songanddancegirl

MONSTER

A  MOST  SCURVY    MONSTER !

Kidnapped within blocks of each other

One year apart         at  14  17  20      now  24  27  30

Gina  Amanda   Michelle

Amanda’s mother died while she

was in  captivity     Amanda had

a daughter    now 6     We  saw her

sitting on her mother’s knee in the     hospital

What happened to my Daddy ?

We saw Gina’s father on his front

lawn    He said to the media:  Tell the

world  America has a problem 

There is no photo of Michelle  a blank

square sits   where her face should be

Often  held  in separate rooms  a tv  pundit said:    They are a family

In rusted shackles bound   for eternity

The name Ariel Castro will live on in infamy

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Help me.  I’m Amanda Berry .  I’ve been kidnapped and

I’ve been missing for ten years and I’m, I’m here, I’m free now.

Spring  2013      Songanddancegirl              Shakespeare    The Tempest

STRANGE

STRANGEFRUIT

Fountain spiggles

Man with hose   squirts

as man with pole   steady’s      the world

In Syria   chemical warfare

In Boston  legless boy  wheelchair     bound

In America  the many  say:    no  burial

for young terrorist   crushed under brother’s   car

Grass covered in dandelions   School term done

Pure slim boys sit around wrought iron tables     praying for a future

I want to go home    Poetry causing palpitations

Man with hose   bludgeoned      Man with pole

singing a tune    Poet warped by violent video   games

*Reading this may cause paranoia

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Spring  2013

UNCLE SAM

UNCLE  SAM     WANT’S        YOU !

Pretty girl sits at table   dress fluttering

in the breeze   How much knowledge

has she   about the plight of   U.S.    soldiers ?

Raped by the 1000’s   some brutally

I wonder if Obama knows ?  I did not

until yesterday    The woman in charge

of the task force said:

Soldiers should use the buddy system

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*About 19,000 men and women suffer sexual assault each year in the U.S.

military. Only about 3,200 assaults were reported.  About 10,700 of those

cases ( 56%)  involved male victims.

Spring  2013

HAL

HAL      RE-VISITED

Doors to soul      Roots of empathy

A telephone keypad does not have       eyes

A computer hasn’t a heart    Desensitized

to violence and love  we grind ourselves

against technology    but feel no  empathy

Because the human creature    the human   conscience

has been stolen   compromised   snatched

while we were busy making love   to  HAL

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And all the roads we have to walk are winding

And all the lights that lead us there are blinding

There are many things that I

Would like to say to you but I don’t know how

Because maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me

(Gallaghers)

Spring  2013

HOWL

HOWL  RESTRAINED  BY  DECORUM

STOP  cruising me  Leonard Bernstein

lookalike    I am here in this garden

cobbling together   a new identity

The cement pond in front of me     (at U of T)

is being patched for Spring

Easy to be  a pond ?  a hammer         a nail?

Inertia or pause ?  Could be

auto-immune   either right itself

or T cells will have you  for breakfast

Girl scurries by   on the fly   in yellow mini

couldn’t give 2 shits and a holler for middle

aged fodder   Body not its own worst enemy     yet

Busy plotting world domination with redcoated

frenemy     Faux Leonard inching closer to she

with half spread wings

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Spring  3013      Songanddancegirl      Walt Whitman     Simon & Garfunkel

PRICK

PRICK   ME

Staring at the floor   for

47.5 minutes   Cold morgue

of a place   Bring me your

limping  your decrepit  your    hanging on by a thread

Neighbourhood blood lab

Dehumanize the dehumanized

Pretty girl from Dhaka  eyes         glazed over

Number 17!  she intones  in

dead monotone

Once alive  skipping stones in

a holy river   but no God ever

visited these concrete rooms         nature is forbidden

No windows   just trapped

blood specimens  shifting on

sore haunches

In mind’s eyes  becoming animals

who howl at the moon  Fully high

in the May 2^nd  sky    Dhaka girl        confides

during ECG:  I’d rather be outside

Only 9 more hours of bloodletting      to go

__

By the rivers of Babylon

Where we sat down

There we wept

When we remembered Zion            (Melodians)

Spring  2013

REMEMBER

REMEMBER      ME ?

Almost a woman  mystical princess  like Jasmine

without the Genie    10 and likely bi-polar  though

too early to know  for sure    Cluster of symptoms

chased you here    and there     Mother psychotic

beautiful & blackeyed like you    What about the       Dad ?

you ask     Did he disappear too ?    

You arrive at sessions with a guard   who pries

fingers off of   my arm    You laugh hysterically      Why are you so calm     therapist ?

I am trying to hold you  fast   & cling long & hard

Maybe one day you’ll cave   and drag me home          behind you

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Spring  2013

I AM

I AM    DEAD

The  walking dead   the walking wounded

Night of the   living dead    Nights these    days

so redolent with  awake   Can’t possibly

be ready for the  wake ?   Read the clearest

tale of a man’s  lastday    Mugged in Brixton

punch  in side   is a knife    glint    too late     Girl in yellow dress jumps onto the bus

He knows what’s been done   but like  Anna K.

he cannot rise up   the  slow train  is upon him

Walt says:  Has anyone supposed it lucky           to be born ?

It is just as lucky to die

Bird against window  legs twitch  then stop

mid twitch   plump    slash of yellow between

eyes      Father says:  Let’s go –   and boards

the  slow train     In Mexico picnics  on graves

O Walt   who need fear   the merge ?  

Not contained between my hat and boots  

I come again    and again

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May His great name be exalted and sanctified

..And he will resuscitate the dead and

raise them up to eternal life..      Mourners Kaddish Prayer

Spring  2013   Songanddancegirl     Zadie Smith     Walt Whitman

LOST

LOST    BOY

Dropped you off on a clear winter

morn   No one knew that you were

alone    on the porch until 5    Xmas

presents now with frost   tears frozen

around nose & chin   Will you ever see          her again ?

She calls you   loverboy    Now  abandoned        boy

Rage filling veins   future angina   motherhater

Who might have saved you ?

We sew a           crooked heart for  Mother’s Day

You trash the room    and threaten to slash me

with Captain Hook’s     hook    But there are no   theory

books  or maps    for heading into this territory                     

__

I was a lostboy that was found
Drowning underwater
I was a lost toy now I’m found
You patched me back together
Sewing up the leather on my arms
On my arms        (The Subways)

Spring  2013

EN-DARKEN

EN-DARKENMENT

Radio blares:  Fire in Russia today

at a  remote Psychiatric hospital  The

dead are 26-76 yrs. old   many drugged

Firefighters couldn’t get  to them    Ferry

not running  Many died trying to climb out

windows    windows barred

Fires  smoke  ferryboats  screaming  running

burning flesh   Sounds like a trip on the River        Styx

How many had visions like these ?  Where the

visions became the psychosis they were sedated

for   Precognition can be a mental health condition

All reminiscent of   The White Hotel* –     A patient of

Freud’s has visions    of a bloody siege    & a bayonet

wound near the heart   She ended up in a ravine at         Babi Yar

Have my child clients dreamed their torments

envisioned their  dungeons ?    Some certainly

Once in  a dream   a crumpled old man said to me:

Savior Complex eh ?  I wonder  if perhaps I am not

saving them     but it is they  who are saving me

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*The White Hotel  D.M. Thomas depicts scenes from Babi Yar a ravine in Kiev and the site of a series of massacres by the Nazis . The most notorious took place on September 29–30, 1941, when 33,771 Jews were killed in a single operation. 

Spring  2013