songanddancegirl

up up and away🚀

arriving at the Princess Margaret Cancer Hospital  is like

arriving at the airport  cabs buses luggage  cops directing traffic

a sea of suffering

 

but  HOPE  floats   it puts a spring in their step  some getting

ready for  LIFT OFF   the great  BEAM UP   the Maker waiting

with:  burncream+gravol   +new bladders

 

 

others are on the great conveyor belt  out of the mouths of the

True Beam Varian God Machines  into  the LIFE  they pray beg

+crawl  towards

 

Day 1: You have a rare brain tumour Sir

Day 115: We have never seen a chordoma recur

with 39 visits to the  Varian Monster   You are free to go Sir!  

 

 

Go?  Go!  Go where?  what will we do every day at 3:30?  will we miss

our radiation community?  Jill Grace Steve  and the crusted over nurse?

but then   after the  GONG of the drum   reverberate done

 

 

the 10,000 things await   the reasons why the crowds assemble here in the

first place  for  one more once  for  trees  jazz  smashburgers  pie   but  WHY?

the little old lady stumbles to her Varian  bent  broken?  she still wants MORE

 

 

of living in the midst of  mutating cells  wells of grief  extravagant births  bloody

LOUD    i’m here motherfuckers  now get those filthy forceps off of me

yesterday  i heard a small child crying in his Varian  it sounded like  strangehope

__

..my mother (actually) believed in God..

Summer 2024  ..14 more..🚀🚀..go Scotty go💖💖

The Rising

1st monarch heading to Mexico  early no?  sun setting

earlier too   nadir?  dénouement?   Mr. Mason  a strapping

vice principal  with shoepolish in his hair  taught  nadir

 

in the nadir of his career  he chalked a mountain on the board

+pointed to the downward slope  as shoepolish dripped   father

bitch slapped him a couple of years later

 

shoepolish+mansweat on his hand  his own nadir  nearing

 

CG Jung famously said  that the climb down is equally as manifique

as the strident up  what’s true too  is that sometimes you dont know

which side is up   you’ve been down so long   up is mired

 

 

just remember on the path to enlightenment  the dung beetle foments

your own nadir now here  in the temple beautiful  where a purification rite

is underway  and a radiologist named Jill  fingers the ankh

 

 

and prepares your husband for the afterlife  the life after this descent

into the pit of hell   where people sit in damp blue gowns   sans body parts

he lays like Tut   on the tablet    temples on fire

 

 

gold urns glimmer  +your freshly dead mother hovers   preparing the

alchemical mikvah   from whose depths he will emerge   in 16 days

mangered + resurrect

 

__

 

Summer 2024     ..C’mon up..    Beam Off..

food glorious food what is there more handsome!

i sit in front of the  BEAM ON  sign  as husband

is beamed up  the hallways are busy  yesterday a

man on a damp stretcher  beside a woman with    patches of green hair

 

she is  HUNGRY  they all are  when you flirt with

death   and think each supper is  THE LAST SUPPER

you genuflect before  burgers

 

 

these are discussed by the ravenous  for LIFE  +just

the plain  bloody hungry for more   please sir can i have

some more?  

 

i want french fries with saltpepper +gravy   + a burger!

cries the emaciated man  now levitating off of his stretcher  👼

yet  i remain  steadfastly  NOT HUNGRY

 

 

what can this mean?  i revulse at their animal instincts

at their will  to live  FOREVER  i watch my arms  hangingskin thin

at this point  even a bear   would spat me out

 

call me Ishmael

__

Summer 2024    ..each day..another brick in the wall..

she’s got eyes of the bluest skies

they let the kids watch movies

and they don’t want to get off

the table!

 

the under 3’s are  sedated

 

the under 3’s ??

__

…many are broken by the weight..a few..are not..

Summer 2024   ..summer radiation machinations.. at the Princess Margaret..💥💥

mirror mirror

every morning i gaze into a round magnifying mirror

i gave to my mother  months before she died   she’d hide

the mirror daily   fearing her staff would steal her soul

 

along with the mirror  cutlery  +clothes

the detritus of a life  given away at the

side of the road

 

 

we’d search for that mirror each remaining day  and find it

reflecting our hands   holding each other’s fingers  tight

forever entwined     our fingers knew first

 

of the coming  severing

searching for each other

with growing desperation

 

 

knowing our days were numbered  she said

it’s coming  be strong   i walked her to the edge

the brink staring back   gnashing  gnarly  black

 

now we meet in the mirror  many times a day

vain my middle name !  she watches me age  and

suffer  the current apocalypse

 

 

she whispers  apes  you can get used to anything  

you’ll learn how to bare the flagellate  the thorns 

now poking into son-in-law’s skull

 

 

things so dark  i sometimes forget  which side of

the mirror  i am on   her eyes shine brightest now

to light my path  thru these wretched days

 

 

then the mirror

spits me out

mothered

 

 

and i can carry

it all  for at least

another day

 

or two

__

Summer 2024  ..home stretch..