songanddancegirl

ELEVEN

11  11    11

Four WWI bombers flew low over

my house  at the 11th hr. of the 11th day

of the 11th month   The newspapers rifled

off numbers of dead in the millions  at places

like Vimy Ridge   +Juno Beach

The bombers were small   smaller than the

stealths that fly over at the Air Show   Killing

machines have grown since the Great War

These pale yellow planes flew in formation

buzzing ominously  heading to a glitzy ceremony

A repairman on the roof across the way dove

down to his hands+knees    Maybe he didn’t know

it was Remembrance Day    As Halloween decorations

blew in the breeze  & the first few Xmas lights blinked

I couldn’t help but think about the 3or4 wars +at least 2

genocides in my lifetime

Later one stray yellow bomber made it’s way to the festivities

as a giant Peregrine eyed me malevolently   The repairman now

on his belly  crawling over bloody bodies  to safety

__

And I dreamed I saw the bomber jet planes

Riding shotgun in the sky
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust, we are golden
We are caught in the devils bargain
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden

Joni Mitchell   Woodstock  1970

November 11, 2013

SOUP

GOAT’S HEAD   SOUP

Picasso’s goat has a swollen vulva

fallen udders & a splayed buttocks

The distended belly smacks not of

fertility but of Bangladeshi bloat

Twinges of repulsion  & visions of

fornication  prick   for this stunted

little she goat   standing all alone  at the A.G.O.

__

May  2012  *(this from a man who reportedly loved women)

SISSIES

*VACATIONS ARE NOT FOR     SISSIES

It is my duty to comment on mundanities

because I have just been   perhaps for too

long in the city that never sleeps   I returned

to lilac laden parks  & an unmade bed   And the

dread of another holiday growing by the minute

Please   don’t make me have so much fun

$200 dinners & a roaring surf have made my life

a purgatory    A desert so real  I will likely die of

thirst    That is  if my life doesn’t kill me  first

__

May 2012   *12 days in NYC

BREAK UPS

GIRLFRIEND   BREAK-UPS   OCCUR   EVERY 3.5 SECONDS

We had past our best before date  probably

by year 3   But continued to flog the carcass

with a combination of sexual repression &

ennui    After year 8   over a plate of garlic

nan   Your middle finger flapped close to

my left eye   You dropped a 20 on the table

and left without   saying  goodbye

3 years later you called during a snowstorm

and thought that a celebratory reunion was

in order    O my long lost lovely    I seriously

wonder if you are not a borderline personality

gone berserk  at the Indian Rice Factory

__

*girlfriend break ups cause 26.5 % of heart attacks in women

June  2012

OLD

THE  BEST  SOUND  COMES  FROM   OLD  ICE

There is a 100,000 yr. old iceberg in Uppsala  +a man

carving it into musical instruments   the sounds of which

might even soften the hearts of ISIS    Though they would

have to be human for this  & not Nazi re-treads on a mission

There was a time when humans venerated age   Now the young

rejoice in the simulacrum of Barbie   Doll smooth   Doll parts

Hairless +perfect    Defects banished in post-millennial Barbie’s

through surgery   All of this in service of quest  for the perfect

selfie  in what may be  an emerging selfie-economy

Dr. Sam Rizk who specializes in Rhinoplasty says: Too many selfies

indicate a self-obsession  and a certain level of insecurity that most

teenagers have  (human nose does not stop morphing until 26)  

They come in with their iPhones  & show me pictures of the nose they

desire   Sam notes a 25% increase over the past year in his Manhattan practice

Mirror Mirror on the wall show me a face my mother can’t recall    How is it

that Renée Zellweger  morphed into Kim Bassinger  with a few slices of the knife

There should be laws to protect the Renées from petrification   Now the slob beside

her feasts  What wonders is she sitting on?  Barbie catatonia  at odds with rapture

Insentient beauties  worship dead Gods   says Poet raging  naturally

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Winter  2014

ROSA

ROSA  PARKS  IS  ROLLING

Last night on tv  the mother of   Eric Garner   43

choked to death by police  for selling loosies*   spoke

eloquently: Protest calmly  Have dignity   My boy

had none   Big black man   asthma  6 cops   Use your

imagination  Father of 5  married 27 yrs.   Don’t they

give tickets in New York City?

Esaw Garner  widow  did not accept the officer’s apology

Hell no, the time for remorse was when my husband was

yelling I can’t breathe  He’s still feeding his kids  and my

husband is 6 ft. under

__

*loosies – single cigarettes

Winter  2014

BINGO

WALKING AROUND IN CIRCLES  DIVIDED SOUL  PROMOTING BINGO

3/4 moon out at noon  first day of December 2014

Girl with backpack just bought beggingman a coffee

Tell me if you need more sugar   And as she knelt

beside him  he began to scream+rock  I don’t give 2

shits & a holler    Head hits plate glass  blood all over

West Queen West

The road ahead looks narrower+bumpy  no longer tended by road crews

Phlegmycoughman chokes+spittles+rattles behind me

now pounding ceaselessly on handicapped door opener

So far Bloody Monday is moving along at a rapid clip

already 3:30   Gill Rosenberg Canadian/Israeli  kidnapped

by ISIS today  First woman facing decapitation  radio says

The road ahead looks narrower+bumpy  no longer tended by road crews

Fecalman beside me wafts a scent decidedly decomposing

The road ahead won’t have signposts   There will be fewer +

fewer  choices   Hardscrabble hours in a chair   At least it won’t be

uphill anymore  Downhill from here on in   The summit was 8yrs.

ago  The beginning years of descent  still felt like ascent   But now

you know better

So  aim that sled   +your droopy face will begin to glow   tiny tongues

of heat will creep across your frozen feet   You won’t think so much

about re-invention  or escape   There will be consolation   You will not

suffer fools who make definitve statements   But mostly you will look

serene +nibble vegetables with carnality

__

Winter  2014     for Kelly

JERK

WHAT IF RILKE WAS A JERK?

Trying to open the vanillaalmond biscotti  have to

resort to my poison pen   I finally tear a hole through

voluminous cellophane with a bit too much force   Hit

my Venti de-caf   it hurtles hot-hipster-drink  all over

Pulitzer winner John Berryman  drips too onto   Christian Bök

The bastard used every vowel one at a time  in every word

in every poem +won $65,000 to boot    A blind man walks by

his white probe on a single wheel   He knows nothing of me

+my 3^rd degree burns

Yesterday they charged Jian Gomeshi with crimes so heinous

he could spend generations in The Big House   You’d think he

would have sprung for Eddie G   though doubt Connie Black

would agree   Xmas carols waft from the speaker above me

Rufus Wainright winges about a hot bath on a frosty night    Poet

tries with all her might  to disappear into a wormhole +write poems

using only consonants: why fly by my shy pygmy nymph?

But I fight to stay awake  I fight not to fight  I fight the losing battle to write

People on the other side of the street can feel the red-hot sparks of

mounting anger   They stop +stare   If one more morose mo-fo gives me

the Toronto glare  I swear that I will propel myself through the window

+declare: I write to stimulate the old dead beast  So buggeroff  mes cheries

__

Winter 2014

TOMORROW

TOMMOROW   TOMORROW    I   LOVE   YOU     TOMORROW

Today I read something like: When you look in the mirror

the Devil stands beside you   and shows you the worm

inside the rose     I was riffing on shaving my head as I

struggled with my coiffure   It certainly would be easier

An older look to be sure  my luncheon friend demurred

But the worm was whispering:

You are entering the Sublime Decline fair rose!

It’s true   Yesterday I dozed briefly   as I drove the local

highway   Dangerously flirting with the   long repose

It may very well be time to hang up my eyelash curlers

After all   it is my dream to swim with the Dolphins soon

And not kill them with Nutriesse 564   A red so vibrant it

screams Victorian whore   or Annie   And not in a good way

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April 21,  2012

JINGLE JANGLE

IN THE JINGLE JANGLE MORNIN   I’LL COME FOLLOWIN YOU

Hands up if you are:

a holy mess

an un-holy mess

not on duty

cancelled

inoperative

vanished

Without resorting to hyperbole   all of these are true for me

The indifference switch has been thrown    Metamorphosis

button broken

Every morning at 10:15 he has a Molson Canadian   at 10:26

a Marlboro    11:24  2nd beer+umpteenth butt   Mostly he stands

out there & tries to catch me naked    Jeans  biker jacket   Lanny

Mcdonald  ‘stache    My cool guy from rooming house on corner

does not realize that I am  Coma-Woman    A cardboard rendition

of a once emotionally turbulent operating system

So is this dormancy?

40 winks?

Or perma- torpidity?

It really doesn’t matter much to me   Under the spell of reverie

Of life flashing before me constantly   This gorgeous transfixion

in slo-mo

We all seem to complain that Bob Dylan is incomprehensible

in concert these days    Maybe we simply no longer hear  the

nasal nuances    No longer care  where the answer is blowin

So fixated are we on the questions   Where will we be  in 20 yrs.

has suddenly taken on a whole new meaning   Hands up if this is

the most depressing poem you’ve had the pleasure of reading

Arlene Kogod  Center for Aging  Mayo Clinic: For example, we don’t

want to have a situation where we say, cure cancer and then you

die of Alzheimer’s or stroke. It would be better to delay all of these 

together. 

Now there’s a scientist on her toes  reading the zeitgeist  massaging the

numbers   Smart as a tack        Bring it Arlene

__

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin’

I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it.  

Bob Dylan  Mr. Tambourine Man

Late Fall   2014