songanddancegirl

old terrors old lusts old despairs begone

i wear the ring Sidney gave her  diamonds  not

a girl’s bestie  3 large  14 small  set in platinum

it was a promissory note  for her soul

then he went back to his pregnant wife  for the

birth of their 5th  badcad was never gonna marry her

he was a joker  a racetrack habitué  an unholyfool

she believed him  like the humans holding up their

little crosses against the devil  wearing garlic against

the vampire    (old terrors old lusts old despairs)     

William Faulkner  As I Lay Dying  1930

she called her mother from the phonebooth on

Overbrook St.  send me train fare i gotta get outta here

now newly married  to Lee  +very pregnant with me

the ring a talisman  protecting me from the truth?  which

so far has  NOT  set me free   ..stupidity is honest   +

straightforward  (Mr. Dostoyevsky)   truth is not  (Ms. AAC)

mother now fully transformed  into Venus  she sits on the

western horizon  the first+last star   i discovered her when

i rose at 5:30 am for 22 days  +raced up wretched Bathurst St.

to make her a nice covidbreakfast   we two in N95s   could

only see the whites of our eyes   i peeled the fetid oranges

(Ape they have no taste epis)    i poured the too hot teas

(my family makes the hottest tea!)

after mother died i took her to Curaçao  where she hung outside

my window  over a starstruck ocean  no star as bright   no star

with such style   and style is character

(her’s haughty/innocent  +oh so diva)

mirror mirror on the wall  

who’s the fairest of them all?

I AM!   hands down

now fuck you all

rollercoaster apocalypse calming down some  but i’ll be damned

i still cannot find the pieces of me  carved out on November 14th  2022

at 3:10 am    but i’m getting closer

the truth is out there

__

Spring 2025    ..it takes 3-5 years to fully face the absence..and then some..

into the wild+outraged bathurst st. earth

..i heard that my mother is dead..it is because in the wild

and outraged earth too soon too soon too soon..

(Dewey Dell Bundren  As I Lay Dying  William Faulkner 1930)

in the beginning  a scar in the earth

ravaged

savaged

enantiodromia

earthclumps around a deepwell   (lookin for the water from a deeper well)

gradually the earth heals  along with your  heartsever   soulrip  +lung collapse

scar tissue over the crevasse

(doctor i cant breathe…well you’re grieving too hard for chrissakes!)

you come to accept the absence  somewhat   3 hawks take the place of your

dead 3   Freda  Martino  Lee  the graves become  a sacred place  where moths

beetles  +angels play   the hawks cruise  as you  organize pagan chachkas

you soak in the peace   the pieces of them always present  then you face

the inevitable return  get back into your rusted out car  +fight your

way back  onto the wild+outraged streets

__

..where a clown without a conscience

plays   he has the wholewideworld in

his hands ..oh bartleby ..oh humanity..

my peeps are missing all the fun..

Spring 2025  ..recently a 4 year old with cancer..was banished from his lands..

ape’s + camus’..aperçus

mother’s day at the cemetery  peaceful carnage  my dead mum

+dad  sleep side by each   the curled fingers of rigor  now clasped

cabbage moth alights on a brother   he  spitting image of father

cheekbone chisel

good muscles

man of few words   (to put it mildly)

a tad wry

can you bend your knees?   he asks me  as though i’m approaching

90   yes i can!  but one knee quite lamebuckle today  +btw  who you

calling old lady     old man !

but enough of this:

ageism

hagism

bagism

poet leaves the cemetery  cruised by a giant red hawk  the shade of

dead ma’s hair   Freda winks  come back soon apes   i’m decorating

a whitecake  there will be party sandwiches  +cokes  with pink-striped

straws  in each

in my books Sisyphus is happy

a veritable hero-ine for chrissakes

mother pushed her rock up the hill   with style    gumption +grace

sammies now wrapped in white shrouds  into fridge  oh the mayonnaise

every year come April  the same ritual   i don’t wish her back in the fray

but i wouldn’t say no to 1 more day   i know exactly what she would say

next time i tell you i’m gonna die  

+send a flash of lightening into

your living room  beside the  Frida Kahlo book    

listen up    dumbkopf!   

(Freda Marlieb Atkins  1924-2022)

__

…her fate belongs to her…her rock is her thing …the rock is still rolling

she is stronger than her rock… there is no such thing as futile suffering

there is no sun without shadow  and it is essential to know the night! 

(Albert Camus 1955  pronoun re-imagined by AAC )

Spring 2025  ..for Deedle..who has a fondness for the cabbage moth..🦋🐛🦋

..and for Lovie who is stronger than her rock..🦬

keepers of private notebooks are a different breed ..lonely rearrangers of things..malcontents..oracles

everything’s a little foreign this Spring  things pop up

on familiar pathways  strange venus flytraps  12! robins

screetchbob  a peckerheaded wood sprite pecking for hours

will someone shut that fucker up?

before he becomes peckersoup

why yesterday a fugue-state so deep  i met my father Lee

walkin on the Jericho Road   his horse Tex following behind

father could whisper Tex into submission  a whistle brought him    flying

Lee’s knees press into horse-paunch   turn  left  right  stop  bend down

take my girl aboard  poet held on tight  no saddle  at 5   learned how to fly

on that old warhorse    please excuse me  while i kiss the sky   🐴 🐴

today i read about resilience  that most humans  are in fact  NOT

broken by trauma  they bend   change direction   grow new skin

over that which has been   flayed

over a missing breast

over a stem to stern artery bypass

bladder vivisection  brainsalad surgery

but for me  the witness  (where can I get a witness fer chrissakes?)

little Florence Nightingale wannabe  resilience  is just another word

for  nothing left to lose

and knowing  really knowing  that  no matter how unmoored   I awaken

in the dark of night always glad to be me: sturdy purty  +gritty  don’t ask

__

..i’m not gonna hit ya  the hell i’m not.. 

Spring 2025  ..warhorse poet a tad maudlin..🌻🐤 ..some of u gloat..

the psychoid cerulean

life is decidedly NOT a beach  though there are times

when you think the beach is within creepingreach     (it is not)

you go to the same one with a variety of gentleman callers

4 to be exact  you marry one   then beaches disappear

into the archetypal abyss  marital bliss  +horror

(oh the horror)

but you have carried that beach now for some time  43 yrs

not to put too fine a point on it  you know every grain of sand

wet+crustacean   now ashes dust  +rust    now in memorium

the light is glinting  slanting-moist   it is the unus mundus

the alchemical eden  where all possibility lives  untarnished

by the clashing opposites

by change  age   dysenteries

impermanence     sucks

it’s all still alive  pristine +coppertone

hey  sprinkle my old bones there!

and forget my contact info

__

Spring 2025  ..fuck the weeds of yesteryear..   ..festering..