songanddancegirl

grunt

gruntwork

so you think giving birth is hard   the other kind

of gruntwork   escaping the bones+mortar of this

mortalcoil  makes birthing a thing for sissies  though

death throes ending in a peace unbeknownst to most

who have never witnessed the deed

but first  one must wrestle the survival instinct  +family

too   who’d rather see you writhe in ecstatic confessions

cancer-ridden +spectral   than have you leave them   and

nurses in the ward  midwives to the darklord with forceps

on your balls  +dibs on your soul

__

Fall 2018

REDUX

TURTLE REDUX

back to the resort where turtles are massaged

by samoans  +young women vie for position on

cabana-boys tan laps   a decadent petit bourgeois

enclave  off a coastal hi-way

In a hospital close by  there is a hospice   where

visitors say things like: what  no IV?  no feeding tube?

as if these are choices in the Eaton’s catalogue   then

they eat the patient’s lunch  +talk loudly   mostly to avoid

the green pallor  fevered brow  and death rattle  of the man

in the bed

He will not get out of here alive   they will return to pink

stucco  +heated front walks   but I adore the man in the bed

+ just wish the prattle would end   how about some morphine  

people?  can a dying man not get a little high?   They look me

in the eye  they say: let us worry about the important stuff

old bitch  

so I get into my cab  +head back to the airport   on the way  the

sweet haitian driver whose wife has cancer  talks nonstop  about

jesus  and faith  and the lack thereof   and a vengeful God who has

placed us on a collision course with apocalypse   simply because

he can

__

FALL 2018

BITCH

RIDING BITCH AT MY BROS BEDSIDE

I left the small private hospital in Palm Beach Gardens

and returned to a resort right out of Disney  Outsized

people  listening to loud covers  dripping gluttony

Save me  No save my brother  He in the hospital  last

days before set free  He of the beautiful face +outsized

personality  Thick hands  powerful arms  the body of a

football star   ascending     Take me with you

And that night on the beach  his second last in captivity

there was such a profusion of falling stars  that the Gods

worked overtime to grant the wishes of the fatted bourgeoisie

another Porsche 

more money  honey

a new face  sans the fishy mouth?

more plump bubbas +scarletts  with dirt smeared feet

While I wished a meagre wish  knowing Porsches +honey

+money  were noise  to distract the Gods from the real ask:

Don’t take him    Give us one more once   You can have my

first born child

2 weeks later  now wretchedly pacing

writing a book called: I AM MARTY’S LIVER

__

FALL 2018  …RIP brother in arms..

WARNING

AND THE SIGN FLASHED IT’S WARNING

this will only hurt a little

__

*(the biggest lie ever told)

Fall 2018 ..2 weeks today..RIP M.A.☠️☠️

SORROW

THIS MUCH MADNESS IS TOO MUCH SORROW

just interrogated at the airport by a vuitton sporting

girl from the tribe  entitlement   probably 25  neurotic

as all get out   cut her off after she queried re: my dying

brother’s current marital status

i looked into the mid distance  +slowly placed my

pointy toed  metal tipped right boot  between our

blooming friendship

i also joined the mile high club with her husband whose

questions were more of a turn on:  workin?  he asked with

a dirtbag smile   all the while reminding me of a Polish loser

i dated back in 1982

__

Fall 2018

MYSTIQUE

A PARTICIPATION MYSTIQUE OF GRIEF

outside it is November  +a participation mystique of leaves

splattered +yellow   rainy dia de muertos  mexican day of dead

my brother  a crucifixion   walks now upright  muscled  reborn

no mere mortal  he’s risen above the whips+scorns

above the tropic of cancer  now forever a football star  as the

many down here wallow in guiltygumbobrew  squeamish  +

cowering with cancerward blues   this no witch of the Carré can

undo     so why can’t death have re-dos???   +cancer docs  with

cancermills more backbone??   to the moon dr. abe schwartzburg

to the moon

___

*these days my 94 yr. old mother + I  are left not knowing  

where her grief begins  +mine ends

**participation mystique – coined by anthropologist Levy-Bruhl

a particular kind of psychological connection where the subject

cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object  but is bound to

it so as to have only a partial identity   This phenom known as well

to those inhabited by dybbuks 

Dia De Muertos  2018  RIP Mexico bro..with love…everything that dies..someday comes back..

shiva

shiva with a small s

people hug u  +they reek of cheap

cologne   then u wrest yourself from

death elixir +howl your grief at the moon

__

Fall 2018 ..RIP beautiful bro…..Marty – 1946-2018

RANDI

RANDI CALIFORNIA   PANCAKES   BOOBIES

hoarfrost on dirty flowers  splattered mud   sinkfoot

not stinkfoot of zappa   no   torrential waters break

on newly sealed roof+citystreets   roofers not un-

handsome  come   +gone

younger brother turns 60  still looks 48.5   your own

sprackled hands give u away   as your grail grows weary

yesterday evaded girlhood interloper  from camp  night-

marish place of frenetic activity  for those being taught to

NEVER  spend a moment alone

u ringleader  c-teaser  line the campers up on beds   as

garbagemen pass: ok  shirts over heads!   tween breasts

now free+easy   randi  of playboybunny d’s  pert in morning

breeze   garbagemen sneak into cabin  +keep jewish virgins

warm at night

__

*randi became a firstwave feminist multiorgasmic with

cityworkers+high heeled boys 

**I want pancakes  boobies!   

lament of homer simpson

Fall 2018  ..happybirthdayharmski..

HEAD

OFF WITH HER HEAD

2 superplump squirrels stalk me   Now sequestered with brown

spiders at edge of park   Bitchy boy  snarlmouth  kicks soccer

ball at tiny sister with dots  If that ball comes 1 inch closer  I will

toss squirrel carcass at mother  un-supervising you    She of

snarlmouth too

Freddie Oversteegen  petite girl assassin  +saboteur   Fought Nazis

from her bicycle  said: I’ve shot them +seen them fall   And what’s

inside such a moment?  You want to help them get up    She perhaps

singular in this love for humanity  Not a sentiment one sees shared widely

Today much hatred afoot  Powerful men with tiny puckered mouths   One

a judge  one the Prez   And a base of deplorables who mock rape victims

teeth gnashing  Tear a jewgirl from limb to limb   With clockwork orange eyes

plied wide open  we watch Donald despot +his mail order bride  eat democracy

for breakfast   While the last of the civilized wonder who will make animal sounds

when democracy dies?

__

..Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something

begun so well had now gone off the rails. The rabble cannot manage itself..

(Lincoln In The Bardo  George Saunders  2017)

Fall  2018

ALONE

THE BIG ALONE

I heard the loon call  at 3 a.m.  the laughing one

Bedlam  Bellevue  Witchcackle   So much better

than gruntsqueals from next cabin

Shoveling drive  1965   Giant flakes  blacksky

Snowsmell  coldsmell   Leaning on shovel  Silencio

The bigalone    Fearless   at 5

Father on a bed of ice  swollenface  tubestoo   Fear

creepsin throughveins   He is stitched from ankle to

solarplexis     Will he make it?

Twins  boy+girl   blondecurls   Cannot place this memory

The last time father visited from his grave at Beth Tzedec

Gardens  I called the fire department   Later I read that the

dead often announce themselves with the smell of burning

toast

Too late  for my date  with Daddy   He who loved birds of all kinds

When I told him that I had seen a colourful bird on the driveway

yellow  turquoise  +red   he threw back his head    If you knew him

you’d know the laugh   He said: That was a budgie  The one who got

away    Remember  there’s always free food in a cage    

__ 

Fall 2018  .. still waiting on the smell of burnt toast..