NEW CAR CAVIAR FOUR STAR DAYDREAM
THINK I’LL BUY ME A FOOTBALL TEAM
When you buy a lottery ticket does the glinty-eyed
guy wish you GOOD LUCK! Does he want you to share
the truckload of cash about to fall in your lap? This week
30 million I expect he may want lunch at least or a
deeper piece of the action? I promise him a house He cries
salty tears of gratitude +tithes me his first born child
__
Summer 2016
LONG MAY YOU RUN WITH YOUR CHROME HEART SHINING
All the girls have slick legs chunky sandals
carved calves Long medium brown hair ever
so gently curled Big sunglasses Black Mercedez
+white bulldogs de rigueur The men drive souped
up cars in garish colours wear too skinny suits +have
too dark tans One has a silver tooth glinting in the
curated sun A girl beside me says: twenty-five is a
power age Yes Just like 5 was the age of immortality
+60 the age of a creeping yearning for more brave
__
Summer 2016 Notes from the Thompson Hotel Toronto
I’VE WALKED FOR MILES MY FEET ARE HURTING
Running down a narrow path black night freezing cold
Snow I know it’s dangerous +check over my shoulder
periodically No boogieman after me Silly
Path leads to door inside is a slot in the floor where the
top of a ferris wheel pokes through You can either take a
seat or stay in the closet like space Believe me I check
carefully for alternate exits
The only other one is the way I came Dark path black ice
remember? But I am not good with heights so I linger in the
closet +ponder my fate I notice that the wheel is powered by
huge elephants who are hosed down mercifully
Otherwise they walk in slow circles methodically Does this scene
remind you of anything? Is the black icy path the birth canal? The
ferris wheel the wheel of life? The elephants we humans chained
for eternity?
Wait a second! I notice an area adjacent to the closet like cell There is
a guy +a girl youngish who are gatekeepers of a sort Gods? Parents?
The he tells me as he slides a needle into my arm that the drug called
____ will make it easier + I will now be able to handle the job of the
elephant
I will be the power behind the ever turning wheel! Does this make me feel
better? More in control? I will be a giant beast of burden with huge ears
+a trunk I can crush the evil-antlike humans at will And wait I think he
said the drug even takes the burden out of being a beast Yes Please
I get it When you are born you go to sleep forget all of the wild in your
being Then life the drug the dopamine becomes addicting +you sell your
real-estate to get onto the wheel Why it’s only a carnival ride!
Much later when your old elephant bones are weary they spray you with
cool water + it’s glorious You even begin to love a little being a beast
The very one who powers the goddamned machine!
Now sitting in a cafe mid-summer’s day A girl with tanned bouncing breasts
glides by ball cap iPad wicked grin The breeze is heavenly I’ll have some
more of that needle Please
__
In memory of Elie Wiesel Jew #A-7713 who walked the wheel in Buchenwald
and later Auschwitz until age 16 when in April 1945 he was liberated
__
Summer 2016
THUNDER & LIGHTENING VERY VERY FRIGHTENING
Lightening storm passing overhead In my car where it’s
said to be safest place Tires rubber run for cover Saw puff
of blue tinged smoke coming out of giant oak Will it fall on me?
A turbulent Canada Day 2 amigos gone home 1 who remains
speaks with forked tongue Builds jeeps for Saudis Hires new nanny
+promises to pay Wife needs more staff 2 nannies+1 assistant still
late for yoga class
Man who lives on park bench in navy+orange rain slicker with:
what would jesus buy? written across chest Another fork of lightening
splits the sky CN tower draws it down like EU draws terrorists now
circling tents where there is chaos +disintegration of moral fibre
Boris former mayor of London after stirring cauldron of hate does not
prevaricate I ain’t the bloke to replace disgraced Cameron Markets
tumble further And somewhere in London the sign that says: Go Home
Polish Vermin combusts spontaneously leaving a cross with bent nails
See the faint outline of Europe hanging if you squint or is it an IS youth
sharpening his knife? Last night in a fortified town Gaza a 17 yr.old
palestinian boy climbed into the bedroom of a 13 yr. old Israeli girl +
stabbed her to death Blood flows into tributaries of the River Babylon
Stigmata of World Wide Hate courses its way across old caravan routes
Mother Teresa + Lady Diana weep I sit on roof of hipster hotel There’s a
guy up here with a black mask over his face +a billy club at his waist No one
skips a beat So used to masked men are we
A hip girl shrieks: I wanna see a black mermaid emoji I need variety Whoever
that emoji fucker is I want his name Emoji fucker will change the world
Word
__
Summer 2016
THE BEAST HE STUMBLES
the city was a treasure -box full of ivory, spices, ebony,
indigo, slaves, apes, shining domes, and Jews. (The World
of Venice. Jan Morris)
Did you know that the word ghetto was coined in Venice?
In 1516 one of the first forcible segregations for religious
differences (build that wall!) The area was originally an
old foundry geto Then a place of surveillance +crowding
5,000 Jews by the 17th century 450 remain Assimilation
+persecution finishing the work Hitler started (Warsaw
Ghetto held 400,000 Jews 300,000 exterminated)
So many dispersions so many Jewish refugees places like Canada
said: None is too many Now Europe is in the clutches of xenophobes
+a new racism With veiled movements like Brexit there have been
more than 100 hate incidents since the country voted to LEAVE Playing
into the hands of ISIS no? While chaos reigns +race hatred grows young
men who do not need a state to exist behead at will +slouch toward the EU
to be born
__
What matters to IS and will allow it to persist, is the shared mindset of large
numbers of people around the world – from hundreds of thousands to millions
who have lost confidence in their existing political, religious, and socio-economic
institutions. (Globe+Mail June 28, 2016)
Like I said to the doorman the other night
Some moon, huh
You should have seen it before the war Miss
We must not get used to this
(RIP: C.D. Wright American poet)
Summer 2016
WELCOME TO MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
Are you guys Jews?
Why, don’t you like Jews?
I like them better dead.
We were reminiscing after shopping plaza closed
in old hood just recently My brother’s memory of
when he +friend whose parents had just escaped the
Warsaw Ghetto were walking to the plaza in search of
candy +burgers juicy at the Red Ruby They were 10
You couldn’t eat just 1
Server: You ate your burger so fast!
Brother: No! You never brought it.
Server mystified Brother’s favourite expression: I’ll gladly
pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today! Plaza taught us
to want +later to order liquor on pads with small pencils fixed
to a string The emphasis was on the C as in: controlled substance
LCBO men Rod Serling lookalikes in white shirtsleeves gave us
stern sidelong glances
But early years filled with characters before substances and OD’s
Like Marky Boy with shopping cart wore antennae +parents would
later pay for whatever he shoplifted And Jerry in his orange Javelin driving
around endlessly He sucker punched me in stomach on a day with no breeze
Now in Forensic unit for stabbing his mother fatally *(see poem: Jerry Can
You Hear Me AAC June 2012)
Ugly Jewish ghetto low buildings suburban grey Some nouveau riche with
swimming pools Hey a girl can dream One father a Jaguar XKE low slung
like buildings Metallic blue His daughter went through a windshield just out
of high school
Gas station at one end of plaza run by a churlish man He never did believe
someone syphoned gas from me Brother a.k.a. Wimpy shared the Dodge with
me Needle regularly on empty pre the long drive to U of T Where they taught
me about Boris Pasternak +later at The Faculty how to reclaim souls from the
trash heap: Therapist you can hit me with the biggest stick + I won’t feel it
It was raining one day in 1963 sidewalks slick doughnuts in the plaza lot Terrance
the dumbest boy in school pastey white but oh so sweet sat beside the teacher +
sometimes under her desk? Fell from brother’s car crushed instantly Not the last
death either Teller shot in head at bank (Beatle Bandit incident) where mother
sent me regularly
Teller: We can’t hand over cash to a child M’am. What does she look like?
Mother: She is beautiful!
Smile spread across teller’s yet blood splattered face while I cringed in blue trench
coat + as boy of my dreams called them piss yellow boots He grew up to be an
Elvis impersonator + would be charlatan (see poem: You’re So Fine You Blow My
Mind /Song&Dancegirl AAC 2013)
Does this sound like your neighbourhood? Did you wake up to see curtains of visible
ultra-violet light +super sized aurorae +listen nightly to the cacophony of crickets
+new survivors screams Too many friend’s parents transported after bedtime on
trains to the outskirts of Polish towns To round-ups +camps with names like
Auschwitz
__
Summer 2016
WRITING’S ON THE WALL
He thought I was talking about the Stevie song
so he serenaded me with very superstitious +
then went into a rousing isn’t she lovely Stevie
was the furthest thing from my mind
I had said putting too fine a point on the word decaf:
jittery enough can’t walk under trees when ginger-
bearded barista morphed into Stevie Slightly endearing
mostly not but I went along No energy to decline his
bonhomie
Saturday 30 yr. old Pierre removed by 6 degrees from my
family was killed by an Oak afflicted with summer drop a.k.a.
water rot in giant branches leads to a POP + a crash Pregnant
wife pushed out of the way
Note found at make-shift shrine: You don’t know me but i held
your hand while you died Arborists weighing in as city lawyers up
Tree drop a gruesome exit Wonder has gone missing from the park
Citydwellers discomfort in outdoor spaces increased exponentially
See how close they sit Aloneness on grass a worse fate
This while the Summer blockbuster Zero K asks: what’s the point of
living if we don’t die at the end? The holy grail of life is not death It
is living as though you won’t succumb to: summer drop or a warm gun
face radiant with resurrection which is still free
__
*There exists in Scottsdale Arizona a facility called: Alcor Life Extension
Foundation, where fees range from $100,000 for just your brain
(neurocryopreservation) to $200,000 for whole body preservation.
The baseball player Ted Williams is there. Life everlasting belongs to those
of breathtaking wealth. (Don DeLillo Zero K 2016)
**There’s green money, and oil in drums. Our faulty eyes, our telltale heat,
Our hearts ticking through our shirts. Of course life is ours. If it’s anyone’s
it’s ours. (Tracey K. Smith Pulitzer Prize 2011 & AAC addition of word: life)
First Day of Summer 2016
MI CASA ES SU CASA BUT FIRST A SHOWER
Every time I open the screen doors up here on the 4th
floor of urban townhouse painted a now dirty putty
the noise level is extreme: drilling jack hammers beeps
of backing up trucks +the occasional ice-cream man
singing These neighbour Bob daily tries to sabotage:
They keep the goddamned motor running day + night
I don’t care where the children of artists get their fucking
Hagen Dås
Think besmirched Tuscan villa where decadent hipsters
slouch in Indica clouds Weed dispensaries in grey area
since Mayor Tory od’d: man the THC levels are off the
map in nouveau mary-jean The streets of our city have
reached a new level of mean
The microcosm in the macrocosm A platitude used by my
clinical supervisor 20 years ago today (add Israeli accent for
authenticity)
So when the aliens come all green-skinned + midget we will
not welcome them with open arms as was thought mid 20th C
We will instead eye them suspiciously + wonder what diseases
they bring
Later freeze drying them after experimenting on their unborn
foetus’ (alien stem cell research) But in the end it will all be okay
For unlike the naked ape they do not love nor worship a God
created in the image of an AK-15
__
*the film Psycho proved Hitchcock’s biggest, though the studio
refused to underwrite it. Critics remained divided when the low
budget film had its debut. But audiences immediately responded
to a level of sex and violence previously unseen in North American
cinema.
Spring 2016 a time of bacchanal +bloodlust
PERP ATTACKED JOY&SAFETY THAT WAS PULSE NIGHTCLUB
It is still a crime to be gay in more than 75 countries +a capital
offense in at least 13 Nazis hunted gays relentlessly See how far
we have not come Huge swath of humanity still on the run Hate
crimes provoked by sexual orientation remain as high as ever Should
you think that everything is better look more closely
See the savage backlash for same sex marriage See the savage shooting
spree: Pulse nightclub Orlando USA America’s latest killing field Perp
also scouted Disney An equal opportunity hater? Let’s look deeper
The shooter claimed he was inspired by ISIS who fling homosexuals from
tall buildings Yet Omar Mateen was frequently seen at Pulse He was
known there
Perhaps his rage was against his own impulses against his confusion +self-hate
Perhaps 50 men+women died for his shame? As I write the Angels are screaming:
BUILD THAT WALL! to finally protect heaven from earthdwellers Angels do not
differentiate based on labels i.e. race gender sexual orientation religion therefore
many more of us will now sign up for that one way flight to Mars Yes Heaven was a
wonderful idea in theory
__
Some like to imagine a cosmic Mother watching through a spray of stars
Mouthing yes yes as we toddle toward the light Longing to sweep us to her
breast she hopes for the best (Tracy K. Smith Life On Mars Pulitzer Prize)
** A 2012 study: Journal of Personality & Social Psychology showed the
most hostile respondents toward gay people were more likely to have
repressed same sex desires. Feelings of shame can lead to self-hatred
and lashing out sadistically, at those in whom we see our most hated
selves reflected.
Spring 2016
RIP 50 men+women massacred at Pulse 18-50 yrs. old
Edward Sotomayor Jr. 24 was shot in the back while protecting his boyfriend
with his body. He loved Alice in Wonderland and was always smiling. We aren’t
going to be scared vowed George Tuttle, his best friend. He would want us to
celebrate with pride. (Globe & Mail June 14, 2016)
IT’S A MARVELLOUS NIGHT FOR A MOONBATH
A FANTABULOUS NIGHT TO MAKE ROMANCE
She sits on the pavement W. Queen W. half naked
vacant smile Spitting image of an aunt She is about
68 My father’s age when he died Young? Depends
which side of the great divide you inhabit Today I read
that ageism is the new bigotry
And mandatory sensitivity classes have been ordered for
anyone under 30 Do not trust this demographic especially
if they have called you cute or said: Good for you! It’s okay
to rebuke them even a swift kick will do Go ahead and try it
They expect you to be docile creaky-arthritic +immune to
vigorous use of your limbs as in: dancing taking slap-shots
sexual acrobatics +flying too close to the sun which used to be
a young man’s game But now a mottled Icarus with 1/4 left the
sun is not so fearsome
It is the moon +the 7 sisters It is darkness that beckons The
pineal gland (except in hagfish who don’t have them) is stimulated
by a moonbath It is the gland regulating happiness pleasure mystical
ejaculations of the soul (google this) So lay nightly with satyrs+nymphs
And take pleasure in your acquired wisdom to know the difference between
your ass and a hole in the ground which a lot of 30 somethings do not
__
*one of the by-products of ageism is acute bitterness + hoarding euphoria
Next time someone says: Good for you! vomit at their feet and plead for sex
+candy
__
Spring 2016
songanddancegirl... at 4
songanddancegirl 