songanddancegirl

when i was a child i caught a fleeting glimpse

but i did not understand what i was looking at

a camera falling onto the freshlydead’s  grave

(a recurring reverie)  documentary  by the Gods

 

the film inside  chronicle of a lifetime  unobsured

by persona   everybreath step heights descents

passions losses splendour decay  depravations

 

you get the picture?

 

Lois died  cancerriddled  like her mother (and no i’m not done

with cancer quite yet)   i recall her face often    smeared with

red lipstick    freckled jovialmisery

 

mostly hidden by valium+booze   the gummies  of that generation

always astride  her bestie  a teenage widow  whose husband’s suicide

shrouded in mystery    a rich handsome jaguar

 

the girls in my hood were raised to  marry rich  +  take care of their

mothers  until the embittered end   i failed miserably at the former

Nobel prize for the latter

 

though mother preferred listening to jazz with a brother  she said

to me: you’ll visit when i’m dead   now a newbie-dead  her camera

fallen    obscura images   flashing through my sleepless nights

 

O what am i gonna do with this terrible freedom?

 

fucked if i know  gummies just upping  my maudlin  BUT lastnight

i was slipped  THE ANSWER  as i wept for my decomposing matter

joints degenerate + jelloskin    but thin

 

get this: life+death are just flipsides of the same coin!  a continuum

if you will   of consciousness  thebigbangbirth into matter  matter decays

pure consciousness remains    fullcirclejerk

 

the Monad   the Urobouros

 

 

you know  i’m just not numb enough

for these times

i see you all running

for the exits

COME POET  SHUT UP!

__

..last page of my 1st book: GO HOME..

..last page of my 2nd book: RUN   (while u still can)

 

 

Winter 2023  ..ain’t no sunshine for 40 days..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what’s it all about alfie?

save me from being trapped in a quasi-paradise  where

every dinner costs 200 bucks  +the eyes of locals glint

with  gringolust

 

last month i sold my restaurant list to rubes  who prayed

at altars of bbq brisket  +blue curaçao martinis   this year

i am going nowhere  fast

 

so i sit in my frigid city  dreaming of emerging from the egg

botticellicurls now shorn  +faded to a puddle grey   i’m ready

for my close-up    ready to be reborn  into my final 8

 

 

why 8?  some bastard at Harvard put the  checkout early bug

in my ear  he opined that by 75  one has done it all give or take

now it’s time to call   Dignitis

 

that not so secret-society  who tell you where the hemlock is hidden

i guess the ultimate carrot is the promise of immortality  no?  first

they get us to believe in Santa  ie., the Reaper in redvelvet

 

a jovial Jesus makeover   but you only get gifts if you are good

ditto the Reaper re: heaven  the place where your flushed tadpoles

now swim     (you flushed your pets down the toilet dear??)  

 

crossing the Styx is for dybbuks  +probably a lot more fun   i mean

do you want to spend eternity with do-gooders?  in any case  those

left behind  are clearly more stricken  than the new corpse

 

exquisite rictus   serenity to spare

 

 

today i strolled Philosopher’s Walk  in 25 below  the emergency call

site had a sign that said: OUT OF ORDER   i guess in the end  you

have to save yourself   from all of the jovial  run of the mill-misery

 

and i didn’t sell the  real  restaurant list!

__

..i sent them to ones where they spit in your soup..

Winter 2024  ..my aim was to set the tadpoles free..hands up if u believe me..

 

 

 

 

sister’s in the back seat with her head hung low

daddy drove around in a black rusted-out  used car

our elegant standard poodle named for a salami  held

his head high    so happy  to go for a ride

 

he worshipped father  who once carried him out of the

ravine on a chalkboard stretcher  +saved his life yet again

when a chicken bone lodged in his  blacksonavitch throat

 

his middle name  after a tzarist priest   the other Rasputin

i shrieked  and ran in circles  as daddy ejected said bone  he

also shouted at me: if you fall apart how can you save a life?  

 

i never fell apart again  currently held together with dirty twine

+wrigleys   but i did have precedent for  PANIC    5 yr. old witness

to my grandmother’s demise  a massive stroke  beside blue budgie

mother pulled at her hair +wailed  all medusa-harridan  my parents were

beautiful misfits  in our immigrant neighbourhood   where social climbing

was  a religion   a merciless stigmata

 

i wore the sign of suspected poverty on my forehead   Ash Wednesday

everyday  BUT  i was pretty +pretty smart (!)  so when the moleybitches

teased   i flirted with stardom

 

even Dorothy didn’t know that her old home was safe  inside her  like a

stillborn child   mine recently dropped from the sky  the black Consul in

the drive    C’mon father  let’s go for a ride!  

 

i’d give anything to sit

in that used car again

or would i?

__

..in life you work at dignity

in chain gangs of beauty+cruelty

O take me back to Parchman Purdon Farm..

 

Winter 2024 .. 1st poem..🌞🌻