we are so lightly here…said Leonard Cohen
are we Len? i mean yes to: you know she’s half crazy..and that’s why
you wanna be there.. Jack knew too: the only ones for me are the mad
ones..mad to live +burnburnburn..
yet so many rage against the cage
where there’s always free cheese
we are here too heavily
c’mon rattle those chains
when the rest of you were busy being children
i was busy being a saviour
of children
of adults
of the world!
she’s got the whole wide world in her hands
when the rest of you
were being children i became a monk
(Frank Stanford Arkansas 1976 ..2 years pre..3 bullets to the heart..at 29)
lately there have been signs
24 kettling hawks 8 low planes
over the dead
starkdark underbellies
dropping leaflets at the cemetery
SUCKERS!!
a light on this poet’s face at her bro’s place at sunrise
for whom does the bell toll this time?
(sunrise over Frances Atkins’ dead body circa 2022)
Ernest +Frankie shotgun suicides gnaw off a foot to fly what with all
the testing to see if yer gonna die cuts insouciance off at the knees old
brittle gimlet me fabulous roman candle descent into bathos ain’t pretty
i know that priest with the giant gut sucked 14 yr. old Frank’s lifeblood at
the monkery flayed him as boys without fathers are more vulnerable to be
they always promise refuge don’t they just
i was pursued like this all my life
the boy with the wild hair they called me
i made promises to death + kept them
(Frank Stanford at 23..)
i am not here lightly no Holly Go sailors sold me into captivity at 3
the dancing she-bear in chains the girl with the wild hair of a cajun whore
i knew many children like me in the trenches of humanity
suckled by lions+tigers+bears +priests
much like Frankie
poet swamprat prey
__
Fall 2025 ..for Frankie & Apesie..
songanddancegirl 