songanddancegirl

apsie in the bardo

i am reading the tibetan book of the dead

wow  are they ever hardcore when it comes

to the final 49 days  never mind the final 49    minutes

they tout fullthrottle  bareback  elite death

ie., the pinnacle of athleticism in leaving this

veil        NO OPIATES ALLOWED!

i wonder if they give special dispensation for

the choking death?  the cancer death?  i can’t

find that anywheres  in the 241 page tome

there should be a warning label  opening this

book may cause a fear of natural death so great

you will need opiates  49 pages in  (much like these poems)

I mean really  does it need to be so complicated

people?  when the actual death  of the dying human

is the most gentle breeze  you will ever witness

imperceptible creeping

into

hair

+veins

fingers curling

crablike

so why begrudge your human opiates  should

they be unable to breathe?  i guess they figure

it’s a slipperyslope  +of course  it is

you can start my drip

PRONTO

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..not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won ..and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools..

(The Sound and The Fury  William Faulkner  1929)

Death is the hardest thing from the outside. But once inside you taste of such completeness and peace and fulfillment that you don’t want to return.

(C.G. Jung  after his near death experience from a heart attack)

Winter 2022  ..let my people go..

Motherpoppins

do u have someone throwing fairydust on

your head  everysingleday?  i do!  it’s my

mother  who recently fasttracked it  to heaven

Covidwasted  RSV sated  oh she fought valiantly

but finally  her magic umbrella beckoned   +we

watched her ascend   with the sun

she took me to see  Mary Poppins  at 10   i was

mesmerized   so was she   i kept asking her:

Mum  are they singing in real life? 

she didn’t know what to make of me  she worried

about my uberanalyzing  everything  you have too

much education for your own good!

her’s was folkwisdom  much like Mary P’s  +she was

ALWAYS  right   don’t carry money in your hand  you’ll 

lose it   fiver gone on TTC  at 11  damn fortune back then

+ much later  on my 40th   open your fist  +really look

at what you have  maybe you will appreciate it  MORE

Bravo Motherpoppins!

GODSPEED

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Winter 2022  .. now what? ..

here’s mummmmmmy!

what does it feel like to just jump into your car

and GO?  and   oh i remember the opera!   for

the last decade  i’ve been in too close quarters

with  90+  yr olds

what does it feel like to have more than a few short

years months weeks days hours  to live in your body?

their eyes asked  while inspecting mine  still relatively

spry   though on the  slideside  of glory

crepey

creeky

creepy

one woman walked the front circle driveway  endlessly

mazecaught  her face fraught  could not say the word

death    maybe because her name was  Vita   what she

did say

we’re waiting  

we’re all  waiting  

she once told my now dead mother  i’m going to steal

your gorgeous scarf!   no need actually  her former

belongings blowing in the breeze  i have some now

quite lifeless  without her in them   stiff    uninhabited

perfume

scent

fading

but u know what i really miss?  her body   even quite

beautiful  in death  warmcold  softhard  cleanputrifacto

i’ll take her back in any form  but what will i do with her

when she arrives?   her scarves+furniture   dispersed

oh she’s

gonna be

some mad 

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…what we call the beginning is often the end

and to make an end is to make a beginning…

T.S. Eliot

Winter 2022   ..cognac waiting..

sign sign

our fabulous old mare

there were  many  many  signs  in those long

last months before her death  14/11/22   at 98

and i do mean  EVERYWHERE

in dreams   in her own uncanny utterances

I’M GOING TO DIE  etc..,  (maybe not so uncanny!)

also   moving objects   flashes of light   hawks

22  small hungry ghosts  in our beds  at night   our mother

lay down  like a horse in the grass   heaved her last sigh

now  moribundus +compost

i just wish  that the  Great Unconscious  aka  Garloo 🤖

didn’t have to be so  oblique  how about a date?  what

good do all the signs do   without a fucking date?

14  hawks in the  11th month

22  ghosts    14/11/22

c’mon!   it’s not so  difficult       duh!

so   what would i have done differently you wonder?

FIRED THE HELP  +brought her home to my bed  where

she’d have wreaked havoc  for the next  5 years

or so

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Winter 2022  ..our old grey mare ..she’s free of the whiffletree..🕊

motherhenge

she sits right beside me in her usual seat

though dead now for 5 weeks  her soft hands

beautiful+unrigor   there on the armrest

i hold them at redlights+stopsigns  life has been

blownback  into her   reverse mortis   in death

breath devolved

now resurrected into breathing smiling motherbird!

ready to scream  OUCHHHH   at the slightest

bump  or pothole

abrruptus-interruptus  fork in the road  a deathbed

conundrum   snoring cello   ceases to sound

soon to be   in the ground

encouraging the light to return  QUEEN  of the

deathbed sunrise   MOTHERHENGE   soon we

danced like druids  at her grave

and heard the bluejay cry:

I told you i was going to die!

and told you

and told you

__

Winter Solstice 2022   ..okay u can send her back now  please..🕊

let the good times crawl

there are 16 varieties of scorpion in my

prospective new home  15,000 jews too

many mosquitoes

only an old jew would know this type of

info   upon embarking on any kind of

adventure    1st word i google:

BUGS

the 2nd

TEQUILA

the 3rd

HOSPITALS

Laissez les bons temps rouler 🦂 gore!

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Winter 2022 ..a change of scenery por favor..🌴

but does she have it?

she was a silky haired girl  loved her mama

crazy ’bout Elvis  horses  wanted to be an

astronaut  dancer  actor      WRITER

1st love  books  cared deeply about starving kids

wanted to save people  her family too   careful

what u ask for little girl

30 yrs in the trenches of humanity  child therapy

way back when  no $$$ for dance  or the cool

drama school  where the rich mavens went

they didn’t become actors either  one a special ed.

teacher   married a dorkman in Jersey   another

long lean  bad skinned +mean   lived off daddy

reading about  it  girls in NYC  drives poet to distraction

her mother an  it  girl in Paris  beard for girlfriend’s affair

with millionaire   girlfriend’s door prize:

a baby blue cadillac  à la Jayne Mansfield  head not severed

what would silky girl think of the old lady she became?

hasn’t been on a horse since 8   prey to charlatans +pet my

chicken freaks   naïve +jaded   a not so closeted nihilist

motherless  childless  husbands galore  now free fallin into

a  FREEDOM   NEVER KNOWN BEFORE   WATCH OUT!  for

vampires  contrarians   +non-weight bearing showers

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Fall 2022 ..oh the arbitrary..oh the pointless..

dia de muertos

did you know that death is a process?

a gestation  much like birth  unless of

course it occurs in a flash

then it is a  quick ROAR 

Rosemary Gordon + CG Jung  both now

kissing the sky  studied death in the human

animal  across all cultures +epochs

they discovered many uncanny things you

may recognize from your own death bed

vigils

people become aware of death’s approach  (and want to talk about It!)

a large proportion approach their deaths

with greater composure and acceptance

than was expected   ie., father: LET’S GO!  mother: i’m not afraid!

dying is therefore a process extending over months

just like a baby’s development occurs incrementally

this terminal phase of life too   is rife with symbols

rebirth  change in locality  travel  (mother: i’m going to 

the airport  i’m getting on a bus  I just wanna go HOME)

dying has it’s onset  long before the actual death

it reveals itself in peculiar personality changes  imaginary

events going on inside  concern with food+drink (mother:

i’m having dinner with my sisters  all long dead)

for months father (a lifelong misanthrope) planned a party

with intricate food details  and a long invitation list  his own

funeral morphed  into that party

moral of the story? next time someone

tells you they’re dying

believe ’em!

unless like mother  they tell you they’re dying  weekly

__

Fall 2022  ..brother’s Florida deathbed: Ape i’m in Montreal!

and there are so many people here!

and so we breathe on

the last sunrise of frances

as lunged creatures our job is to breathe

think about it  the only constant amidst

impermanence+catastrophe  is the breath

from your time in the wombtank  to your

time in the tombbox  you breathe 22,000

times  per day!

if you have ever watched a person die  all

that is left  is a breathing cacophony  atonal

+snore

until the apnea  the no-breath death   that

last breath  is a thing of such great beauty

it helps the sun rise

___

Fall 2022  ..the root word of lung..is light!  let there be..🎇

apsie marley

my brother calls me the 4th Wailer  as in

Bob Marley and   he does so because i

have been known to howl my grief

at the moon

wolfen+broken  i do it publicly  much to

my horror  (oh the horror)  no one throws

tips in my jar   but the fuckers should!

standing there   shuffling feet   eyes boring

into my motherhole  fatherbrother interruptus

it’s spontaneous fer chrissakes  no control over it

whatsoever

yesterday i saw a portal open above my bed

perfect spot for a ladder  fresh wailing woke

the dead

now coldish fingers smooth the blankets + the

nightgown  mother died in   all sweat soaked  +

stigmata

___

Fall 2022  ..let my people go..