songanddancegirl

desapar

desaparecidos

next to my park there is a patio where women

in fine clothes eat macarons  +sip $8 teas from

france   it is 3:15    this tiny enclave a decidedly

non-bohemian scene

then into the park’s deeps  to contemplate

another reality   one where prada+marc jacobs

have no currency    it is dark + green   psychiatric

patients slumber   +someone’s grandfather takes

a leak by an oak tree

spring turning to summer  2015   lilacs rotting

yesterday a woman said: i am good +sick   and as

i sat by her mother-of-pearl bed   i sniffed the scent

of a reaper   

you always smell so good    what do  i smell  like?   

i have no perfume  no cream   don’t worry  you smell

heavenly  

perhaps her scent will waft up next spring   2016    when

in uruguay the disappeared ones   buried in mass graves

or thrown into the ocean   the ones who are not quite dead

yet   will rise up  en masse

a woman in a black leather pantsuit  studded+spangly  walks

a bicycle through the park  it is 30 celsius   +she smells like the

cure for all evils

__

Spring 2015

COME ON DOWN

COME ON DOWN FOR THE PINKENING

A friend who has named all of his cats Jimmy  said:

Why bleach the vagina? I can understand bleaching

the anus  but the vagina  why?   It makes one wonder

if vaginal pinkness+sexual interest are related

Flibanserin a.k.a. female Viagra  has had  very modest

results  says Dr. Julia Heiman (Kinsey Institute)  of this

latest effort to boost sexual arousal through brain chemistry

+address the sexual problems of women

Could the real problem with libido lie in the colour  PINK

for which the pornography industry has made the gold standard

of vaginal supremacy  Go Pink Or Go Home  Requests for pinkening

have increased 20 fold in the past year  +labiaplasty surgeries tripled

Are you: taut enough  smooth enough  young enough  pink enough?

Sounds like a Rolling Stone’s song   this version extolling the vaginal

beatification industry   Do-it-yourself kits   pinksturbation  by any other

name  include: Pink Privates  Pink Wink  +Pink Button

Elke Reissing  psychology professor U of Ottawa: How we groom+care

for our vulvas is another opportunity of choice   Imagine  equating pink-

ening with empowerment!  These may very well be the Dark Ages of self-

actualization   Was a time when en-soulment was the order of the day

But think of it this way  en-pinkment may lead us into yet another *garden

variety misogyny  where gloomy womb tombs +vagina dentata await men

with a penchant for   PINK      Register your disgust at #bitemegentlyplease

__

*(in a special episode of the Kardashians  the highfalutin mooch Scott Disick

sheared the pubic hair of his 9 months pregnant baby mama Kourtney)

Am I hard enough
Am I rough enough
Am I rich enough
I’m not too blind to see
I’ll never be your beast of burden
So let’s go home and draw the curtains

(Beast Of Burden  The Rolling Stones  Some Girls  1978)

Spring 2015

A.I.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Man is A.I. to Nature   nature who created woeman

in her own image    Man’s push to consciousness

hubristic+gnashing as it is   made the soul wary +

not a little bitter  Nature God (dess) replaced by Homo

sapien   Two legged ape deeply enamoured of  Oblivion

We should have stayed hunched on the savannah   Now

the rough beast has killed it’s Gods  +finds itself  unholy

Consciencelessness is a messy business   As men +women

round up fresh victims to behead   some with short little knives

requiring a sawing motion

The boat with the fisherman went missing  What would Jesus say?

__

I am a god
I am a god
I am a god

(Yeezus  Kanye West)

Deus EX MACHINA       Spring 2015

BALLS

IF THE BUBBA HAD BALLS

She monopolized my favourite author

like a shark in heat  as I circled the periphery

She a famous editress    I a stalker-amorus

My mother wrote re my defeat: Did you ever

hear of: EXCUSE ME SORRY TO INTERRUPT

MY NAME IS     (mud?)

If I had her chutzpah  I’d be Queen

__

Colm Toibin   (woulda should coulda  didn’t)

Spring 2015

DADDY

MY HEART BELONGS TO DADDY

Did you know that women are 2x more depressed

+ anxious than men   +10x more likely to admit it?

The newspaper asks: is it because women are actually

sicker?  Or go to the doctor more?

Maybe like Eurydice  the underworld beckons  +daddy

waits there ready to build you a room of string   Of all the

vagaries  saying goodbye to daddy  makes the blood grow

angry   + angry blood in women causes: infarction

Dear Deadwomen: if you were given the choice by Hades to

live your days across the Styx   with daddy   or  return to your

Orpheus-hubby   What would you do?   Only serious responses

will be considered   Write to HisDarkLord at: daddysgirlsrule.com

*winners will receive  a reprieve

__

..through shallow water, through dustings of  snow, through

cloudy figures of fallen light. I cannot remember, but I think

you were there, whoever you are.  

(Mark Strand  Blizzard of One  Pulitzer 1999)

Spring 2015   for Michelle & Gregory  Soulpepper’s Eurydice+Orpheus

GRIFFINS

SEE YOU AT THE GRIFFINS

ultra-contemporary   a transcontinental rumba

of the global digital   This a description of the 5th

Canadian of colour to be nominated for a Griffin

Trinidadian-Peruvian   Shane Book    Shane says:

Poetry doesn’t get a lot of laughs

I wonder if there have been any invisible minorities

a.k.a. Jews  nominated    They might describe my

poems for instance as: a transcontinental hora of the

global digital   +funny  don’t ask!   

Seriously  I don’t care how they describe my poetry

$75,000 would give my dark+depressing stanzas a ring

of dybbukery     A  #sellmysoulatthecrossroads  infamy

And yes I would take the money   Though I cannot help but

wonder if the Muse could then be wrested from the front

row at CHANEL   #callmeshallow     Go ahead

__

Spring 2015

ALBINOS

ALL ALBINOS ARE BORN LEGALLY BLIND

in tanzania people with albinism are hunted like animals

they aren’t considered human  children+babies murdered

grisly butchery   body parts in witch doctor’s potions bring

luck  love  +success  to countrymen   there is even a booming

cross-border trade

mwigulu matanange  10   is the saddest person in the country

he hasn’t spoken a word since his mutilation in February   t-shirt

gaping hole  where arm used to be   buyers of potions  rich+powerful

(even politicians!)  225 witch doctors arrested so far this year   all

released days later

an election in the offing  demand increasing   3 children  one village

missing   vivisection suspected   a year old’s hand found on the road

to nowhere   June 13  2015   1st albino awareness day

use your eyes +hands  write the foreign ministry  +ask them to support

ending these atrocities   night is falling in tanzania   phantom limbs tingle

__

Spring  2015

BATHYPELAGIC

BATHYPELAGIC  BLACK

In the deeps of the sea  it’s dark+cold at

3,333 feet   the blackest black you will ever

see    A good place to jettison your identity

Egos thrive in the light of day   while the

capital S   Self   loves the underbelly

Where murky meanderings  +little white lies

are laid bare  Away from the glare of the klieglights

you can ponder awarenesses long repressed  You can

even confess to coveting your neighbour’s wife   his 5

speed weed-wacker   +his sex toys galore

Today in my park all around me  there are bohemians

on highwires  lashed to trees   Navigating the balancing

act that is: en-soulment   #mailmeasoul     in these days of

our en-darkenment   Or is the darkest hour   just before dawn?

There is also a man  5 feet 2  who paces the periphery  where

girls are sprawled legs akimbo   Someone has led him to believe

that he can exorcise the worst kinds of demons by cruising

strange women    I give him an: I’ll break your neck like a twig

kind of glare 

He is a perfect example of the pussification of America!   my dear

friend screams      #mailmeasoulwillyouplease

__

Spring 2015

SAFE

SAFE IN THE DARK   IT USED TO REST

in texas last week at twin peaks restaurant   biker

gangs had a shooting spree  nine dead   170 injured

bodies scattered everywhere

noon  busy waco interstate  truck stop draws a huge

lunchtime crowd   it’s not known what triggered the

violence   Sgt. W. Patrick Swinton   waco police

maybe there was no trigger Pat   maybe the wild wild west

still exists in the hinterland   why in washington a family

was held captive by a gun toting stranger   tortured for 8 hrs.

then he ordered a pizza   DNA gave him away   mayhem slouches

in gullies  near interstates  +arrives in the capitol on a clear spring

day   even the pundits don’t know what to say

so they pull at their moustaches   and avert their gaze   in a friendly

gesture Barack tweeted from the oval office!   he received countless

answers  many with death threats  one depicted him hanging from a tree

can we still consider america home of the free?

__

What’s called a normal life?  

(Rosemary Waldrop  Love+Other pronouns)

Spring 2015

RAINBOWS

IN RAINBOWS

tiny grey-haired lady on the sidewalk

many officers + firemen in shorts pace

ragtag bag splayed  there is an oxygen

mask placed haphazardly on her face

she is well into her 80’s

as a child she believed in  rainbows +

paul bunyan   so how did she end up here?

shouting: hard hat  hard boots  what else you

got that’s hard?  once married   in leafy suburb

husband left her with 3 kids  for best friend +had

4 more

worked at a bakery   married a card shark named

Harry  a niceguy  who wore white undershirts   +

brylcreem   it’s about to pour  1st responders packing

up   Spring exploding everywhere   lilac laden trees in

hipster-ridden park give off a bovine scent  mixed now

with earth  +regret  +loathing

Her children stopped looking in 2002   will you take her

home with you?

__

Spring 2015