songanddancegirl

SHAKE

SHAKE  YOUR    MEANING-MAKER

I am aware that you have come to expect

meaning  from me   No 1/2 way crucifixions

You want the words nailed-down   Yet it was

Picasso who railed  at being nailed  to the wall

And I do want to satisfy you   But sometimes

meaning is muddy   and I have not crawled this

far to be your meaning-maker   modern Sapien

Meaning is a relatively new gene variant in Homo erectus

We used to be able to tolerate not-knowing   some 1.6

billion yrs. ago   Genetically predisposed to spot danger

we now struggle to see angry faces in the botoxed crowd

You wear your mortality like a bullseye  under a sky of cosmic

blue   where the clouds are moaning  over you   And like our

newest planet   PSOJ318.5-22    (no poets at NASA)   which does

not orbit a star    you have been cast adrift   in a world with a

serious shortage of  silence

__

Fall  2013

ZOO

ZOO  OF  THE    HUMAN

The entomologist Renzo Perissinotto

has had a new species of Scarab Beetle

named for him (G.perissinottoi)   Sacred

in ancient Egypt  their images were imprinted

on amulets & funerary objects  A recent study

found that Scarabs mate  quick & dirty  with just

about any bug around

While 64% of Canadian students (age 18-24) said

they’d had a sexual encounter in the past year

without any method of birth control   Sexual health

expert Blondie Chaplain said:  There are gaps in knowledge  for sure     

A more interesting observation is that regarding the

Higgs boson:  Primary particles are almost all the same  it’s

just their juxtaposition that makes your flesh flesh  and wood   wood

__

Late Fall   2013

HOG

HOG  TOWN

A frigid wind whips up my    pant-leg

Where are those tiny vagabonds  of

Summer?  Shrieking   simulating sex

and unspeakable acts of violence

*as witnessed by poet   Philosopher’s Walk U of T

Summer camp in down-town T.O.  gone

terribly wrong    Now warehoused in

schools   Un-holy little havoc wreakers

__

* Marc & Craig Kielburger (Free The Children)

encouraged parents to choose peaceful Halloween

heroes this year. Reportedly Toronto children in huge

numbers  went out as Mayor Ford   and he as a T.O. Maple Leaf

Late Fall  2013

MELANCHOLY

MELANCHOLY  MAMMAL  LULLABIES

Today a 100 yr. old tree came crashing down in

the park   & the crack addled Mayor was caught

on video   Last night at a Halloween party a 90 yr.

old wore a T-shirt: 2nd virginal birth  Her sister said:      It’s a boy!

More and more the centre is imploding   as rough

magistrates & Prime Ministers    clamour to be    re-born

__

*small brain  large face tucked below braincase   rounded

cranial vault   small brow ridges   no capacity for art   symbolic

thought  or full blown language   this creature lived 1.8 million

years ago 

Fall  2013

BIRD BREATH

BIRD  BREATH    AND BEE  STING

square suburban yard   in the vinyl

swimming pool   lightening overhead

groundhogs tremble in bushes before

attacking youngest brother    father never

believed him  but the rest of us do

other brother stung repeatedly  fell into verdant

ravine  one day late spring    mother & neighbour

mother carry him to local doctor   who loves

mother’s best friend

older brother waits for us  menacingly    we who

have plucked every flower on street for Mother’s

Day   police catch baby bro  chubby legs  too slow

friend asks why we stole the dinkytoys      because we wanted them!

blood-red cardinal falls from tree & shivers in the snow   as

boat-loads of freedom from childhood melodramas    wing their way

but haven’t arrived just yet

—

Late Fall 2013

JOHNNY PRESBYTERIAN

JOHNNY  PRESBYTERIAN   A’INT   ROTTEN

I sat at a table today  next to the  Early Instrument Collection

intrigued by the 18th C  leather-bound serpent-horns   But

more so by a threadbare  smallish man    Big shoes  bigger

than his feet   Well kept dishevelment  likely frayed since birth

His not unkind eyes settled on mine    He said: My sister’s husband

beats her every night   Geyser tears shooting out  hit my nose & chin

Too smitten to wipe them  I smiled doe-like in the mist   He said:

Miss  I am Johnny Presbyterian  & I believe we all start as miracles and

end up changing tires    I couldn’t disagree with him

I said:  Johnny if I make something beautiful  will you think it’s beautiful

too?   He handed me one of his boat-like shoes   Take it Miss fer when

begging bowls grow scarce   and lame dogs walk on water

__

Late Fall  2013

R.I.P. LOU

NO   COUNTRY

There will be no port

that will take you

Madwoman

Jew

You are unreceivable

Ungrievable

If we say so you don’t exist

And you there child

Talking to your dead brother’s ashes

No room

Oh and Sally in the corner

of the cigarette burns

etched like stars into your back

We couldn’t possibly

Yo  Donnie

With snakes writhing

in & out of every orifice

We simply cannot squeeze you in

dear

And what of smiling Jerry?

His mother’s entrails

steaming on the floor

Your ship of fools

is forever banished

from our shores

__

Give me your tired your poor  I’ll piss on ‘em

That’s what the statue of bigotry says  Your poor

huddled masses  let’s club ‘em to death

Lou Reed , Dirty Blvd  1988

Spring  2007         Lou Reed  March 1942 – October 2013

AUTUMN COATRACKS

AUTUMN  COATRACKS  FULL  OF  PERKY  HUES

I sacrificed a small pink mum to the one eyed

Buddha in the bedroom   Over the course of

a day it now lay  soft & supine where once

stiff & straight    Surely the golden-boy  with

elongated ears will weave  pink-flower-soul

into grey city sleepers  on edge of polluted

Lake    Especially during ice-storms when every

dream you ever had on fetid days will glimmer  briefly

Before squirrel-rats bury them in your tulip beds

Do not over think it    Just survive

__

Late  Autumn  2013

FASHIONABLY TROUBLED

FASHIONABLY  TROUBLED      FASHION  VICTIMS

Today one of our favourite emporiums of the cheap

fashionfix  asked customers to vote:  Do you want us

to support   women    clean water    the environment   or

education?  There were even glossy photos of happy

women splashing themselves with gorgeous water  in

places like  India  Pakistan  & Cambodia

Trouble is they didn’t mention  industrial safety  fair wages

or domestic violence   Their silence spoke volumes    In India:

A newly wed woman is lit on fire every 90 minutes by her in-laws * 

Just days ago depictions of Hindu Goddesses as battered women

went viral    Lakshmi had a swollen lip  while Durga the Great Mother

Goddess   shed tears from a bruised eye

Some are not sure if this helps the cause of beaten  raped   & tortured

women  in a country where 68% are victims of domestic violence   Perhaps

the cheap fashionfixers might scrap their meaningless vote   display the

battered Goddesses around the globe   & take up a collection for victims

of violence  There is no statistic for un-reported rapes in India  (population 1.2 billion)

where women risk death for doing so

_

Art is not a mirror held up to reality  

It is a hammer with which to shape it    

Bertolt Brecht 

Late Fall  2013           *(Globe & Mail 22/10/13)

GODSPEED

GODSPEED    JOHN  GLEN*

Have you ever fallen in love    with a face?

One that gets inside  your skin    You may

not even know the owner    I  did this weekend

with a dead astronaut named Scott:   red hair

boyish grin   eyes brown   doleful   one lid droops

face spells trouble     He wants    more

Married 4x   pre-deceased by 2 of 8 children

In the early 60’s on his only spaceflight   Scott

missed his landing by 463 kl.    Walter Cronkite said:

We may have lost an astronaut   Earth waited in   solemn silence

Scott was found  feet propped up  floating in the

Caribbean    NASA was not impressed   blamed him

for being   distracted

Scott said:  The view of Mother Earth is addictive

Should you turn your attention to faces   you may

want to begin with children    Faces in the throes of

transcendence    of  a metamorphosis so deep   that

between birth and 13  there is   a brand new being

Forensic artists are enlisted to capture these changes

when young children are kidnapped   so that they may be   found

The human-face a holy-frontier       Godspeed  Scott Carpenter

__

Tell good and true stories around lonely campfires

They say the nights on Mars are cold and long –

(Scott Carpenter   For Spacious Skies)

RIP 1925-2013

Fall   2013      *Scott Carpenter to John Glenn at lift-off  1962