songanddancegirl

SUCK

SUCK  IT  UP  PRINCESS

There is a small wolf curled up in a blanket

in the fetal position  Makes you want to crawl

in there with him  A.G.O. Toronto  chillygrey

Fall day   The docent’s lonely  +he is chatty

Worst nightmare  Brings on a virulent vertigo

Everything seems to these days   Move head too

quickly  +reeling like a drunken chicken (favourite

dish at Henry’s Hunan Palace)  So where is Paradise

on Earth?  a sign asks   It is away from the chatty docent

+lonely art patrons  one gesticulating in front of: Folded

Blanket With Hanger  in delicate pinks+blues   Cellophane

lifted seductively   Provokes poetic licentiousness

Touch me  please!   Docent slides hand onto shoulder   Help me

find everything I have lost  won’t you?   Yesterday a neurologist

suggested an old school Tricyclic for sleep   Cures everything   Go

ahead  google it   The list is endless  ponderous     When I asked

about a nightcap  young woman doctor  United Church escapee

conservative  sensible  unfunny  said: That’s how old Hollywood

killed themselves  

I ignored her   There are certain things you cannot cure doctor

Like driving to her clinic   Car in front of me with Sons of Anarchy

sticker  +Damn The Father  Ram The Daughter  emblazoned on trunk

Also a comely girl  bent over    Secretary at clinic pressing a sleep apnea

machine into the hand of a sleepless man while on the phone   Called him

honey    As in: Honey strap this baby to your face  

Then an aside to me: It’s amazing what they can do these days!   Isn’t it

though  Get you to drive halfway to Barrie Ontario in desperation   Only to

decide that a Tegroni will do just as well: 1 oz Tromba blanco  1 oz Campari  1 oz

Sweet Vermouth  2 dashes orange or grapefruit  Chocolate bitters optional

Docent pushing tongue in direction of ear   Have no fear    Here is a partial

list of what Tricyclics can cure: chronic pain  migraine  irritated bowel syndrome

insomnia  chronic hiccups  pathological crying or laughing  + provide respite

from: the anxious work of maintaining your sanity  While all around you people are

preparing to vote   for Justin Trudeau

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He’s not the smartest guy in the room.

But he knows how to reach a room.

(Bob Rae   former Premier of Ontario)

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Liz Magor  Folded Blanket On Hanger  A.G.O.  

Fall 2015

DISTINGUISHED

HOW ARE PERSONS DISTINGUISHED FROM NON-PERSONS?

ANT 6055H   a graduate Anthropology course asks   & then goes

on to ask:  What kind of person is pre-supposed in acts such as

promising  praying  or pledging?  Is the self performed  and if so  what

are the moral implications of this?  Likely the Pope has come to mind

A performance of the highest order played out last week  when he met

secretly with refusenik-clerk  jailed for barring same sex couples  brave+

loving   from marrying   Kim Davis of Kentucky said: I teared up when

the Pope wanted to meet a small person like me  it was humbling and

such  It is doubtful that Kim even knows what humble means   This sounds

more like hubris to me

The Pope gave her   +her husband Joe  plastic crosses   then he blessed them

The main thing is: Pope Francis brought them into the Holy See in secrecy

Is it blasphemous to say he knows not the meaning of duplicity  mendacity

Did he pull the wool over the eyes of an entire continent?

Likely he took advice from the Horned One  who by his very nature is divisive

warring  +homophobic   A hater down to his red toes   Was a time when the Great

Horned God was wise  before humans projected all of their shadow onto him  then

made his poor brother pay the price for our sins

Should the Pope reclaim his shadow  he will easily see that the world needs many

many more LGBT couples  fearless enough to enter into holy matrimony  Something

that the Pope nor his minions are ever likely to do   While the ranks of the sexually

abused by members of the clergy  have grown 10 fold in the 20th century

Pope Francis did acknowledge their rapes  +is the first Pope to use this word   Yet

how many hundreds of accused priests will be tried & jailed?  He failed to give these

details   or plastic crucifixes to the victims he met

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Ignorant of what they are not   unaware of things they are

their memory is lost as Eden   their anger the same as fear

And I am still alive   and I am still ashamed  

(Al Purdy   The Others    + On Being Human)

Fall 2015 

STRANGER

I AM A STRANGER HERE ON THIS PLANET EARTH

A man sits beside me with 20 white tees spread out   He is

writing slogans across the front of each   At first I think he is

a maker  the name for artists in my sohipithurts hood   It slowly

dawns that he is

I PLAN ON LEAVING IN ONE WEEK  GIVE ME ONE WEEK GUYS!

He shouts to people on the street    Where was I?    It slowly dawns

that he is raving mad  I begin to worry that he may blacken my eye   Now he

is on the other side of the window looking in at me   I am at a cool cafe called

Crafted    YES   this moment has been precisely crafted for me  by a hand unseen

The very same hand that placed me oh so indelicately in this picture  crown first

SMART PERCEPTIVE GENIUS!  he shouts  Except that I am not  I do not have

all of the 6,299 answers  Only ONE   as it grows exceedingly difficult to not worry

86.7% of us suffer from anxiety  while the rest are investing in selfie-sticks for

Christmas

If just one person knows your name  inside+out   If just one person will comfort

you when the night weasels come    Then you are in the top percentile

JUST ONE MORE WEEK AND I’LL HEAD OUT!   a rheumy cough then

a cackle  OMG! he is doing the jerk    You are in the top percentile of those most

likely to succeed

Now he crosses himself multiple times + does a Michael Jackson moonwalk

THAT’S HOW ARCHANGELS ARE BORN  THEY SUFFER  THEY ARE

BRAVE   Be BRAVE    As for me  I think he thinks that I am insane  sidelong glances

then  I AM A HOLY HIT MAN!   Heart bangs against ribcage

Please don’t bludgeon me risen Michael   I have so much living to do   One of my pet

projects is to    I WILL RE-INSERT JOY INTO THIS WORLD!    I run for my life

through the Art&Design district  trailing clouds of what I might have been

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Fall 2015    Morning after: SUPERMOON ECLIPSE

LEO

SASHA PLAYS WITH LEO

Little boy with a mullet  making spitting+POW! sounds

He can’t really get behind the hero thing   Superman tee

hangs on skinny frame   He will likely be a clerk at HMV

then onto OCAD for a degree in taxidermy    Now holding

hands with a boy named Nico

A dad with 2 scruffy girls in tow tries to fistbump mullet boy

His hand remains limp  Dad of girls: C’mon dude don’t be a

wimp    The gold tin wolf howls in the setting sun  as Nico takes

a leak at un-cool Dad’s feet   He will work at Doctors Without Borders

Over by the fountain a brother whips a sister  with a stick   She wonders:

Why do we have to play this?  +kicks him where it counts   Mullet boy’s

Mum arrives  a mullet too   Tonight the Hebrew God Yaweh will decide who

shall live+who shall die  tomorrow the first day of 5,775

mullet boy – 2095

un-cool Dad – 2031

Nico  will be beatified

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Fall 2015

LEADER

TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

A lady from far away wrote me today   She said:

Give me control of your computer   So I did   Brings

to mind the boy next door  of 50 years or more   As

his mother slept (I could never sleep outside!  marveled

my mother)  I told him to jump in their pool + he did!

His mother chased him for 10 minutes  hitting him with

her shoe: If Aprill told you to jump off a bridge would you?

He later dropped out of medical school   Miguel sells watches

+real estate for his father  a mogul from Caracas   Named their

schooner Caracas 2: Caracas 2  Caracas 2  Come in!  Over+Out

Sun Fun 1    You cannot make shit like this up

I find that I feel like a loser (baby so why don’t you kill me?)

Invaded  Even more jaded   And somewhere in a room this very lady

is sticking pins in a doll with red hair +horsey teeth   She sits unaware

Silence of the lambs   As rough beasts on slow thighs enter her yard

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Fall 2015   Hebrew Calendar 5775  happy new year

DAY

NOT A DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVITCH

Bees are closely supervising me   couldn’t resist  dousing

self with Tom Ford Femme  stirring up bee apocalypse

Red hair doesn’t help either  or is it bulls who love red?

(if bullshit were music you’d be a brass band   said my

mother recently)  

Now a Vlad Putin look alike is eyeing me from the fountain

My aggressive slashing reminds him of a KGB lady he jilted

in 85   As a yelloworange beesmear appears at my feet  +Coco

the perfect park bebé scampers by eating a $10 macaron   Her

look screams: Don’t mess with me haggard poet  one day I will

inherit the wind   

Vlad the bloke has sidled over with Vanilla Stolichnaya  He proffers

Perestroika martinis  + wet Chechen kisses   Poet  killer of bees  moans:

yes  yes  yes     translation: да да да

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Fall 2015

CHARACTER

*AS BAD A DRESSER AS I AM NOTHING BEATS BEING JUDGED

BY MY CHARACTER

Nice incognitos!  he said +skulked by like a much rougher version

of the Trivago guy    Incognitos?   Must everyone in this neighbourhood

be so oblique?  Everyone a poet?  Everyone precocious?   Time to move

or dig in my heels  +corner the market on original  Stop ripping  riffing off

of street signs  also too cool  too bard-like  Even a depressed Dr. Suess quote

When I told the comely clerk that I found it sad  she gave me a look that screamed:

Go back to bed hipster wannabe   This is far too amusing  as I am neither bearded

nor ironic  And yet in the waning sunlight of this steamy Fall day  an upstanding

woman with breasts riding high  is making kiss-y faces in my  direction  Still not ironic

but certainly bearded  someday

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*sign outside of:  Garb  West Queen West

Fall  2015

DESERT

THE SENSE OF FEAR SPREADING OUT FROM SOME FANATIC DESERT

My art+culture critic may be depressed   A giant raccoon decomposed on his

street  It was 32 degrees:  A cloud of flies gathered. Then it began to bloat,

as steamy rain poured down on raccoon paste.  I think he may be a poet

Personally I would point him in the direction of Bob Marley  +suggest his

mantra for Fall be: Russell don’t worry ’bout a thing  cause every little thing’s

gonna be alright   Corny as this may seem  It is not  These very words calmed

the fears of a generation  + did wonders for my terrorized child clients: Therapist

you can hit me with the biggest stick  & it won’t hurt   Try it!  

Russell has a 6 yr. old boy   Held his hand the other day  on the way  to Grade One

I humbly suggest walking him to school until he’s 22  when he’ll wave good-bye  &

head to Tisch   Each year the ghost-boy Alan Kurdi will follow behind U2   into a

future where: children don’t die on lonely beaches as their fathers fight ISIS   + the

Chibok girls have come home

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Fall 2015

FEAR

FEAR FEAR

the things that i fear are inexplicable

+ primitive   things like: cars backfiring

a footfall too close   flying bugs+bogeymen

a ratty squirrel eyeing my hand   certain music:

think the shower scene in Psycho    psychosis +

crooked sailors in parks  with hairy chins

the things that i am not afraid of: the ttc   being alone

driving U.S. 1 through big sur  terrified mother in tow:

what a girl!   flying to Europe solo   8 weeks at 26    walked

holes in boots in Paris    2 a.m. handsome swede rings my room:

can I bring you a pill for sleep?

not afraid of Euro-creeps   another slimjim  pulls the goalie  from

Pisa to Pompeii  fuckyoufreak   I say!

gritty bars in New Orleans where murder comes so easily:  girl  

lots more famous people than you have slipped on vomit in the

Vieux Carré    as i bandage bleeding feet at a bar called 13   And yes

i am still alive   +still not afraid of death   just the:

in-between

the neither/nor

the almost made it  didn’t she

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Fall 2015   for my little brother jma  who thinks I am afraid   of: everything

SOUL

AND YET  I DO THINK I DO HAVE A SOUL

Dirty-obscurity of massive  limestone caves

millions of square feet of abandoned underground space

4 +6 yr. olds found there Thursday   taken away from Brittany  23

Living in a wooden shipping crate   Kansas City  USA

Small hands eat from a dirty dry cup of  ramen noodles

Police ask: Why aren’t you wearing shoes?   Because we

don’t have any   While worlds away Germans smile at

migrant children    Paradise Regained

One dead little boy face down by the sea  2 or 3   Front page

of national newspaper: Some images demand to be seen

precisely because they show us the world as it is  +in exposing

its cruelties our conscience may be stirred

Yet the necessity of this indignity against Alan Kurdi seems entirely

naive   Alan needed to be wrapped with ceremony+civility   How about

some respect for the toddler  whose mother+brother also lost at sea

search for him daily   While the father who paid $5,680 for passage on

a  dinghy is busy fighting ISIS in their hometown of Kobani

And on railway tracks all over Europe migrants refuse the bread+water of

police who lure them to giant camps   Same tracks that carried other trains

stuffed with families told to pack with haste:  Take 1 suitcase  & you will be 

given a warm shower when you arrive  

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In honour of the militant migrants refusing to

get off of the trains  giving NEVER AGAIN

new meaning

Fall 2015