songanddancegirl

FREE?

FREE WILL   vs    DETERMINISM

We have free will   each of us   in the cage

constructed especially for us  by the   Puppet Master

The Puppet Master  a.k.a. :    *genes   *family history

*temperament/constitution  *age/culture/religion born into

*personal unconscious/collective unconscious   *un-lived life

of mother/father   * sins of the fathers/mothers  *certain types of death

*romantic love  *marriage

**(space below to add your own Puppet Master baggage)

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Within these walls   wearing these chains  you have a few meagre choices

So  DO NOT SQUANDER THEM on tequila & sin    Better yet   DO

in order to drown the sound of the Puppet Master’s  belly laughs

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“Marrying means to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find an eel

amongst an assembly of snakes.” 

(Arthur Schopenhauer)

Summer  2014

CHILD

I CAME UPON A CHILD OF GOD

The heathen-children are back in our parks

first days free  now back in captivity   Sent by

adults who believe every waking minute should

be:  programed  supervised  teachable

RUN! I cry as the bearded man-counsellor tells

them it is raining   (boys+girls it’s raining)

RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN!  mad wet poet

commands   Heathen-children scatter hiding behind

rocks + trees

Tonight they will erect this city’s  1^st stone circle  and

the powers-that-be can charge a dollar & a half just to

see it    Wait! bearded man-counsellor calling police

Mad damp poet giving out cupcakes   Wonders if it was

all the Joni Mitchell that turned her into a subversive

bitch    Naw more likely the Mingus

At 13 I drowned in the River Mingus flowing from our

living room stereo   The Mingus+moonlight embalming us all

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* (later Joni  would say that on the day Mingus died at 56

56 whales beached  and died   on the Mexican coast)

Summer 2014

HEY

HEAVEN HOLDS A PLACE FOR THOSE WHO PRAY HEY HEY HEY

The Hereros of Nambia wear the uniform of the enemies

they conquer  as a powerful symbol of their survival   Does

fear have a uniform?  divorce? cancer? grief? entropy? decay?

mortality?  Are they enemies ? Are they conquerable?  Or do

they have a stone cold hold    leaving us with no uniform  naked

wretched   free?  By the 1960’s the true rebels were either dead

or insane   So Rise Up  fight the good fight  the uniforms of  death

+insanity are a dime a dozen these days

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Jean-luc Verna    MOCCA  2014

Summer  2014

DISGRUNTLED

FREE TO BE   HOT & DISGRUNTLED

Voting today  nerves frayed  card with my name

+ where to vote  printed in minuscule letters   Mis-read

the missive   walked  in feelslike45celsius  to the wrong

place   There and then decided  forgetaboutit   not voting

Make the letters bigger for chrissake    Passed my bro

on the road  he said: Do you know what they would give to

vote in the Levant?   Now in front of 2nd voting station  little

old lady probably 90  passes by  same mistake as I   They can

kiss my ass  she cries       My sentiments exactly

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Summer  2014

ANTI-HERO

O TO BE AN ANTI-HERO WHO STRIVES & FAILS

distort contort tear-apart re-assemble

This  the work of aging it seems    and Dr. Frankenstein

“once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my

outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which

I was capable of unfolding.”  (Mary Shelley’s  creature)

Only in dreams can you visit  your cavorting youth   Now Kevorkian

has designs on you   How is your re-assembly going?   A 90 yr. old

friend said:  It’s like waiting for a streetcar     Her re-assembly

progressing nicely  So far so good   Still walking  still thinking  (too much)

With dreams more vivid than life  which seems has increasing fog patches

Mist around the edges   We don’t know if our contortions are better than

the alternative  (millionaire snake-oil doctor overused this term) 

woman:  doctor  menopause is killing me

doctor:  it’s better than the alternative!

All of this at $75/15 minutes  but then he was a militant atheist+nihilist

who saw little purpose in human existence   (filthy bastard)   Wall to wall

women in his waiting room   waiting for the magic bullet  (rub it on your majora)

I dare you   On the way out he handed you his opus   full of quotes from great men

with his name on the cover   The alternative grew more appealing with each visit

Perhaps the re-assembly machine is moving me toward daffodils+sunshine   and

moving Dr. Snake-oil toward a purgatory where he has to write his own material

and wake up in: the alternative    as a menopausal woman

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Summer  2014

BONES

STONES  BONES    & GENOMES

What makes human’s unique?   Preying

upon their own species?  Their pleasure

in getting inside each other’s brains  via:

bullets MRI’s romantic love   (what makes you tic Mr. Terrorist?)

Together this double specialty is said to be a

killer combo  equipping us to take over the Planet

Should you think world domination by one rogue species

a good thing I direct you to a deep reading of Mein Kampf

It is no secret that natural selection has sculpted

human genes  turning us into survival-machines

Except when the evolutionary toolkit produces PTSD

Oh the horror  the horror    croaked Colonel Kurtz

Why I have known 5 yr. olds who live in a trancelike

state   Torture  particularly in the early years  so difficult

to eradicate (ditto gestation in the womb of a tortured mother)

Sectioning the brains of 4 stillborn human fetuses has

proven this

Humans seem to drag around the remnants of

their incubating cocoon   Pre-natal environments

may adversely affect the rest of one’s life   Yet scientists

say that behaviour doesn’t leave fossils

We must hotly dispute this notion  see: bullet ridden bones

infant skeletons with multiple fractures  charred remains in mass

graves   Even a Neanderthal cousin turned up with an axe-split skull

And never forget that 42% of modern european DNA  is Neanderthal

Which brings us to the conclusion that  we must look at the characteristics

of each tree  before we may understand    the emerging forest

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Summer  2014

BLITZEN

COME  DONDER    COME  BLITZEN

So who is the fatcat jazzman of them all?

King Louis!   of the gravely voice  black eyes

and a grin that would lift up  even the most soul-

less  of sinners   Most certainly slipped the answer

back in the Vieux Carré   when the cornet was his

ticket out of the Home for Coloured Waifs

There was never a face so full of grace + transcendence

O fickle is fame  pushed old Louis aside  when those badass

beboppers  were on the ascendance    Dash Away

Dash Away      King Louis A

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*if Louis’:  T’was The Night Before Christmas does not bring a tear

to your eye & smile to your lip   you never did have a soul worth saving

Summertime   2014     for Satch  a dog the colour of Louis’ lips

WORDS

WORDS    FLAIL    FAIL

propelling words down my arm into

hand & fingers   tricking brain   no i

will not write today   pick up pen  mid

swig   transcribe  copy   invent?

doesn’t pay the rent  last bookevent sold   24copies

6372+ words    dollars have not yet flowed in this

direction from the BIG BOXY BOOK STORE

that’s what you get for making your pact

mercenary poet  too addicted to filthy lucre

to stay with the indies on an orange crate?   while

the literati congregate at awards ceremonies

& 2 poets named anne vie for the $75,000 prize

i draw your attention to the slowness of writing

to those excruciating coagulations  of words

especially when there are no words to describe

your subject matter     only growls

today in my city  the lower 1/2 of an infant was

found in a park  the morning paper announced:

it is not a homicide at this point     would that i

were a painter  or sculptor  & my job would be done

with an economy of strokes   + the blow of a chisel

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Summer   2014

COUNTRY ROADS

TAKE  ME  HOME    COUNTRY  ROADS

Go away rare butterfly   The construction Gods

have conspired to destroy our holiday   & I have

just been bitten by a deerfly   Left ankle bleeding

Chair now soaked after freak-rain   Turquoise tankini

damp + churlish against city-white skin   Rash setting in

Would that it were Tequila dripping from my chin instead of

homemade jam left on our bedside table at     The Little Inn  

Now we lumber down mainstreet lurching on cobblestones

& face a 45 minute wait for beer-battered goat    A pox on Mr.

Innkeeper  whose ratty little dog will soon begin to bark    You

can take your country jams   & shove them into a dark crevasse

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Summer   2011

PEEVISH

PEEVISH POET   BLUES

Fine is the girl with a dapper cut & cobalt blue hair

sitting cross-legged over there   She looks like a saint

eyes cast heavenward breasts dangling perilously   She

is smoking & speaking in tongues   I wonder if she will

allow me to linger & stare?   Or stomp over & drag me

into the black fountain  at The Monk School of Global Affairs

Come baptize the peevish-poet if you dare   She doesn’t need to

be in a forest to get lost in one   Now the microscopic redspiders

close in   & the white skeleton bugs begin to bite ankles   on a hot

+ hellish day  in the city

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*trees produce substances which boost the human immune system

& multiply dopamine levels 10fold   The absence of trees in one’s life

may lead  to severe anomie   & to skies filled with dead stars

Summer Solstice  Stonehenge   2014