songanddancegirl

SHUT D FONK

SHUT  D  FONK    UP

trucks    jackhammers

Barenaked Ladies

Rush

crass cafe sitters

twitter-ers

newspapers

constant backyard dog

haters   naysayers

sat a.m. dad  braying   like a donkey

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Mid-Summer    2013

DON’T BOX ME

DON’T   BOX  ME    IN

Living in a 6,825 sq. ft.   HOUSE

What will I do with all of the     s   p   a   c      e

they  want to know   Well insulated

from them  I will open & close a multitude

of doors leading into the innermost sanctum

Like those gift boxes where the box keeps getting

smaller  as you search for the treasure   so shall

the rooms  until I am in a space not much bigger

than myself   And in this room I will make      preparations

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Summer  2013

AT LEAST

AT LEAST  HE  DIDN’T    SUFFA

Leafy cemetery  looks cool   shady     inviting?

Chiaroscuro coaxing me in    Funereal garden goads

I gave up memoir so that my   flights of baroque    should not

trouble my professors    However    Tony Soprano  died yesterday

Could this be the meaning of the prophesy?   You know   of those       ducks

The ones who landed in his pool      He is out of the game now

No longer paralyzed by the fear of death     No longer looking over his shoulder

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Summer  2013

DOCTOR HEAL

DOCTOR  HEAL      THYSELF

So did you skip out of there?   You know

the  specialist reprieve?   Not really  No

The doctor looked at me skeptically when

I said: I don’t take  street drugs    Ditto for:

Not depressed     He must have guessed that

I need street drugs to deal with all that I have    seen

What’s your work?    ChildPsychotherapy

Oh   what kinds of problems?     abuse  kidnapping  trauma  death

Then   he retracted his skepticism   and became  morose

Turns out his mother is happy   but losing her cognitive abilities

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Summer  2013

LET DOWN YOUR

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

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

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

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

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

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