songanddancegirl

FEEL

FEEL SOMETHING   AGAIN !

Admonishes a Kia Super Bowl ad  worshipping : youth  audacity  +

reckless abandon  Infact predicting their “coming”  As if old people are

not audacious  leaving this place in droves!   Steve Tyler  Leper-messiah

Drives a Kia around a track  Morphing into rock divinity   Now 20  plump

of lip  Hard of glute + thigh   Am I really writing about a Super Bowl ad?

Watched my first  in its entirety  last night   Cherry pop  +tequila chasers

Pretty-boy Brady  all mine

Saw grown men reach out to touch the silver Lombardi   Like the relic of

a saint   Saint Hubris?   How do grown men of the Abrahamic religions do

this?  Idolatry  by any other name   Better to touch the bark of a healing tree  or

the head of a baby   Transform  2 point conversions into humility   Hail Marys

into dignity   Isn’t that what Roger (the Dodger) Staubach meant when he said:

I like having sex   I just like having it with my wife

These same warriors cried  as the trophy-god went by   Some sobbing openly  for

crippled future bodies    And minds concussed into states of un-glory   Men  paid

more money than the GDP of certain countries    The Kia commercial  tells the

old man  to: Feel Something Again!    Hubris of another kind   Do the youthful

jingoists think the old have stopped feeling?     This is quite likely

Well just the opposite is true   For beginning at 59  there is a sharpening of the

sense of smell  as the other senses  dwindle   Who needs a sharpness of  taste

touch  or sight  when that chair by a sunny window beckons?   And the scent of

the hellhounds propels you to summon the courage you never had    It wasn’t

courage  propelling you to marry 3x  or to have 7 babes   It was unconsciousness

letting you think you chose!

Steve Tyler’s old face  now craggy + hanging off of chiselled bones  The steely

hooded eyes   Speak volumes   A worn cavern of experience    The totality of:

Boy  Man  Senex    The acceptance of the road’s end   Now walking backward to

his beginning   As my old mother has pointed out time+again:  No more gurus  

No lovers   No teachers    In the end  time is simultaneous    Embrace it

And yes  zillion dollar Kia commercial  unless one is comatose  he or she will feel the

shutting down of circuitry   Cell by cell   And smell your youth festering   Just as you

the scent of agey-mouldering    One doesn’t become less    One becomes more !

Hey  there had be some prize for hauling your ass  compass-less  toward the non –

weight bearing shower     Just go quietly   +savour the four handed rub down

__

Winter  2018  ..in memory of Lee Atkins..the Plunging ACE..my 1st football hero..

WINGING

WINGING IT

There is a bird the size of a 3 yr. old child  who visits my

mother’s balcony  Is he a giant hawk or peregrine?  He looks

at me hungrily  Yellow slits for eyes  glinting  Talons curled twice

around the rail   He has plans for my old mother  +he whispers:

You too sister

Handsome as a groom   Natty tuxedo plumage   Regal spotted head

Sharp hooked beak: The better to taste you with my dear   Such a

flirtatious ferryman  so close at hand   It makes one want to sit up  +

take notice  Is this destiny manifest?  Am I manifesting  or manifestering?

And what of my old mother?    Time is wasting

Certainly a kind of calm acceptance has set in  amidst my incessant chattering:

To avoid falls upon awakening  sit at the edge of your bed  count to 10  then

dance the horah with wild abandon   Perhaps I should listen to my own advice

As I have just learned that there is a rare gum disease laying in wait   As churlish

dentist drilled down into my soulhole  he chimed: This could be hereditary!

Oh no   Not many teeth in the heads of closest ancestors   Father regularly gagged

on foul denture   And  with not a little glee  I threw it down the incinerator  as he

lay dying   I screamed: Be prepared to meet your maker  You the most vile of late

life instruments   Yet in spite of all the gnashing  I throw caution to the wind  +search

for  a Caribbean island upon which to expire

One without a dentist  but with a fine 17th century synagogue   And a rare species of

flower   Sensing one’s last breath  it releases a scent   Top note: Ecstasy    Middle:

Harmony    Bottom note: Horny adolescent suitor     Breathe deeply     You are

getting sleepy

__

Winter  2018

IMMORTALITY

I WANT MY IMMORTALITY NOW  MO FOS

WHILE I CAN STILL ENJOY IT

Dentist said: It’s very bad  while poking around inside

my head   But I already knew that   Mouthfuls of blood

since Xmas   Yet here in bleak  Reaper-friendly January

the crucifixtions of 2017 begin to evaporate  As the pull of

Spring seduces  with bunnies  chicks +chocolate   Carlton

card hell  around the corner  Won’t you please just let me

bleed out in peace?

Easter  manufactured from the pagan celebration of Oster

Worship of the egg   The Great Round  Giant hips+thighs  All

that the fame whoring culture of now despises   No you are NOT

woke  as Ms. Steinem + other hip intellectuals would lead you

to believe

Last night on the Grammy’s  scantily clad young women gyrating

on the knees of men   Hair flicking  Soul eviscerating   How do you

expect to get behind #TIMESUP  amidst all of this vibrating?  I mean

to really make a dent  +stop worshipping the objectification  of breast

vagina  +penis  alike

In the Neolithic  when the naked ape was naked  the body was worshipped

as fertility God/Goddess  Mind you  we still performed human sacrifice  of

young virgins  But that is just the duality of the human being  From sublime

heights to profane crevices   Sacred substances to cesspools of the mind

Powerful men dropping like flies

And the humble dung beetle wagging a finger: I told you Apes  water finds its

own level  Ditto depravity   But today there is hope!   You know  h o p e   That

which springs eternal  Lurks in the darkest corners  Even among  the just trying

to survive  the mildly depressed+worried   It is that twinge inside  when humans

see:  a road  a mountain  an alcoholic at the LCBO counting out pennies for four

tallboys

The twinge of hope  as I stand in front of the gallows on Bathurst St. each week

(where my old mother paints the Jazz greats in a dingy room)  And shout at the

top of my lungs: OPEN FUCKING SESAME!  The creaky doors of fate creak open

Take the step!  And all will be provided for safe passage  You can relocate to Peru

where reportedly the government is seducing ex-pats with $12 pedicures   Or do not

take the step   And continue to play checkers with the monster in your basement

__

I want my immortality now  bitches..

Winter  2018

SEEDS

PLANTED SEEDS WHILE I WAS SLEEPING

Did you know that there are 3 dark sky sanctuaries in

the world?   Chile   New Mexico   Great Barrier Island

Places where darkness must be protected   As we seek

only enlightenment  endarkenment is frowned upon

So too  sanctuaries of the flesh  where one’s face might

be preserved   So that it will be recognizable to oneself

by your 6th decade

One day you awake  +you might as well be in the southern

hemisphere   Where the night sky is unrecognizable  Bearings

lost  you grow boisterous in company   And while you used to be

animus possessed  now you are just  possessed   Ditto your dear

old friend with the spirit of a dove   You find that he will spend

6 mths at a Sally Anne work camp  No cell phones  No lubrication

No candy coating of vicissitudes  gone to pot in vats of craft vodka

You know you’re in trouble  when you cannot tell the difference

between a hole in the ground  +your new condominium  Maybe one

+the same   But take heart  for in exactly 2 weeks  the seeds begin to stir

On the pagan:  Imbolc  (Feb. 2nd)

All despair will implode  +out of the seeds will explode  unshriven

possibilities    Like a job at an ad agency (seriously)  +your MIA dignity

__

Winter 2018  ..bring on.. IMBOLC.. Rise Up..

.

King Cake Baby  Mardi Gras  New Orleans

SING

WHAT U GONNA DO WHEN THE BIRD WON’T SING?

There are no stars there  just fallen worker bees   Rising up

from bellies  through contemplation   work  +abstinence

Inebriate starvation at the Salvation Army    There but for the

grace go we   While here on my street a jack hammer  jacks

constantly   And the foundations of my beliefs badly shaken

Not stirred   Ditto my soul in the bosom of Abraham !  Pardon

the flights of baroque     Or do not

Out here in the world  everyday  another man is destroyed by rudely

asking  or not asking  a teenage girl to fellate him   See these televised

downfalls daily   See the un-leader of the Ontario Conservative Party  Boy

next door haircut  shaking  +flailing   Boy next door no more    Just another

man-pig   And yes  everyone is innocent  until proven guilty    Have they

never heard of masturbation?   Too easy?   No chase?   No power to force

down anyone’s throat?

So  will the #Metoo movement trickle down  +help child survivors?

Some raped orally by age 3   Isn’t that about an abuse of power too?  Or is

it just about madness?   I seem to have more questions than answers   Shall

we abolish certain members of the species?  Or just subject them to the acts

they have enacted?   Forgive me  or do not    Vengeance is no longer PC

__

I am the end of a gorgeous line. But there’s no comfort being

who I am. Forget. Forget. The stars are out. The marble moon

slides by.    (Mark Strand  Blizzard of One  Pulitzer Prize  1998)

Winter  2018  ..when the tip of the iceberg doesn’t begin to cover it..

BONNIE

THE REAL BONNIE WAS NOT A SIREN OF THE SILVER SCREEN

It’s difficult to write about familiar topics: decrepitude +

death  on day one in the silver lamé  Bonnie   A shrunken

little Moto jacket  designed by the feisty  Rosa   Named after

Ms. Parks  + Luxemburg    My bro gave it the thumbs up:

Elvis would approve!

Bonnie Parker Barrow  never officially wed the illiterate

bank robber  Clyde   Her first husband at 15  Roy  died in

prison   Dropping out of school early  Bonnie had designs on

poetry  but was destined for bloody notoriety   A clip on Youtube:

Bonnie’s face smashed against the glass  of a bullet ridden car

Circa 1934

Bonnie wanted more  than life in abandoned shacks  +riding

shotgun with Clyde   Ride until you die!   Her motto was

prescient   A bullet-deflowering  on her way to the wedding  in

the hereafter

BONNIE’S BLUES 

*(as imagined by poet in silver lamé..Write until you die!)

Clyde is coarse  Roughly handled  and non-consensual   I gaze out

at wildflowers along the roadside  Miss my mama  and wonder about

her own servitude in my birth-house  Where all I ever wanted was to

imagine words erasing the grimy days  +the dirt roads leading to open

faced slaps by broad-handed men   Made you quiet  wary  +flinching often

Escape looked like a man   Squat  +dirty   Pedal to the metal  hair blowing

in the breeze  Finally free of daddy’s bellowing  Just plain free  (bitches)  to

be whatever I want to be   Teacher said I’d never amount to anything  But

she too  caught rough hands with her cheek  no matter all her book learning

Maybe it’s just these times we’re living in  The girl I’ll raise will drive her own

car  and hit back whenever necessary

__

RIP  Bonnie Parker Barrow  1910-1934 

Write or die!

Winter  2018

SMELL

I SMELL LIKE A DYING BREED

A tooth is rotting in my head   Root of the problem:

A general lack of magic in the air   This will soon be

remedied  at Carleton University  Where a program in

the  Conjuring Arts  is newly offered   Magic  Deception

+ Illusion   My triple major  come September 2018

Husband: You’ll be a master of manipulation!

Me: Be?

__

Winter  2018   ..you just stink a little bit..   H. Atkins  coined 1962 

SOMETHING

DO YOUR BEST BUT FUCK THE REST  BE SOMETHING!

Bowie’s face on a pillow in a window  in a place called

SPACE   Ersatz glam  workouts for the holier than cool

David’s face now mashed behind a snarling Torontonian

There are no girls with mousey hair  there   Has Bowie been

dead for 2 yrs.?

I step into  SPACE  +place my craggy hand on the growling

hipster’s shoulder   Have the decency to un-mash David Bowie

I flail  grabbing the pillow  +make haste along John St.    It is

65º today    In layers of mothy wool  I begin to feel quite faint

Though I have not fainted since packed against hard  Drive by

Trucker minions  at the Phoenix

Husband + brother still traumatized   Follow my every move with

hound-dog eyes   At our next concert  where if truth be told  I almost

swoon  at the feet of the sweet Afro’d singer  Benjamin Booker   The

room begins to spin  + I focus on a psychedelic eye  high in a corner

Whereupon   I am transported!

Up+up +up  into a stratosphere where: 40 yr. old cousins with 5 yr.old

sons do not die of lung cancer  on gorgeous Spring days  at St. Joes

(a hellhole  with no working oxygen machines in the Emergency)  In

this sphere  David Bowie + his mother  admire my new found joie de vivre

Newly freed from having to  be something   there is an undoing of the

stress fractures   My face relaxes   Teeth unclench   David’s mum says she

will find me a kimono + slippers    And David blows me   kisses

__

Back on Earth  Husband’s refrain:

What took you so long? What were you doing?

I was tying my bootlaces

Husband:  Oh  I thought you were having a stroke

Winter 2018   RIP David Bowie  January 10 2016

OPRAH

I DON’T BELIEVE IN OPRAH

Another tv star to run for Prez   She never said she was

bigger than Jesus  or better than Jesus  but  neither did

John Lennon   Now there would be a fine president!   But

you know what happened to him  post character assassination

Cold pavement  bleeding out  at 40

Oprah may not be barking mad  as is the current resident of the

all White House  but there is little doubt as to her outsized  ego

Each +every copy  of her magazine has her photo on the cover  For

there are no other personages the world over whose causes are as

saintly

Oprah is gunning for beatification   The Pope is a fan   Genuflecting

before her large assets regularly   He will waive the part where saints are

Catholic  for Mother O   It’s just hard to trust her snake oil lust for a throne

Last night she spoke in near tongues at the Globes  where La Streisand  face

nearly unrecognizable from surgeon’s knives  squinted  +shuffled  before her

Crude jokes were lobbed at Harvey  +meaner ones at Spacey  but it really just

seemed all highfalutin  +hollow   More self-congratulatory than: We are the

vanguard of a new world order   Some even used their  plus one invites  to

bring an  activist  along!  And there in $10,000 gowns  +$300,000 diamonds  they

forgot that these activists  have  always  been around

Last year  +the one before  when the fame whoring Hollywood horde  did not invite

them to the party   Left them in obscurity  to claw their way past cops  smothering

a black man  selling cigarettes  on a Jersey street   Freeze this frame  + in your mind’s

eye travel to their mansions on the hill   Closing ranks against Harvey  who last year

was called  a God  by Saint Streep

Surely to God  someone knew that he was a serial sexual predator?   But whistles

were not blown   The power dynamic is a poisonous brew   Far be it for plebeians like

you to judge these powerful women   Souls were sold  +it is no secret that the human

conscience has always fallen victim to hubris  along with the other deadlies

Especially gluttony

I’m not saying I am bigger than Jesus  or better than Jesus   I’m just saying   Let’s

turn the high beams off of these glam-ladies  who gesticulated madly  as no female

directors were nominated    Let’s address instead  the real age old power imbalances

around since  the naked apes crouched in caves    might is right

In 2017 world orphanage tourism was being  phased out  because:  the dirtier the

rooms +the hungrier the children  the more $$ tourists bequeath   So now all foreign

money will disappear  +children  especially girls  will be left at the roadside  or be

drowned in rivers

__

…#themtoo…#girlslivesmatter…#whypatrilineality…#kickstartmatriarchy…

Winter  2018  …for all children living among debased tyrants..

IDIOT

IDIOT WIND

..eyes dead and sightless  crouching there pale and naked

The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell.  It swung its head

from side to side   gave out a low moan  turned and lurched

away..    (Cormac McCarthy   The Road)

Post apocalyptic treatise   The creature  reminiscent of the orange

beast  currently terrorizing the world  Finger on a VERY BIG button

Bigger than that of the stout buffoon with a mushroom cut   He who has

his sites set on California   Then make your way east!  Insane young man

It finally seems possible in our lifetime   The much vaunted apocalypse

Set in motion by an idiot-stand-in:  for a president  for a God

Times like these stir up memories of simpler times?  When we huddled

under our desks at school  +an alarm sounded in the hall  Drills for some

distant apocalypse  Not yet the teenaged gunmen with weapons of mass

destruction  picking off students like bobbing apples in a barrel   Heads

exploding willy-nilly

Or a most perfect day from your childhood   One you’ll want to savour as

the button kings continue their pissing contest  Both of small mind  +absent

soul    1965  parents out   Old grandfather in front of tv  watching wrestling

+wrestling with invisible men   In a vinyl+metal rocking chair  purchased for

his yearly visit   Until emphysema claims him in a sanitarium   Sainte-Agathe-

des-Monts   But first a family trip to visit him

Your father bridles at the uncut pizza  tears it apart with his hands  +declares:

Dumbest bastards God ever created    A cousin who wasn’t thought especially

swift  but  in reality  his brilliance rivalled that of Heidegger  intoned his own

 version of: beings unto death   When in a Montreal singsong  he pointed at us

children  like a balding Jewish reaper:  You’re gonna die  +you’re gonna die

We’re all gonna die!

45 yrs. later he is still alive   Your father not so lucky   nor the cousin’s only son

Who perished slowly from a strange Legionniares’ like disease   During his

protracted illness  his wife would call our mother  quite high on her declining

husband’s medical marijuana: I hate him like poison  she’d say   One supposes him

to be in a better place   than the one where we contemplate a crossing   Over stinking

scablands    Once the button boys have their way

__

WINTER  2018