songanddancegirl

he’s a lumbering ghost go know

everyone wants me to be finished with this

shiv the fatlady singer cause it clearly ain’t   over

let me sit with my slightly swollen bro  who

taught me how to love  the bed of nails   i traversed

everytime we met

he sat on my bed this morning  and said:

ape  cheer up!  if the virus takes ya  the bmw

i promised  is glinting  waiting  has your name

all over it  and the best thing is  everything here is   free!!!      including forgiveness!!

(impish grin lighting up greenland as i write)

__

What about my brother?

What about him?

We can’t just leave him here.

Yes we can.

(The Road  Cormac McCarthy  +AAC  2006/2020)

Coronawinter  2020    ..the road is long..

sohappytoday

so i just bought  so sad today  by melissa broder

poet and essayist   i wanna be an essayist too

so i bought bigger pieces of paper  for a start

melissa’s essays are really poems in disguise

and my poems are   you guessed!   essays in disguise

though mr. de montaigne  father of the essay  is doing

back flips  hey michel !   i live in a time when the human

attention span has been attenuated by twitter  mister

the titles and subjects i shall plumb  are not deep  some

are positively creepy  but i can goddamn guarantee u that

i will not rip off cormac mccarthy  as i am want to do   (paraphrasing  yes)

stay tuned for these upcoming  titles  themes  wetdreams  wanks:

my family is an outward bound destination

husband interruptus

brother interruptus

so happy

so strong

so flinty

so so

dear death i’m sorry we unfriended u

and so on

oh and:  only fear what can hurt u  (dante alighieri +sonny lee atkins at 8)

but the truth is that i hate big pieces of paper  cue cards

suit the brand of confessionallyconvulsive missives i treasure

so pull up your socks

and stop playing with yer virus

i need your full attention

__

Winter 2020

back away from the girl with the pen

the pen can get u arrested

sent to the gulag  of   bathurst manor

archipelago of the suburbanfathers

where money was worshipped  like

the god we never had   the god who

abandoned us   on the tracks

so mammon filled the void  +sometimes

on coldmornings  shame creeps in  when

i get into my 10 yr. old car  named for my  soul

and try to hold my head up

as i drive by caddy’s parked at the plaza  and

the harridangirls whispering behind fleshyfingers

she has one pair of shoes     shehasonepairofshoes  shehas

__

Winter  2020  ..for Lee..

life is not a read thru

there’s no drive thru either  buddy

u only get to do it  once  as u

without maps   only a compass

that points u deeper    inside

he who looks outside is a wanderer   exilelover

he who looks inside is homealone      alone of the alone

cause when yer big break comes +

yer heart’s not in it  outside will scream

losercowarddimwit

inside will scream

welcomehome

it’s okay to be scared  said the turtle

to the hare  slow+steady eh  because

whatever u do do  your later selves may

shit on u too

the medium  struggle is the message answer

+then u gotta get up  and do it again  and again   and again  motherfucker

until he shouts   FADE TO BLACK      JACK

__

Winter 2020  ..for sonny lee atkins.. braveheartedwarrior of the inside..

should i stay or should i go?

no false prophets

no easyglory

shot full of soul holes

by our captivity   in bodies

a virus is telling me

to stay   unless i’m

prepared not to be  repatriated

oy      (yiddish for: what would jesus do?)

I know a young guy

who may not know

u don’t have to go

just because 99%

of the well meaning

are projecting their  unlived

dreams  onto you

be the  tree in the forest

be the  last man standing

in your own dreams     fer chrisssakes

__

Winter 2020   hey ..yellow brick roads come in all shapes unt sizes..

yellowsnow

buried deep

inside my

right brain

now drained

after 7+ hrs.  twisting

in flannel

sheets

-17 with

windchill  eh

a snowday

in  we-the-north

what i wouldn’t

give to pull

the best line ever

to land inside  my head

still attached to

my body

with odd new

cavities

where

COVID 19

is viewing

the virtual tour

__

Winter 2020

dear endarkenment

why so glum chum?  a little client once said

that to me  i’d lost my bonhomie  +he noticed

guess i was more depressed than he

dear life:

get a grip

( i said this last bit just recently  

to the nasty  who tried to hack

my soul  she made off with the dye pack  

now forever stained  with the scarlet A  for

absafuckinglutely  not  fabulous ) 

dear life:

save us from the ones who bandy words

like light + journey   u just know they’re

white knuckling it all the way  while the rest of us

live to fight  another day   mostly in the dark

because answers  +light   are overrated

all good dung beetles +alchemists  know that

the path to enlightenment is through shit  +

darkness  run from preachers of light +easyglory

__

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom..

(Nathaniel Hawthorne  The Scarlet Letter  1850)

Winter  2020

deathsdoormat

so when did we unfriend death?  was it when the

first cave dweller lay down +did not get up?  was it

then that we invented immortality?  that mystical   nodeath

zone  where santa + st. valentine vie for your soul

face it  immortality’s only for  the GOOD   while death

is democratic  nonelitist  he takes scumbags!  but just

might like the good little plebes a tad better  juicer  +less

acrid on the reap’s tongue

why not teach kids about death right from the get go?  so

that when they enter their first deathbedscene it isn’t

a shitshow  like my recent deathbed scenario  where even

the chickennecked cancer doc could not say the word  D  E  A  T  H

oh don’t say that word in front of the dying guy!  or he might die!  

hmmmmm  lifedeath  deathlife  twin doors u get shoved through

and i cannot emphasize this enough

__

Winter  2020

dearcancer (ok i’ll stop now)

gofuckyourself

too easy  too predictable

hit the roadjack  and don’t u

come back  no mo

that’s better

but all fall  on  deafcancergod  ears

uncle c wants u !   picture the picture

silver haired man  intense nose  pointing

right at u

i want u bitch

so don’t huddle  masses  live dammit!  fly

out of that hospicebed  you’re lighter now

’cause of how much u bled !

but i saw the hallelujah moment  u rising

the others too   notmyfirstrodeo

all the simple doctors who say: 3-6 months for grieving

or we’ll haul u  kicking +screaming

to a white room  withwhitecurtains

so little understanding of what we are

so many away that day  at med school

we’re tribal in our DNA   pack animals

herders of children   gnaw off a paw  for

a feeble father  walk over coals to reclaim

human remains   unless yer so wounded

you just howl  all night  +leave yer kinfolk unclaimed

this happens frequently  the modern era not what

it’s cracked up to be   dear cancer  why r u so angry?

so fucked up?   can we get u a cup of tea?    or some

therapy?

__

Winter 2020

crossfirehurricane blues

u don’t have to be born during the

blitz  á la Keith Richards  or be an  (orangetinged)

american oligarch   to be caught in

the crosshairs of a hurricane

1950  feminism still in infancy  me too  decades

away   height of greasy deanmartin docs

dispensing benzos  like pez   valley of dolls

a different kind of rez  (hurricane of mistresses)  betty dawn gina jackie floozy

all the women i know from that era were

hooked   now dying off   benzos verboten

’cause of memory issues+falls  like they

don’t have these anyway   (duh)

but without

cooking

cleaning

raising 3.7 kids

laundry

cooking

1950’s men    (run for your life)

these dolls have ZERO to do but    w   a    i          t

and waiting is not for sissies   without

interests or identities   it is a bingo   (great for fucking eye hand coordination!)

ridden eternity

__

Winter 2020