LET DOWN YOUR HAIR
A pair of cardinals lived in the gulley
by our tree They arrived in winter and
looked like pools of blood in the snow
I thought the ruby one should be the girl
and still don’t really know why she can’t
The girls I know want more than pretty plumage
Size counts and depth Smooth moves stick handling
good dangling & knowledge of knots
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Summer 2013
HIPSTERS NEED THERAPY TOO
Why is everyone in this town so angry ?
Driving along West Queen West away
from the so hip it hurts Art & Design
District Out of the corner of my eye
I spied a weatherbeaten resident of our
local Mental Health Centre limping along
Stopping every few steps to screeeetch out her
tortured song part human part loon In one
hand a black pork-pie which she tried on the
passers by Along came a tall Godiva tie-dyed
maxi flapping in the breeze so hip so clean (a meanmachine)
And as the ragged queen approached her
balance now precarious a slight bump ensued
Lean mean Godiva delivered a hard slap to
our heroine’s head People gathered I pulled
over and was seized by a vision and not a little dread
New York May 2012 36th floor windows
look onto windows look onto more windows no sky
4 monarchs float by in the negative space high above the world
And I wonder how they will make it to Mexico
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Spring 2013
THE GHOST OF BILL BARILKO
She’s spanking the baby Jesus her halo
fallen to the floor De Chirico reveals an
ungainly Mary tampering with sacred cows
I see the faces of Leaf Nation shivering in ecstasy
by the hundreds There is no religion for which
they would congregate en masse On second thought
their open mouths and gnashing teeth a new kind of
worship Genuflecting at the ACC under the glow of the JUMBOTRON
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*Hockey is the 2nd biggest threat to organized religion & western civilization
Spring 2013
DREAMING IT FORWARD
I am hoping it will all end in a quiet room
in a heritage village by a lake Yesterday
I saw a woman fall backward to the floor
She fell so heavily I expected blood and ruin
The sound was part gasp part thudgrowl Then someone opened champagne
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Spring 2013
RE-MOTHER ME
She was 19 and undiagnosable
She would flail and shout and thrash about
And I was desperate to do something to help her
One day as we sat in her pee (unbeknownst to me)
a calm came over her one that all of my flapping
up in the windowsill could not produce (desperate therapist works it)
And there we sat for 45 minutes while she rocked
contentedly Like a baby in a wet diaper whose mother is near
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*many neglected infants are hospitalized for bleeding diaper rash
and cannot be comforted during treatment
Spring 2013
HE WAS ESPECIALLY FOND OF YOUR PERKY GIRLFRIEND’S
If you had a chorus walking behind you what would they chant ?
Yesterday my young-ish brother told me that he doesn’t read my
poems anymore When he did all he wanted to do was get back
into bed with a pillow over his head Sunshine! Tulips! Tulips! Sunshine!
I make a beeline for the nearest cafe and hide from these happy-shiney
harpies The bloom is OFF the tulip bro It all went to hell when my
boyfriend said: STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE I SHOT YOUR DOG
And proceeded to touch the breasts of all my friends within a 20 mile radius
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Spring 2013
THE RABBI’S DAUGHTER & THE GHOST OF # 612
136 wrens made their nest in my final Father’s Day gift
While he sat 59 days until his last On day 49 they began
to gather & chirp the blues The lady on the balcony above
(probably a Mario Lanza fan) swept the nest away
I imagine that on fine spring days the Rabbi’s daughter
who scooped the place sways to the birdland blues
While a blue-eyed ghost laughs hypnotically
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Spring 2013 For Daddybird
DENY DENY DENY
I kept both knowing & forgetting
that he was dead At one point
determined to say good-bye then
remembering no need to he’s been
gone such a long time
A new book speculates that some early
humans elephants dolphins & apes
may have become so depressed by the
idea of their own death that they walked
into the woods and hid (and died)
Whereas we the only surviving human
species were able to deny death and
carry on as though immortal By products
of this breakthrough are thought to be
some uniquely human activities Such as:
teaching romantic infatuation torture
Producing both Mother Teresas and Hitlers
Hard to know which it is better to be Orangutans
can recognize themselves in the mirror while
Hitler in his 56th yr. descended into a concrete
bunker married his long time mistress and between bouts of rage killed himself
It is also true that Humans are made of the stuff
of exploded stars oxygen iron iodine and calcium –
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I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free. John Ashbery 1975
Spring 2013
TAKE ME OUT TO THE GRIFFINS
Egoistic bombast says a woman on the stair
Best dressed Best hair No starving artists
in this lair Governor General wears the same
spangly shoes as last year No Transit of Venus
this year Lots of oh so beautiful men who spout
beautiful words for a living & masses of imperious
women One wears a cameo ring but won’t make
eye contact I want a list of hairdressers
Spring 2013 Ode to: The Griffin Trust Poetry Awards
SMELLS LIKE ROCK BOTTOM
People always talk about hitting bottom:
That was my bottom I haven’t hit bottom yet
I have hit bottom You have to hit bottom before
Could it be that those who have in fact hit bottom
are no longer here to make the long
climb back up ?
Or perhaps when we toss hit bottom
around we are building a massive scaffold of denial
We must deny the oncoming fast and furious rushing toward us bottom
Be skeptical Be vigilant and if you hear
yourself uttering the words I have hit bottom
know that you are in the wrong heaven –
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Spring 2013
songanddancegirl... at 4
songanddancegirl 