songanddancegirl

POCAHONTAS

MARLON BRANDO   POCAHONTAS    & ME

Then there are the recurring déjà vu’s   Part dream

part psychotic-snapshot    A cousin described these

to a tee   more daymare actually   Sometimes my father

throws back his head + laughs    He won’t squander his

happiness if given a  second lease

Today a civilian plane is blown from the sky   298 die

Metaphor is the mother of reality   & reality is the shit-abyss

this Summer

38 yrs. ago   another steamy Summer day    19   pristine

Like a dream   In chiffon cream  confection    $1200

way back then     People say your dress cost thousands!

bourgeois neighbor bellowed    On the day I sold the dress

I came within inches of being cancelled  by a streetcar named:

The Last Chance Texaco

My young groom twice married  (3^rd bride makes the man)

Father at my side  gone now 25   A jittery bride    Grooms sister

cried (gone at 45)  Hated me for marrying up    But none of that

matters anymore   In the end we leave nameless + poor   Lingering

now on the shore   still part pristine    mostly grizzled  Fisher-Queen

__

Stella!   Stella!  

(Stanley Kowalski   Vieux Carre 1947)

Summer 2014

ARCHANGELS

PEOPLE    HELL     & SMALL ARCHANGELS

Look around the edges of any group   Which strange

kids are off to the side   hiding from the mainstream?

They will be the  dogwalkers  poets  docents   of tomorrow

6 yr. old boy + 10 yr. old girl   He tries to keep a giant blue

beach-ball airborne  otherwise forlorn   digging in the dirt

She occasionally allows him onto her lap    A strange sight even

for me   dark café dweller  parkbench denizen  mainstreameject

Counsellor in shades takes the ball away from boy in crevasse

Old stone building U of T    What will they BE?    As other campers

flee   + beat each other senseless    Girl: mother of 3  Brittany  Starlight

& Alba     Boy:  will disappear  July 22^nd  2023

Counsellors now playing murderball   whipping colorful orbs at

campers heads   One falls to the ground does not get up   As parents

in business towers   nervously search the horizon for rescue planes

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*(today Globe & Mail pundit suggests: Soon they will harvest the madness

of poets + comics + dogwalkers)

Summer 2014

SAVE ME

POETRY  WILL  NOT  SAVE  ME

They may break all of my krystal  when yellow stars

twinkle in the longdarknight    They may covet my

teeth  though none are gold    Or maybe settle for my

Great Grandmother’s candelabra   Az meer shmeert   fortmin

If you grease it   it slides   

Truth is  no one has built an oven for me  but they are taking tallies

in parts of Europe   And though poetry will not save me   I am comforted

by the certainty that Barak  will rescue my people too   Those we left behind

were not just numbers  They were the vessel itself    Hopefully they will send

my brothers and I   to the same place

The lines waiting for the boatmen are long   Do not wait in resignation   eternity

requires hope   Choose a few sacred possessions  & pretend they will let you keep

them   It was highly likely the train ploy  would not work a 2nd time    Do not be

fooled by the boats  A band will play  & a singer’s voice will sweeten the afternoon

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*(please commit this poem to memory    & then burn it)

Summer  2014

WAYFARERS

HAIR  SLICKED  BACK    WAYFARERS  ON

I remember the boys of summer  beautiful & pristine

I remember the boys of summer  one sweaty   breathing

heavy  in a darkened ravine    long hair   banana bikes

wheelies    one went insane  bouffant  elvis redux  by grade 13

years later another moved to my cousin’s street  drove a red Cadillac

& swore he named his dog after me

__

 
Summer  2014

DOG

HAIR  OF  THE  DOG

I know someone who has been OFF of life support  for

11 days   The doctors say this is not even possible  but

some human-egos are rock solid survival machines

Others cave  and flee  with regularity    Or resort to

substances  with names like  Mary Jane + Skag

Dull the ache    take the peak out of peak experiences

Then there are those who say:  I am gonna save this

place   this ship of fools   this quintessence of dust   this

blackness world   this Ebola    I am also in touch with a

man   father of 1,211 children   The 1/2 sibs found each

other on Facebook    Sperm daddy  Sperm daddy  i will

find you   and when i do  we will get acquainted  compare

moles  Sperm daddy  Sperm daddy  i love you

I find that I have been speaking aloud   Stanza-chanting at

the crowd  But today there is a meanness amidst the muffled

muzak  The woman beside me leans in: Bitch if you keep

singing I’m gonna murder you   I know inside we likely won’t

survive   with our deep nostalgia + hopeless longing    Our

irrational pursuit of the cure    Some of us have crossed the line

we’re just not that fine   anymore

There was a brief time when I had a magnificent dog + no cares

In a recent dream we baked him into holy wafers & gave them

out at the sidedoor   I read that whatever you believe will happen

in the end   will happen   It just makes so much sense   When you

cross the marshlands in the bluish light  the dog will be there  with

all of your music   + your father burning burgers on the bbq

__

Summer 2014

MOUTH

MOUTHING OFF   AT SUMMER POETRY INTENSIVE

Write about your mouth I said to him   Just look in the mirror

He stared unblinkingly into my Atom Egoyan eyes *(recently

became my doppelgånger)

So the least I can do is put my moneywheremymouthis

My mouth on a good day is full of scintillating things to say:

quips  hyperbole  curses   + snide sotto voce asides

Truthfully it becomes more & more difficult to spit words out

Not mouth’s fault   It is the braindrain   Wordfind is in a permanent

state of thesaurus

Lately I have begun to wonder about Atom’s brain/mouth co-ordination

& whether or not he considers me to be  his doppelgånger   We did bump

into him at the Opera last Fall    where my husband grabbed Atom’s ass

& dragged him screaming from the hall

__

Summer 2014

EYES

SHE  HAS  DENOUEMENT   EYES

Light moving in  bands   Waves undulating across periphery

of left eye   If I look in mirror will face have morphed into  BAST

the ancient Egyptian Cat Goddess    Eye feels feline & not in a good way

Same face   Same eye     Mirror doesn’t lie   says wrinkle commercial

YES it does  says me    Brownhairedgirl  gentle waves    Open to persuasion

Purple bow on pig-tails   It lies every day!   Who is this MadHatter?  Fiery-red

be-frizzled head    No Exit  sign  beside her bed

Undulating eye leads to ululation    Honey bees are dying + Monarchs have lost

their native plants   Even the car wash lady is prone to rants + taken a strong dislike

to  MadHatter woman    Work on Big BossMan Car!   she commands   as cleaners

scurry away  leaving woman musty

Her jaded ghost running  naked   along  West Queen West

She will find an Exit  yet

__

Summer  2014

KAMAKAZE

HER KAMAKAZE SON

Her eyes are still emerald though nothing else

is remotely the same   When young & un-griefed

she was briefly beautiful

But the madness of her mother always hung heavy

especially on hot suburban nights

Her parents visited once in a  GIANT BLUE CHEVY

left on our driveway for the Repo-man   One year in

her late 20’s she spoke mainly in tongues

Now her son will protect her   A natty young man tall+lean

far too sweet for what is coming   Carrying her out of urine

soaked beds   & singing her to sleep when the moon shines red

__

As I Lay Dying    William Faulkner   1930

SUMMER  2014

GIRL

COLLEGE GIRL MESSIAH

The prettiest most perfect little thing

just walked into and out of   my life

Pre-Raphaelite Eve   Apple un-bitten

Cherubic grin   Hair pulled into a top

knot   Gold+white flyaways flutter

Accordion skirt skyblue   way above

the knee   Tight white blouse   A pristine

machine   Patent bag  words on one side:

Who understands language   Understands God

__

Summer 2014

WAITING

NOT WAITING FOR SAMUEL BECKETT TO SLIP ME THE ANSWER

There really is ecstasy   a.k.a. magic in this life

followed by heartache  followed by tedium  banality

irritation   Then occasionally bliss breaks in   Life

culminates in having lived    It’s that simple   Yourownpersonalodyssey.com

I Was Here   written in pink chalk on buildings  benches  fences

Blackie Was Here   doggie odyssey   Unmarked grave   ravine

North Toronto 1970’s    As soon as we wake up into this puny-consciousness

we long for immortality  Do Not Extinguish Me!  (see: *Lascaux

*Michelangelo  *Godot   *Rosebud)

We all like to be near people who are living the life they want to

live   To touch a corner of their cloak   to take a selfie with them

to stalk them   to kill them?  (see: Mark David Chapman  or don’t)

At a workshop on PLAY THERAPY TECHNIQUES the sleek lady from

Arizona gave us: THE MAGIC BAG   Tell your clients they can put their

hands in and pull out ANYTHING: the missing mother    God    a puppy

then psycho-dramatically play with these    One client bitterly recounted

how her cat did not return to life when she used a bag at home

Perhaps this is more of an adult technique  for the suffering fantasists

reserved + melancholic   eaten up inside by ebbing passion   For the ones

who say: I have my pace + way of living   I’m not looking for something

Don’t bother me with MAGIC   If it happens it happens   Otherwise fuck you

__

Astride of a grave and a difficult birth   Down the hole   lingeringly   the grave digger

puts on forceps   At me too someone is looking  of me too someone is saying   He is

sleeping  he knows nothing  Let him sleep on  (Waiting For Godot   Samuel Beckett)

Adelia Prado begs to differ:

Nothing is ever dead  What seems to have died fertilizes

What seems motionless waits

(Lesson 1976)

Summer 2014