songanddancegirl

HE

HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED

He has the face of an angel   perfect symmetry

heart-shaped   +symmetry archetypally catalyzes

humanlove   Just gaze into the face of a baby   for

some  a puppy

Hate is asymmetrical  think: Hitler   Osama   Pol Pot

Yet this pretty-boy at 24 rampaged through Chattanooga

with weapons of  minor (?) destruction     Guns are

asymmetrical too   they blow holes in the glue that holds

human civilization together

Home grown terror is hatred in the bedrock    Face of

an angel   black heart   on his way to the Styx    His gaze

fixed on the faces of his oarsman   older Tsarnaev brother  +

Robert Oppenheimer

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There are children playing in the street who could solve some of

my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory

perception that I lost long ago. The optimist thinks this is the best of

all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true. (J. R. Oppenheimer)

Summer 2015   Oppenheimer received 3 Nobel nominations 

BEGGARED

IT IS THE BEAST WE ARE RELUCTANT TO CONFRONT

& WE ARE BEGGARED BY IT

1976  demure bride   Now cool hipstergirls

in lace shorts+tie dye offer me their seats on

the ttc   Statistically they are unlikely to marry

Time unglues us   Brain-tricks us    Confuses

You get to do this once  or do you?  Multiversers

would stop the poem right here +tell you:  that

Other Life   the one with the 22 yr. old husband

is being lived by you on  the Other Earth

Here  rot-skin   bone-pain    & a planet with a rough

heart-shaped mass is blinking at us   The true nature

of this feature  is not yet known  says NASA    Such a

romantic rorschach result  for a species enamoured of

the abyss

So is the Other Earth like this?   Or do the young couple

stay young   have 3 children   in a world where no child

is a prized sex-slave?   Rot-skin  Brain-tricked   Look away

from the un-bearable   & smile

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Summer 2015

WHO

WHO AMONG US DOES NOT NEED RE-BUILDING EACH +EVERY MORNING?

Barack says: It’s not a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public 

as he grapples with an onslaught of racial enmity    Why now?     Instead of

answers we get theories   Prescription for Harmony: When you awaken  linger

in that in-between  before death   +white supremacy   Before slavery   Before a

reality that eats its young

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When you open up a piano, you see freedom. Nobody can play the white keys

and don’t play the black keys. You got to mix all these keys together to make

harmony.  And that’s what the whole world needs: Harmony.  

(Champion Jack Dupree   American blues pianist)

Summer  of Un-Love  2015

CRAVING

THIS CRAVING IS   PALPABLE

On my street there is a rickety rickety man  inexplicably

tying string to the pickets of his rotting fence   without

evidence of epiphany   Somewhat like me  (+you?)  after

last night’s episode of True D  on cable tv

Beyond smouldering stares+zombie glares  there is a

cacophony of post-apocalyptic caricature   Not that there’s

anything wrong with that    Imagine a gangster +his mono-

syllabic wife   perhaps A.I.   discussing fertility treatments in

their  Neutra home   A scene straight out of the Twilight Zone

The one where in the reveal  giants appear over the heads of said

couple   And you know what happens next    I won’t candy-coat it

Though I am beginning to wish that time was in fact a flat circle 

Hands up all who miss Rust Cohle  philosopher king

It is my sincere hope that Nic Pizzolatto gets some therapy    I no

longer suspect he has PTSD  just a serious case of Rod Serling envy

The rickety old man has an emaciated wife  who stands on the stoop

croaking: Run for your life     Sadly unlikely for me   with a startle

reflex stuck on ON   + a bulldog given to the mailman  back in 1963

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Summer  2015

PONY

WILD PONY RACE

up on a horse at 4  long before a bike

no saddle  father’s cowboy boots gleaming

annie oakley-girl screaming her chuckwagon

heart out

fearless up there  horses like mountains   make

sure your hand is FLAT  for sugar cube after

Big Yellow Teeth graze her fingers   August sixteen

approaching  day they took Elvis  +cowboy father

girl left to wander at the pony races  her phone #

fades  drops things on the floor  forgets to lock the

door   but she will tell you with certainty: NEVER

WALK BEHIND YOUR HORSE!  

And please: DO NOT RESUSCITATE

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Summer 2015  RIP cowboys+crooners

FLAG

LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY

What deep symbology does the Confederate

battle flag represent? armadas of ships+chains

+whips+cages   In the forest where one woman

was kept for generations  tortured daily   Children

birthed long after she believed in  maps +oceans

circumnavigation   the Cape of Good Hope

South Carolina senate vote on Monday  Take Down

That Flag  cried Reverend Clementa Pickney  from

the otherside   Bullets lodged for eternity in face+chest

He thought he would never die (maybe like you+I?)  That

life is made of iron  +never ends

They gave us Casper didn’t they?   The little whiteman’s

ghost  An already-dead friend   Took decades to realize

you’d never lose him   If the racism in a place runs so deep

they want to segregate Heaven   you know it’s time to burn

that flag   Time to place a plaque at the forest cage  where the

Civil War never did rage

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National Association for The Advancement of Coloured People:

That battle flag is racist+stands for white supremacy

Supporters of the flag: It’s a benign symbol of heritage +genteel

social traditions

Summer 2015

AIR

CASTLES IN THE AIR

Sally Mann wants to photograph the air!

I want it to waft up from the page  dust motes

dancing toward your eyes   Cool against your

July cheek   Breath of departed brushes past

your ear    Hello in there!

Inhale  Exhale   Scent of sperm trees augurs

fertile Fall  when your alt-country hero brings

his BIG ASS BLACK BUS TO TOWN

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Summer 2015

STOP

STOP THE CRYING+THE LYING+THE SIGHING+THE DYING

His son took his own life  yesterday   The last time I saw him was

20 yrs. ago   Then I sat beside him at the funeral of a friend’s son  

who took his own life     Will the circle be unbroken?   If aging is

enlightenment at gunpoint   parenting unfolds before the firing squad

Unrelenting  always fearing  persevering  un-enlightened    Did you

know that blood is blue?   Baby smeared   drenched +tired   paper-thin

skin    oxygen ignited   blue to red    At once familiar +alien

Mcfate grabs a small hand +leads him down a garden path   Past shipwrecked

daughters+marauders    Path too narrow for you to follow  wail on wail on sailor

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Summer  2015    RIP   boys of summer

WINE

WINE FOR THE WOMEN WHO MAKE THE RAIN COME

Sometimes the forest was so thick you needed a machete  but

used your legs +feet   at 8   large blades beyond your reach   +what

you learned about fiercely kicking chaff from wheat  would stand you

in good stead  50 yrs. on    Beyond them hills lay the-rest-of-your-life

+from this vantage point a few things are clear   one day the ravine

will call you back   show you a new river     You will wave to the

never-were children  who live with the Giant  in his cabin   He made

their beds of barley rice   +everything emptying into white

The vine tatt snaking up your arm+onto cheek  a conversation piece  at

the home   Your brother predicts: they’ll think you’re insane   Tatt falling

away as bone turns to ash  +the last resident claps    With your winning

personality you made it seem easy   Your vine growing up from clenched fist

toward an eye   Unblinking  half-crazed  wanderlust daze

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I, I love the colorful clothes she wears &

the way the sunlight plays upon her hair

I hear the sound of a gentle word  On the

wind that lifts her perfume through the air

Na, na, na  Do, do do do do  

( Good Vibrations  Brian Wilson & Mike Love)

Summer 2015

FREEDOM

FREEDOM TASTES LIKE

Girls of Summer +their spangly shoes

One on pink park bench   mysteriously

painted under full moons   Now strewn

across our frenzied city  soon to be in

Pan Am purgatory

She an almost-goddess serenely perched

Gold sandals encrusted with jewels   Young

Queen of Sheba reigns over milquetoast boys

in Trinity

One on a uni-cycle with music blaring   Red

Hot Chilis   Give it away Give it away Give it

away Now   I don’t know about you   but I’m

keeping mine   Keep it like the Kaiser  drones

Anthony Kiedis  heroin befriended lead Pepper

Unlike the 80 lb. nine year old boy who caught

a seventy-five year old  600 lb. fish  +gave it back

to the Fraser River: cause if you kill them there

won’t be anymore to catch

The giant white fish  born at the end of   WWII

Mother of all sturgeons   Our freedom fish    But

don’t you be fooled    Ain’t nobody perfect    Ain’t

nobody free  Miss Nina Simone just whispered to me

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Summer 2015