songanddancegirl

who in this merry merry month of may?

i climbed the eiffel tower with ms. semolina pilchard

and trained for the big fight with rocky raccoon balboa

i can sound like a legend  at times   especially re:  my

recent work  isolating an isotope  in a petri dish

it will eradicate optimism

+prehensile giblets in the upper

arms of most women

i wish i could promise you more

optimism is actually not my forté  eh

and in any case it has been proven not

to be the quality  most likely to win wars

there is a certain grit involved in seeing things

for what they are   in knowing that the half full

glass will be spilled  and the unicorn dehorned

revealing a grizzled old white goat  with nubby

eyebrows like my 3rd husband’s   i implore u

don’t get too attached to the rainbow  or the view

do linger before the spring cherry trees  pinkpetals

mixing with mud of april showers

__

Spring 2019  ..1st mother’s day..

..💔flowerpower💔..

the real wasteland

i came to a flat + desolate space  there was

a shed where festivities took place  filled with

china + x mas dinner  valentine’s day conflated

with st. nick   hermes weeping for my captivity

carltoncarded   largely disregarded   100 yr. old

birthday celebrant in roses+pinks  slept long and

often  dreaming of the homestead   a dirtfloor farm

house  where life was rife with life +death

so what can we say about the day?

needed tequila restoria   pot-oil transmutation gloria

and as i flew home over the frozenprairie  i thought the

serialkiller guy beside me  may have spiked my drink  his

left middle finger  on my mainvein  all the way to thunder bay

__

..and april is the cruellest month..

Spring 2019

ashes to

tell

me

about

that

ring

he asks   for the umpteeeeenth time

it’s a broken heart

sometimes a broken heart is just a broken heart

he continues

cause he’s so smart

aren’t all broken hearts the same in their brokenness?

no they are not

my own reeking of an old maritalcorpse  diamonds glinting

i wear grief on my middle finger  more easily presented

to the griefdeniers   unholypacifiers   +fools

we’ll give u 3 to 6 months  then we’ll drag u to bellevue

another said:    fake it til u make it

so what scares u more

my grief

or my strength?

__

Spring 2019

..in the matter of my own ashes..

scatter them in the ravine behind 52 Purdon..

at Marty’s tree UCC    at Lee’s grave..

and at the munk school reflecting pool u of t

bits of me  colourful outfits  loads of silver  where

i sat for 12 years  writing depressing poems

almost invisible

but not quite..

..some deaths , they explain, will never simply be “gotten over.”

..some mourners will never quite again “be themselves.”

(David Chariandy   Brother   ..on complicated grief  2017)

O Brother

everyone’s weighing in on whether or not

i should   go silver   my mum +i  will be silver

foxes  together  we now look like sisters  95+62

better news  for who?

i used to call my old bro  the silver fox   but he’s

lost now   an anchor of love keeps me sane on a

good day  but most days i am want to say:

complicated relationships are brutal to grieve

and ours was

halfbloods    same womb    visions of him while

in there   the handsome 11 yr. old boy i am still

tethered to

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Spring 2019  .. may 19th  silver fox bro with killer grin  would be 73..

feral dogs frommexico

we talked for 2 hrs 56 minutes  his earnestness boring

another hole in my chest  revelation at its best  catapulted

back to a time   but i have  squandered mine   on husbands

mortgages  +costumejewels  withfools+fuckery too

and with fireflying out of eyes i cautioned him about over

thinking  +flogging deadhorses   only flog what is living

sonnyboy  kill your own darlings  before the night weasels do

weasels of doubt

the anti-everything people

crotchety oldmen +their shriven wives

run for the hills with yer feral dog from mexico  who will no doubt

come back to bite old auntiepoet  for suggesting that:

freedom

is

for

the

free

__

Spring 2019  ..run..

does that make me crazy?

he’s prettycute  a little gingerish  takes

care of an oldold man  at the starbucks

on the corner  man parked in a cart  doesn’t

talk    doesn’t know

it’s spring in toronto  gnarlys out+about  one

almost bit my cankle when i said  NO  don’t u

dare snap my photo   and as every primitive

knows  one’s soul will be trapped forever

my own stolen at 3  by peter the busdriver  had to

have a pic of me  on his knee  (don’t worry)  my mum

hit him with a broom  but i still have a thing for stocky

guys named pete

go weak at knees

thickdark fingers

wrapped

__

Spring 2019

pete ..

goinghome

gr. 5 teacher

had me on

his knee  +invited

me

to be santa

my father lee

+brother marty

would have acquainted

him with their fists  if

they had known

maybe he preyed upon

me  because i had dark

circles  or just because he

could

burning the midnight oil again

atkins?  *booming voice from top

of stairs  which all the kids could

hear

but here i am  missing marty+lee

mr. spence dead too   and on the

other side of 62   comtemplating

the final third

where i will be holed up  facing the

sunrise  perpetuating certain myths

about remission

i can’t get u the sunset for under 2 mill

ape!     *booming voice of brother #3

so i will take the sunrise

and run with it

__

Spring 2019  ..here’s to your remission..lasted 2 yrs. and several seconds..

* if u get to be 70 according to

Rabbi Monson  each year thereafter

is a blessing    (lee 68  marty 72)

this train don’t take no pussies

i know a girl who jumped a train  from a

bridge!  like woodie guthrie   that girl was

not me  i am too much of a pussy   though

the tribulations i have faced  i stared down

with aplomb

graceless

messy

massacre

the light at the end of my tunnel has always been

a train   train of love   train of jews   train of new

territories  a girl huck finn  on the river of her parent’s

mismatch

today notre dame is burning  with parts of my 27 yr old

self trapped in the belltower  where i gasped at the sight

of paris in april  spreading   my train takes whores+gamblers

+foundling children with crackhouse mothers

ratty brothers

a few husbands

maybe my pussification was a myth!

i’m waiting on the bridge

with my football brother

and we’re gonna jump  together

__

Spring 2019   ..holy week..holy holy batman..time for a resurrection..

don’t let me die in florida

because

they don’t know their asses

from a hospice   which i found

not to be a hospice at all  but a

tired building where ghoulish docs

lie to families

oh we’re just going to send him there

to get stronger

though he could no longer walk from

the cancer in his bones

and is it not important too to die in one’s

home?  i should have sprung him

woulda

shoulda

didn’t

just a lowly sister

hey mister  +crusty nurses   take your hands

off of my brother  or i will pull a julian assange

redheaded whistleblower  blow your cover  this

place is the black hole of calcutta

blow it to smithereens

and blow me  dr.abe schwarzberg

charlatan-in-chief

__

Spring 2019  …don’t worry dear readers..i still promise sunshine+daffs..soonish..

weather vain jesus

do u ever feel as if u are positioned at the portal?

where on limpid nights u can peer into god’s black

heart   look what he did to poor Job after all   CG Jung

spent 40 yrs. studying the book of Job   and i have spent

30 yrs. studying carl gustav  so i picked up Job one sticky

august night

and i still shout near obscenities at a diety who plays russian

roulette with measly humanlife  we who watch tv shows like:

dr. pimple popper  +the apprentice  in a world where orange don

is prez  +people are beginning to rattle their cages   the deplorables

not so much    ditto don’s his inner circle

their cages involve lockdowns +common showers  where god massages

kinks in necks   but back to old job   i rail at a god who treats my life as

if it is his   it isn’t   yet though the cage door remains open   i haven’t

noticed for at least 61 yrs.     i am nobody’s puppet god!

except my mum’s  whose anxiety  commensurate with her beauty  causes

twitching  + wet-ish dreams of freedom   job survived your treachery  now

get ur paws off me  a workingclass girl with 32 pairs of shoes   26 are pink

and no one is interested in something i didn’t do

__

Spring 2019

..spidey sense is tingling..

and i may even notice the open door

this spring..

old ape

new-ish ape