songanddancegirl

SWEET OLD WORLD

SEE  WHAT  YOU  LOST  WHEN  YOU  LEFT

THIS  WORLD     THIS  SWEET  OLD  WORLD

Dr. Hazen Gandy child psychiatrist said: Commonly

it’s cutting for the 12-17’s  slashing arms  thighs  bellies

with razor blades   Gives the body a whole different set

of inputs  Allows them not to feel so awful inside   & we’re

seeing 10x more kids  than 10 yrs. ago

 

This world is taking no prisoners    Yesterday Mick’s

girlfriend was found with a scarf around her neck   kneeling

Mick’s skin looked so thin   you could see the frayed edges of

his soul

 

Dr. Gandy went on to say:  Greater numbers of mental health

professionals are  on the verge  themselves

 

The blind leading   There is a global existential crisis:

I am empty

I don’t know who I am

I don’t know where I am going

 

The Mother home at lunchtime   glasses of milk   cookies

& Gilligan   Your dog hiding in the same closet for 13 yrs.

Ready or not  here I come   Same house  same school   In an

 I know who I am   kind of world

 

The children I have known in the temenos: cigarette burns

elective mutes  scaldings  & worse   incontinent at 10 

Where’s my dog   & the Dad?

 

Trillions of dollars are being spent on the BICEP2 experiment

What was the Universe like at less than one second old?

Isn’t this just another form of the existential crisis?

 

We are empty  We don’t know who we are  We have no compass

 

It remains difficult to know what even one trillion dollars could

do for those in the mental health trenches  They might be able to

construct a  safety net   one that stretches from the South Pole

(site of BICEP2 tests)  to Nunavut    Across the Straights   and

around the globe    Maybe even teach our police  de-escalation

techniques?

 

Another pundit  Dr. Kathleen Pajer  Chief  Psychiatrist in Halifax

will have the final word:  Most of these kids don’t have a diagnosis 

Leaving doctors mystified

__

 

Looking for some truth  dancing with no shoes

The beat  the rhythm  the blues  The pounding of

your heart’s drum together with another one  

Didn’t you think anyone loved you   See what you

lost when you left this world   this sweet old world        

(Lucinda Williams)

 

 

SPRING  2014

WISH

WHATEVER YOU WISHED FOR

YOU WILL WISH FOR AGAIN

Is there something messianic in our

fervor to find out what happened to

the Missing Plane?  They grow shrill

on CNN   Anderson is knitting his uni-

brow  & hyperventilating

 

At a dinner party on the weekend between

risotto a la whore & key lime pie  there were

hijack theories  secret landings in Afghanistan

Martian kidnappings   Could it be the Taliban?

 

If Osama could orchestrate 911 from a cave

surely something is afoot   Where were you

when the plumes of smoke appeared?  Did the

2^nd plane destroy too   baby messiahs everywhere

on the day that hope escaped   our clutches?

 

So now flight MH 370 is  reality tv   Soon even you

will be able to fly a Boeing 777   Hishammudin Hussein

Malaysian Minister of Defense  &  Acting Minister of

Transport said:  Yes it was disabled

 

All Right   Good Night  Ping  Ping   Ping   If you do not

know this reference  you likely have spent the last week

in a cave   Pray For MH 370   If Possible Come Home 

(sign in airport Kuala Lumpur)

__

 

 

Winter  2014

THE CIRCLE

THE CIRCLE  MARRIES     THE  LINE

What if time is circular   not linear?

What if eternity  is real  and not just

a word drummed up by religion  so you

know how long you will rot in hell  when

you break one of their rules

 

What if you keep repeating the exact

same life   over & over  again?   This

would explain déjà vu   ditto NDE’s

all uncannily the same

 

A meaner theory than reincarnation where

at least you are given a new identity  upon

your re-entry   And doesn’t everyone think

they were  once rich  famous   & brilliant?

Few will tell you they were Hitler

 

Could this be what Freud was getting at with

the discovery of  repetition compulsion: our

un-conscious determination to repeat the story

of our lives right down to marrying the same

man 3x

 

Dreams would appear to be the telltale sign

showing us how different people in our stories

are actually the same person  but in disguise

 

Yet even seasoned dream-analysts will misread

the signs showing them that: wife #1 is wife #2

therefore wife # 1 is wife #3  (Axiom of Maria)

 

The most fascinating aspect of this  timeascircle

theory is that: 9 out of 10x’s  you wake up in the

middle   near the beginning  or ¾ of the way to the

end of your story   Only once every lifetime do you

wake up on the last day   Yet you know this day

intimately  from all of the repetitions

 

Dreams also show you your death   Most don’t

notice   the rest  forget  by morning   A few know

with a clear eyed certainty how the last day will

end   and they work on this  death-wish  with an

existential psychotherapist    But there is no cure

 

Take Anna Karenina   Tolstoy wrote the book before

Jung & Freud discovered the un-conscious   He was

onto something   grasped the circle   knew the uroboros

inside-out

 

At various times in her life Anna has a re-curring dream

& horrifically  it unfolds in her final moments  before the train

is above her  before the train is above her  before the train    

is above her

 

So   is the first  read-through  the best?   Before you  know

something is fishy?  Before you look at the man you are

about to marry  & feel that you have known him forever?

Or you look at the man you are about to marry  & for 46

seconds  you have no idea whatsoever  who the hell he is

__

 

Let the script revel in tricks & transformations   when the

film is broken   let it be spliced      The Magic Curtain  1971

Stanley Kunitz

 

 

 

Winter  2014

LAST

THE  LAST    SUPPER

He’s 24 yrs. old  now under ice & snow

His obituary oblique  He will be missed

by his girlfriend Rylie  & his dog Shadow

Sleep tight  the final phrase

 

In the photo he is smiling broadly   dark

curly hair frames his face   Grandfather a

war hero  mercifully pre-deceased his boy

Family’s shining star   Father a jovial man

no more

 

Today Spring feels almost possible  birds

chirping at 4:26 a.m.   Outback the rugged

man  has a beer at 10   Whistling a tune on

the fire escape    By noon the family arrives

at Cemetery  north of city

 

Ice  snow  & mud  covered by a tarp   Family

will leave before mini-bulldozer re-fills the

hole   Do they cover the mound  to make it

genteel?    Gentle?

 

So that we  may remain in denial for a few

moments more?  The churned up earth is nasty

& un-gentle    It will do it’s job   hold him fast

Outlast wood

 

This year there will be no Spring

No Resurrection    Everything is broken

__

 

 

Winter  2014    RIP  K.B.T.

FREE

LAND  OF  THE  BRAVE     HOME  OF  THE  FREE

Dario Franceschini   Italy’s Culture Minister  is outraged

ditto for Cristina Acidini (Curator)  It seems that  Armalite

a  fine quality U.S. Fire Arms company  has used a photo of

 Michelangelo’s  DAVID   for their blow-out   Spring sale

 

Many Italians took umbrage  one tweeted: Why don’t you use

your own bloody monuments?   Perhaps the Liberty Bell  with

a huge pile of  AR – 501 bolt action rifles below it

 

Sadly the Bell  lost some it’s cachet when Taco Bell announced it had

purchased it  and changed it’s name to: Taco Liberty (April 1, 1996)

Despite protests  company sales of tacos  burritos  & enchiladas rose by

more than a billion dollars that week

__

 

Winter  2014

 

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

A  MAN  NEEDS  A    MAID

At least 4 maids went mad in our front hall

The last one  Lucy  shouted obscenities  &

kicked the dog    We were consoled by the

fact that she didn’t pull a  Dexter  and chop

up little brother  He grew up with a penchant

for horror   His favourite film  The Shining

 

The first 3 were named Mary   1 stole pictures

of our mother visiting the Continent   They were

found later with captions: Paris was fantastique!

Sounds like the onset of madness  to me

 

In my mind’s eye   I see the 1^st Mary  all dressed

in blue  with stigmata on her cheeks   Her son in

prison for crimes he never committed   Not prodigal

Never returned   Mary now straight-jacketed marching

toward a cruiser    Each day she wept into our baths

salt mixing with dove mixing with neurosis

 

The one named Brenda (our 1^st not-Mary)  fell hard

for my 16 yr. old brother   Bestowing the kinds of

kisses our mother would never have dreamed   She

later ran off with our neighbor Rubin   Stepmother to

Lilibeth & Hilda   now a suburban Queen

 

We lived on a deep & fertile ravine  where wild animals

& satyrs cavorted   While out front Cadillacs of various

colours gave off a gold-toothed gleam   When we drove

out to farm-country our father lowed convincingly   & all

the cows for miles around chased us to our mother’s screams

__

 

 

Winter  2014

 

CYBER-HEAVEN

IMAGINE  THERE’S  NO    CYBER-HEAVEN

Verno Vinge   science fiction aficionado said:

By 2040 we will merge with our computers

cast off our bodies   realize immortality

the Singularity will be upon us

 

This idea is now embraced as fact  but will we

still be Human?  Have we ever been?  Or have

we remained that mutation slouching out of Africa

millennia ago?

 

Will there still be:  war  serial killers  gangs?

(who slash hundreds in the subways of China)

Wasn’t religion supposed to be the opiate of

the masses?  Stone tablets the first glimmering

of the human conscience?

 

Remember  the Savage  in Brave New World?

Last remaining old world Human   wound up on a

rope  in the shower   Ditto for David Foster Wallace

brilliant young man of American letters  on his front porch

 

There is no evidence to suggest that our constant interface

with technology is making us happier   braver    Studies show

that we trust techno-gadgets more than our instincts   Take the

couple who followed their GPS  into the wilderness  & died

though surrounded by paved roads

 

Long passive from relying on the machine  human creativity

disappears   The God in the machine pricks up his ears   & returns

to the Mothership    finally weary of our anxiety  & depression

Abandoned here some of us loot  looted art   & begin a movement

to rehabilitate Heaven

__

 

 

Winter  2014

SIBERIA

LEFT  MY  HEART    IN  SIBERIA

Cool Polish ladies dance the night away

I want to dance with them   too shy    so I

watch transfixed   My grandmother’s Poland

did not look like this

 

Lightening Lee  & Little Freddie King headline

tonight    Lee is effusive   spits a lot  mainly in my

husband’s direction   He gives me a faux red rose

bordello scented   I cannot take it home  I may be

arrested at the border

 

Little Freddie wears red   He is 4 foot 7  and sits

close to the Polish ladies   on a bench   He is cool

incarnate   Plays the guitar like the devil knows

his name

 

Later I kiss Lee on a moist cheek   Margaritas have

flown freely    He whispers in my ear: ditch yer bro

&  yer husband  Red    Come with me

 

Never  go to New Orleans  gentle reader   I implore you

For though The Saints  may pray for your sorry-ass soul

In your chest there will reside a heart shaped hole    

__

          

 

 

Winter  2014

REVISITED

LOVE IS BLUE    REVISITED

There is youngish woman today

gazing at the Gutfreund sculpture

enraptured    She lives in machinery

head-gear   oxygen packs hanging

on her  chair    She is pale    almost

blue   like the statue    But she is here

 

Woman in chair has broken into song:

You’ve gotta live  a little   die a little

She is inches from me  smiling   pretty

She is saintful  grateful    & somehow free

__

 

 

 

Winter  2014   A.G.O.  Jean Metzinger  Woman With Fan 1911-1912

METROPOLIS

MODERN  METROPOLIS

Mother & daughter in front of a Picasso

1900  Paris night club scene  in motion

Candles flicker  faces blurry around edges

Women triumphant  no she-goats in sight

 

Daughter  many shades of blonde  examines

the piece   6 inch stilettos  fur tails hang    asymmetrically

Leopard print dress   drum tight

 

Mother sensible coat & shoes  hair several hues

of blonde  too   Both have a bald spot mid-head

Mother’s   more progressed

 

Daughter eyes me menacingly  her beauty creeping

toward the exit   Mother was always more interesting

Lingers in front of Kandinsky   as daughter poses for

art patrons   not beguilingly

__

New Technology in mother’s era:

cellophane

elevators

pop-up toasters

mustard gas

automobiles

hand grenades

 

 

 

 

Winter  2014   Art Gallery Of Ontario  The Great Upheaval  Picasso