songanddancegirl

CHILD

I CAME UPON A CHILD OF GOD

frizbee wizes by  grazes my liquid fire hair

hipster doesn’t care  he is too beautiful for

civility  he laughs exposing perfect teeth that

gnash on vegan delicacies

it must be generational   i prefer a grubbier

woodstock mud on soles of feet kind of man

this well groomed boy toy wouldn’t put a Nike-d

foot on Yasgur’s heap   the smell of pig  only in

restaurants that do a mean charcuterie

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Spring  2016

MAGIC

A STRANGE MAGIC

Immortality is BIG right now! declares our

culture vulture Russell Smith in the Globe & Mail

Does he jest?  Or is this a re-invention of death with

arty arrogance?  Russell goes on to wax poetic about:

the value of death itself     I read recently too  that

Catherine Deneuve has paid seven figures to replicate

the scent of her 25 yr. old sister  killed in a crash  in ’67

The value of death is its power  if i may be so bold  its

magic   Our troubadour of boxes  urns  +cremains   What

scent would you pay a King’s ransom to replicate?  Your

dog’s breath?  Your husband’s inner thigh?  A baby’s head?

Brisket in the oven? (a fatty shetl staple)  

Scent of fear as you watch urn with sister-in-law’s cremains

placed in a cubby-hole with dandelions by a wailing 6 yr. old boy

who knows his days are now numbered   The wailing went on+on

Scent of boys tears mixed with decomposing clouds of glory  wafting

It is a fact that humans are immortal until the age of 6

The value of death is the curious feeling that everything is beautiful

You know   the one that you have at funerals  + the next day you resume

dreams of becoming   a drunk   a beggar     a holy-fool

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born like this

into this

as chalk faces smile

as Mrs. Death laughs

we are born like this

into this

into these carefully mad wars

(Dinosauria, we   Charles Bukowski  1920 – 1994)

Spring 2016

DEEP

O  DEEP WATER

My body chemistry has alchemically morphed

Destroyer of silver jewellery  +a whole lot more

Brain cells by the score  memory a dot on the

horizon   But I am not flaky   I am not like Grace+

Frankie   a cringe worthy Jane Fonda + Lilly T.

Do I protest too much?  Maybe   But mark me   I

remember every stone  +blade of grass in ravine

of childhood Arcadia   and lately  I have experimented

with walking on water

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Spring 2016

ZOOMIN

WHO’S ZOOMIN WHO?

Magnolia brides on their way to de-flowering

pondering cruel Spring  +promises of sex+candy

Scented gardens in a state of flox   fermenting

Autumn winds   Cherubic-tiny blonde boy  plays

under Cry Wolf sign on Ossington St.    Looks 3

Now you look closely   See  the collector  taking his

measurements    From this vantage point poised for

the denouement  promise fulfilled or not   bad case

of home stretch blues    Friends developing spinning

diseases  right+left   May need a little brain-salad surgery

Sex+candy  carrot before the donkey  who is smarter than

you+me   Pretends that carrot ( ! ) is the Great Motivator

when really he just figured out that: walking slowly in circles is

much easier than working for a living

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SPRING 2016

SWEET

SWEET CONFUSION UNDER THE MOONLIGHT  WITH GEESE

The fountain is empty of water  but full of dense debris

Yellow dandelions dot the lawn  Even the reflecting pond

is muddied   My face distorted +flotsam    2 Canada geese

shriek like Joplin as they land in jetsam  inches deep

I have knelt here on+off for 8 years   Never geese  never garden

debauchery   Today I came to contemplate  never   actually

As she  lays dying in a western city  it occurs to me  that though

you may think the 1st cut is the deepest   It is not

1st death a shock  yes    But in ensuing years the real meaning of

never  sinks in  until you are quite certain that:  forever  +never

have the same root meaning  +it is:  gaping hole    So that the next

time around you will feel instantly the chill of hell freezing  over

trapping forever  romantic notions of pearly gates  and an after-party

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The reason you will not say it, is, when you say it, even to yourself,

 you will know it is true  

How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof  thinking of home

(William Faulkner  As I Lay Dying)

Spring 2016

LADY

NEXT FIRST LADY BLUES

Cue card with poet’s words lifted by a bitter wind  cutting into

fashionably bare cankles    fuck offfffff    growls poet   who has

also slapped an albino squirrel   Hard   Gnarly April chill  breeds

aggression   Won’t you join the: Please Stop Lena Dunham From

Moving To Canada  (if the Donald becomes President)  Movement?

Lena is threatening  flaccid arm hoisted  in jiggly Panther salute

Last night she bared her privates  yet again  for your sins    Secretly

Lena wonders what she might have been   Queen of Shallow longs for

gravitas   Try keeping nasty bits in yer pants

Now a hipster lovely begins to circle closely    She raps about Moses in

the bullrushers   Post seder apocalypse is nigh   as chastened squirrel

limps by   +the Donald holds fast to his plan   He’ll build a wall between

America  +an ancient people  for whom life is a circle  not a line

He’s on the straight+narrow with Mammon as his guide  while Itzpapalotl

throws back her head  ready to devour   Yellow comb-over   notwithstanding

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Aztec Goddess Itzpapalotl  when rendered as a blonde

looks alarmingly like Melania

Spring 2016

SANDWICHES

I DON’T LIKE THE CHICKEN SANDWICHES

said a friends’s brother when asked why he was checking

himself out of the Psych. Ward   This in the midst of a world

wide Happiness Revolution  according to Neil Pasricha: The

Book of Awesome   More Awesome   +Awesomer     Neil needs

some valium to regulate his moods   Isn’t too much happiness

also the definition of mania? 

And what really has Neil given the world?  Other than 1 more

reason for us to feel  less than  having squandered our happiness

behind the tasty freeze   Who among us truly lives by the George

Costanza mantra: LIVE DAMMIT!  other than under 13 yr. old

children   When the future begins looming  +one’s innocence fuses

with alcohol  +weed   +first hand jobs   growing into a jaded fatigue

So when our heroes begin to die  +trite clichés fly  who sells their shit

and moves to Tunis?  More likely there is reflection on the construction

of your fragile self  back in a suburban bedroom  When Neil +David +Joni

burned the midnight oil  constructing a fearless girl revolutionary   The you

who would go to California parties  +ride into the sunset beside Mick

Today’s shriven psyche  is misty   Inertia  tinged with occasional wonder at

the almost unrecognizable face emerging   Last night I met a fairly wasted  (in

every sense) man  at a party  who struck me as somewhat free  though unbearably

Narcissus   He looked like a corpulent Zappa  +asked me to run away in his Carrera

I ponder this in light of new information  His father shot himself close to the boy’s

6th b. day  (but he’s brilliant  brilliant!  my cousin said)  I am waiting on the corner

with a light bag  packed with neatly folded melancholy  READY  for those California

parties

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Enjoy every sandwich!  Warren Zevon  dying of cancer at 56

Spring 2016

DIED

THE DAY THE PURPLE MUSIC DIED

Riding high   Eve of 59th  fetal position but

today Rickie Lee’s delta disc bringing bliss

Now stuck in traffic  Brother texts: Prince died

Live dammit!   A crushing sadness  first Lou

then David  now Prince

The soundtrack to your life is dying   Panic pricks

Breathe deeply  Pull over?  Is this more insidious

weed hangover?   Is this real ?   At 9:43 Prince was

alive lying prone in an elevator (!) at Paisley Park   10:07

dead

Later that night Spike Lee looks way too happy    He

organized a Prince party in Brooklyn   Can I please be

a narcissist for a day?   Anderson Cooper: I was at a Prince 

concert in a hotel room!    But do look a little deeper at all

of  the famewhoring  gentle reader

There for all to see are: tall tales  +ecstatic confessions of

touching the diminutive man’s robes   Just another brick in the

self denial wall    Here today    Gone    Don’t look for me   I’m running

as fast as I can   the 10,000 things mirage is getting ratty at the edges

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Black day, stormy night
No love, no hope in sight
Don’t cry, he is coming

Prince  The Cross  Sign O’ The Times  1987

Spring 2016   RIP Prince Rogers Nelson   for David+our days on Lombard

FLOWERS

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?

40 yrs. ago I married a 22 yr. old  whose b.day is  today

Now he is in the youth of his old age?   I pass a worn out

mother+daughter on my way to the bus  Mother: Can I

get you lunch?   Daughter: NO    Mother: Then you’re shit

out of luck

Where has all the life-force gone?  Can you still find it in the

interstices of your psyche?   In the sparks+scents that even the

lowliest dog can follow as his nose makes a beeline for your

fingertips?  And where have those fingers been lately?  Drumming

a tune as you sit +watch the ravages of winter slouch on slow thighs

out of your park  forever?

Your park  which has transformed overnight into a blanket ridden

skunky-pot-smoke infested haven for hipsters  who Do Not Work in

daylight   A little too Vampire?   Yesterday I witnessed one dapper

hip  beard clipped to perfection  walking down West Queen West  at

dusk  carrying a gutted pig  blood dripping  on his way to some

invitation only  Rite of Spring

True story   Disturbing?   Gory?  Had you been sitting in a windowless

room of gutted children for 3 decades  LIFEFORCE  as a concept or a

thing would become highly heretical    So get out there  +enjoy the

Spring  who died for you   so you can be born  again

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Spring 2016  ..one more once.. (April In Paris  Count Basie)

RESTLESS

IN RESTLESS WALKS SHE’LL PROWL THE NIGHT

In 6 inch heels I clomp by    April     World coming alive

Are you starving or just empty inside?  he asked   with am I

ever brilliant eyes    The body does not lie   or at least that’s

the theory   But is it able to pick up on nuance?   Hunger vs.

emptiness of the spiritual kind?

Those pangs were trying to tell you something all winter   +

each time you just stuffed your face  with profiteroles   Now it

seems your jeans are 2 sizes small  +you’re likely pregnant with

the Messiah   Or a pregnant pause  before they take you kicking +

screaming  +buddha-bodied  into your 6th decade

Where you will madly dash toward your maker   who has a gold tooth

+ a glass eye   +smells like curdled milk    They will think you so brave

Little will they know that you are running from  not toward   And at your

heels are the hellhounds sniffing the fecund air   as April come she will

cleaves into May

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April  The Cruellest Month