuoso
it was birdflu that took her not the covidsucker
she’d pummelled like Ali
mother floundered in the wee hrs of November 14
her last breath at 3 old queen about to lose
the face that launched a thousand ships
I scooped the things I’d coveted gifts bought by me
no matter what you gave her pure ecstacy mum Its
the blue dinosaur from daddy’s grave!
One thing I took was a mirror bought 2 weeks prior
And in those 2 weeks she’d gaze pensively mirror mirror
on the wall is that a beak?
__
..and it is plausible to believe that only those who can look death
squarely in the face.. can really live a meaningful life..
(Rosemary Gordon Dying+Creating 1978)
Rachel+David/Angel From Montgomery
Fall 2022 ..she rises she rises! RIP little Mummybird..
there may be 50 ways to leave your lover
but there is only 1 way to leave your body
and it’s through the soulhole
yesterday my mother met her maker-ess
Mrs. Death mine lurks in the curtains winking
+flashing
final third
final third
the renting of my mother’s flesh from me devastation hi way
my el camino where i’ll walk the stations until feet+palms bleed
she wasn’t just the body
as undertaker Mordecai
proclaimed
she was the sacred vessel the temenos where i wombed
swimming like a carp in her milkydeeps she was the crucible
of the vicissitudes
of the gutwrench
the beautiful
gifting this ONE LIFE
where one more once
the pact of faust
hey Mephistopholes
a penny for your thoughts
my kingdom for your
flightpath
__
Fall 2022 …when u gunnin for me?..
mother’s last pickpocket wore a black hood
he’d lived in the apartment unbeknownst for
eons all succubus + dybuuk
mercy mercy me
the vigil lasted from August 10th covid riddled
until November 14th at 3 am mother faltered
+succumbed
he was wily handsome +Roger Mudd suave as
we lay in various positions on her bed mother’s
deaththroes beautiful +most treacherous
sores +virus encrust our mother’s lust for all things life
today she joins her Maker where am i going? to meet my
my what’s his name??
the Maker of life death +dat udda place where mother
will grace the halls hollywood deathmask firmly in place
but wait! a tinkling of bells a swish of wings Mum? Mum?
not a trace
__
November 2022 ..wait for me..
but you know everything!
this from my 98 yr old mother
she robotically entrapped +CNN’d
some obscure tidbit re Russian oligarchs
stumps poet who is dissociate +autopilot
later she says: i wish you were my doctor
hers a somnambulant shrink who thinks
asking: how’s your sleep? is a goddamn
cure for death by waiting
it is NOT
i am your doctor mummydearest have been
since about 3 when on sturdy rubberbooted
legs i walked into your tempests +plucked you
with one eagleclaw out of harm’s way but i
cannot do it everyday now can i? poet seriously
dragging old assss with hawks circling her joie de vivre
__
..without magic, illness, knives, arrows, wars and death, life
would be just a matter of eating, drinking, sleeping and defecating;
life would be no good without death.. (Kasai of East Africa)
Fall 2022 ..smell that smell..
songanddancegirl... at 4
songanddancegirl 