songanddancegirl

drop off the key Lee + set yourself free

at 24   Lee enlisted  WW II in full swing   12 yrs. later

he became  my sweetfather  i was  his only daughter

in my grade 6 autograph book he wrote:

 

to the greatest little filly of them all

 

that was on August 16th  the same day he died  decades later

at 68  of a brokenheart   life’ll kill ya  then yer dead  sang Zevon

+he was right   life pummelled Lee  +Lee pummelled life

 

same for Elvis  who also died on August 16th   houndogs both

 

 

father’s military file describes him accurately: powerfully built

smart  cocksure  a semi-pro athlete  +boxer   Atkins may prove

a problem in training   he may want to be  the boss

 

 

i think that i am cocksure too  though as a woman there are

other less flattering designations:  ballbuster  bitch  witch

i’m daddy’s girl     so don’t mess with me mister

 

5 husbands under my belt   3 i killed  with my bare hands

the other 2  remain devoted   but back to daddy   another

descriptor was:  temperamental instability 

 

i believe this to be  a catchall phrase  for cocksure men  with

piercing blue eyes  +big muscles  such men (+women)  can be

moody  angry  anti-social  +anti-authority

 

this apple did not fall far  from the Lee-tree

 

father was fiercely introverted  +did not suffer fools  with a steely

gaze he’d size up interlocutors  as would a tiger   in the wild  🐅

desk-dweeb assessor   lucky he wasn’t eaten

 

he saw  daddy’s moody depths  a wild young jazzcat  yearning to

be free    a fearless warrior   not amenable to  captivity

A Man

__

addendum: Lee’s brother was a coward  who hid in a closet from

1939-1945  +feigned a clubfoot  to avoid conscription  later in life

he stole Lee’s inheritance

 

Winter 2024   ..the root word for angina..is anger

 

 

 

i know an old lady who swallowed a fly perhaps she’ll die

yesterday whilst being crucified by yet another  gorypoem

a fly  flew into my nose  i know you will never look at me

in the same way    tuffnuts

 

but that is what happened  hard to pretend when a filagreed

wing protrudes  iridescent +torn  said fly did not emerge for

48 hrs.    okay  enough with the flies to shit jokes bros

 

so  was this fly giving me bubonic?  or comforting the other

creatures trapped within me   including my 1st husband

who among you has not eaten a living thing  or 2?

 

flowers  ants  e.coli  pieces of a throbbing heart you broke  bitch

i swear that fly visited  my soulhole   +reached nasal-nirvana

pre being ripped away   a buzzin + a shrieking🪰

 

 

what exactly did he find during his body-cavity search?   hair

the scent of sausage-debris   nostalgia galore  scent of mother

dogs  a horse  sex    +death  of course

 

also the scent of floral bath beads mother used to entice me with

dirt smudged  burrs in hair   faintly-fecal  wildgirl  ravine-pirate

hated bathing  hence a poetic bro’s refrain: you just stink a little bit    (oh so funny)

 

that exotic beadfume continues to envelope me  especially on graveyard

visits  when mother wafts up   it is always Spring inside my nose  (my name

in several languages)  + that’s no place for a rotting fly named   Harman🪰

__

Winter 2024 Imbolc  ..seeds stirring..winterflies resurrect..

 

 

 

 

 

lonnnnnng poem blues

the Jungians say  *individuation  begins when your

Gods die   the final 3rd of my life officially began

when at 65   an orphan made

 

98 yr. old mother in her final resting place   a not

so verdant cemetery   deadflowers  and a rude-dude

gravedigger

 

lady  it’s a hole   it’s not  Shangri-La !

 

my burly bros pulled me off the man  I’ll give you a hole !  

my own individuation  will be complete   replete with

lilies  + dungbeetled   when this orphan girl  dies

 

 

my work with orphans  over 30+ years: redolent of  bomb

shelters   of fantasy dates  at the Olive Garden  outcasts don’t

date  of never recovering from grandfather on the floor  from 9-5

 

he died while babysitting   stiff  +not answering  (grandad also dad)

 

all of my orphans begged to be taken  HOME   plaintive yelps

the odd kick  therapist how many guns do you have?  how will

you protect me?       i’ll do the best i can

 

i recently read about the reformed mobster  TJ Martin  also an orphan

his villain origin story: beaten savagely by stepmother  lived on the streets

from 16   his own infant twins   killed in a car crash   their mother too

 

TJ had one last score to settle with society   he is the man who stole

Dorothy’s slippers  now in hospice care  in prison  wheelchair bound

+oxygen tanked   Terry John was desperate to   GO HOME

 

 

who isn’t?  lost found lost again   the ruby reds  DON’T work for chrissakes

Mr. L. Frank Baum   but would you really want to return  to that childhood

home?    where the family drama plays out  in an eternal loop

 

fresh scars  new dog  mistress or 2  a tyrant uncle festering

 

or are you brave enough to let it die?  set out through the dark woods  rather

than rot in a purgatory of   what might have been   i coulda been a contend-ah

i coulda been a somebody     could you have?     are you not?

 

 

no ruby slipper will save you

should you not know the answer

nor a shape shifting charlatan  wizard

in another era   magicians were crucified

__

*individuation: becoming completely wholly oneself    a.k.a.

not caring if you get invited to their California parties    know thyself 

 

 

Winter 2024  …God is Dead..Spurn the Herd.. Nietzsche+AAC

 

when i was a child i caught a fleeting glimpse

but i did not understand what i was looking at

a camera falling onto the freshlydead’s  grave

(a recurring reverie)  documentary  by the Gods

 

the film inside  chronicle of a lifetime  unobsured

by persona   everybreath step heights descents

passions losses splendour decay  depravations

 

you get the picture?

 

Lois died  cancerriddled  like her mother (and no i’m not done

with cancer quite yet)   i recall her face often    smeared with

red lipstick    freckled jovialmisery

 

mostly hidden by valium+booze   the gummies  of that generation

always astride  her bestie  a teenage widow  whose husband’s suicide

shrouded in mystery    a rich handsome jaguar

 

the girls in my hood were raised to  marry rich  +  take care of their

mothers  until the embittered end   i failed miserably at the former

Nobel prize for the latter

 

though mother preferred listening to jazz with a brother  she said

to me: you’ll visit when i’m dead   now a newbie-dead  her camera

fallen    obscura images   flashing through my sleepless nights

 

O what am i gonna do with this terrible freedom?

 

fucked if i know  gummies just upping  my maudlin  BUT lastnight

i was slipped  THE ANSWER  as i wept for my decomposing matter

joints degenerate + jelloskin    but thin

 

get this: life+death are just flipsides of the same coin!  a continuum

if you will   of consciousness  thebigbangbirth into matter  matter decays

pure consciousness remains    fullcirclejerk

 

the Monad   the Urobouros

 

 

you know  i’m just not numb enough

for these times

i see you all running

for the exits

COME POET  SHUT UP!

__

..last page of my 1st book: GO HOME..

..last page of my 2nd book: RUN   (while u still can)

 

 

Winter 2023  ..ain’t no sunshine for 40 days..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what’s it all about alfie?

save me from being trapped in a quasi-paradise  where

every dinner costs 200 bucks  +the eyes of locals glint

with  gringolust

 

last month i sold my restaurant list to rubes  who prayed

at altars of bbq brisket  +blue curaçao martinis   this year

i am going nowhere  fast

 

so i sit in my frigid city  dreaming of emerging from the egg

botticellicurls now shorn  +faded to a puddle grey   i’m ready

for my close-up    ready to be reborn  into my final 8

 

 

why 8?  some bastard at Harvard put the  checkout early bug

in my ear  he opined that by 75  one has done it all give or take

now it’s time to call   Dignitis

 

that not so secret-society  who tell you where the hemlock is hidden

i guess the ultimate carrot is the promise of immortality  no?  first

they get us to believe in Santa  ie., the Reaper in redvelvet

 

a jovial Jesus makeover   but you only get gifts if you are good

ditto the Reaper re: heaven  the place where your flushed tadpoles

now swim     (you flushed your pets down the toilet dear??)  

 

crossing the Styx is for dybbuks  +probably a lot more fun   i mean

do you want to spend eternity with do-gooders?  in any case  those

left behind  are clearly more stricken  than the new corpse

 

exquisite rictus   serenity to spare

 

 

today i strolled Philosopher’s Walk  in 25 below  the emergency call

site had a sign that said: OUT OF ORDER   i guess in the end  you

have to save yourself   from all of the jovial  run of the mill-misery

 

and i didn’t sell the  real  restaurant list!

__

..i sent them to ones where they spit in your soup..

Winter 2024  ..my aim was to set the tadpoles free..hands up if u believe me..

 

 

 

 

sister’s in the back seat with her head hung low

daddy drove around in a black rusted-out  used car

our elegant standard poodle named for a salami  held

his head high    so happy  to go for a ride

 

he worshipped father  who once carried him out of the

ravine on a chalkboard stretcher  +saved his life yet again

when a chicken bone lodged in his  blacksonavitch throat

 

his middle name  after a tzarist priest   the other Rasputin

i shrieked  and ran in circles  as daddy ejected said bone  he

also shouted at me: if you fall apart how can you save a life?  

 

i never fell apart again  currently held together with dirty twine

+wrigleys   but i did have precedent for  PANIC    5 yr. old witness

to my grandmother’s demise  a massive stroke  beside blue budgie

mother pulled at her hair +wailed  all medusa-harridan  my parents were

beautiful misfits  in our immigrant neighbourhood   where social climbing

was  a religion   a merciless stigmata

 

i wore the sign of suspected poverty on my forehead   Ash Wednesday

everyday  BUT  i was pretty +pretty smart (!)  so when the moleybitches

teased   i flirted with stardom

 

even Dorothy didn’t know that her old home was safe  inside her  like a

stillborn child   mine recently dropped from the sky  the black Consul in

the drive    C’mon father  let’s go for a ride!  

 

i’d give anything to sit

in that used car again

or would i?

__

..in life you work at dignity

in chain gangs of beauty+cruelty

O take me back to Parchman Purdon Farm..

 

Winter 2024 .. 1st poem..🌞🌻

 

i think the bitch dropped a house on me!

in the same night  my childhood house was dropped into

the alleyway  adjacent to my now house   a tall festering

townhouse  mold-encroaching  stucco paleyellow stainedblack

 

this gives new meaning to living in the past  or does it?   who

among you   on a bad day   wouldn’t want access to one’s   old

bedroom   dog   parents  seedy brothers ?

 

hey mum  i’m hommmmme!   instantly a baked potato appears

loaded with  margerine+sour cream   how was university?   she

beautiful  in her faded silk robe deshabille  didn’t go to McGill  (jew quota)

 

and for other  no less nefarious reasons  her mother signed her name

with an X   money was not plentiful back in the day   the baked spud

is warm   dripping motherplasma    now i can just go next door!

 

mother’s exact lament 3 days before she died: i just want to go home  

my hair-trigger guilt got in the way  thought she was dissing me  for

her imprisonment  with the near dead    now i understand

 

the 2nd visitation that night  was my BIG BRO  at 20 yrs. old   looking

svelte  handsome  happy  about to regale me with stories (oy)  the famous

Atkins-rizz   blaring

 

last time i saw him  his room adjacent to a dying girl’s  her bro loved my

shoes   her young parents  friends +dog  griefshrieking  in hospice hell

on his final morning  i heard distinct growl-whispers  so i followed them

to a small room  stuffed with  (are you ready?)   angels    one archangel

the size of Kevin Durant  clearly come to carry my bro+his 16 yr. old friend

HOME      so listen up     you  CAN  never  go home

 

don’t believe the naysayers   many will tell you  no one dies with dignity   but

they are  deadwrong +spiritual-squalor  it is much more difficult to have dignity

in life   whipped+scorned as we are    (see Hamlet’s ghost) 👻

 

death is all dignity

in the supine posture

of the crooked smile

__

..and strip me of everything  including my pride..
but spirit is something that no one destroys.. (Traffic 1971)

 

New Year’s Eve 2023     ..bring it..

papa was a rollin stone

he laid his hat in our home  often   a mere  68 yrs.

at checkout   he spoke a mythopoeic language   of

sports  horses  +jazz     he loved children too

 

though a pallid cousin  accused him of abandoning

her young daughter  a dark faerie  if there ever was one

in a hot car   on a broiling day

he wouldn’t treat his dog that way  pallid cousin probably

wanted to bone him   he had a kind of animal magnetism

rarely seen outside of the animal kingdom

 

on days when he went all  Stanley Kowalski  we children hid   once

mother called the cops  he’d given the old heave ho  to her luggage

giant trunks sailing into the ravine below our house  (not Louis Vuitton)

 

where did she think she was going?!  to Montreal  +the best Chinese food

in Canada  also to her mother’s crowded walk-up  where years earlier a

brother had been infested  with whitefish larvae  as he slept on an iron cot

 

we were poor   mother proudly said

 

our father could sit on a turquoise couch  with silver threads  for hours

petting his outsized dogs + midsized sons  (e tu brute) speaking in sports

tongues  while young gladiators on tv  lay motionless +bashed-head

 

personally i found these Sunday rituals  interminable  i preferred my grail

holier  though now a days i sit tv bound  watching the NBA   where young

zillionaires  unfresh from college   wear zero protection  +Prada sweats

 

breaking  jaws  bones +noses  against elbows +hardwood floors   at night

they cry for their mamas  +huddle in the foetal position in  $40 million

mansions   one brother assures me   they are too rich to love

 

our father’s love was a mysterious thing  he never said  i love you  but

he didn’t have to  it was understood  +fierce  he would tear the face off

of anyone who hurt us

 

so i didn’t tell him about the teacher

who sat me on his hard lap  at 11

daddy would be in prison

__

..they were boys in men’s bodies doing what we all want to do..

..they were boys then not mercenaries with agents..when one loses

the boy something dies forever.. (James Hollis  Jungian Analyst 2009)

Winter 2023

 

QUEEN FRIEDS

she was there  as we breathed ourselves into life

father showed up later  these were 1950’s solo labours

we were there  as she breathed herself into death

 

meeting her face for the first time  after the wombfloat

meeting her face as it readies for return  to the wombtomb

her deathmask a strange combination of her  +not her

 

her beautiful bejewelled hands  curled in strange plasticity

hardening into crooked finger goodbye  but  (and i say this

carefully so as not to unhinge the whimpering among you)

 

there has NOT been a day since November 14th 2022  that

Queen Bee Frieds has not  buzzed bombdived +re-nectared me

fluttering there  wings a-buzz   now motherdust +lilacashes

__

Winter Solstice 2023 ..let there be light..🌓

November 14, 2022

deathbed sunrise with blue lilacs🐝

shiva hos

of tombs+death tourism  voyeurs of the macabre  for some

of the ghouls  a meal  +opportunity to check your wrinkles

your deshabille  your wealth  or lack thereof    fuckthat

 

i will no longer sit  powdered+primed  like some not-yet-corpse

on the worst possible days of my life   +to the ghouls i say:

go on a fucking vacation     i’ll pay  

__

…talk talk talk: the utter stupidity of words…it seemed endless…

as though it might go on forever… William Faulkner  Mosquitoes  1927

__

Winter 2023  ..only an idiot has no grief..

..and only a fool would forget it.. WF+AAC