Author Archive

MYTHS

Saturday, December 30th, 2017

sharing a drink

MYTHS

Last night in my dream we visited
over a light snack-supper of smoked salmon.
It was in revision in snooze that I conjured it:
capers, lemon slices, you had a book, titled: MYTHS.

In my dream, you had sent me texts.
No words just photographs and images.
Of notable figures in statues of persons
that I had no idea in my city existed.

Why in my dream were you in my City?
Was it that Si is in Montreal; close proximity?
Later in my dream I wondered if that was it-could be?
Or was it I had watched a movie about a scary man: Ryan Gosling?

When I woke up I was filled with that feeling.
I had shelved it. Still think of you daily.
It was a warmth and substance up chest and down belly.
It was fullness. It was my care for you. It was my friendship: loving.

And I made my toast and my strawberries.
And I heated the water for tea, started crying.
What patterns my parents have forced upon me
to so sickly pine for someone, who like them, does not want me!

I have not made love since you in 2013.
How could any man’s frequency compete?
“For starters, he’ll be way fucking nicer!!” she screams.
“Yeah, he won’t be a dick one day, then on the next.”

But this is my family: on/off. Loving. Then not. Then gone.
Blasted by Dad at 4 for chocolate cookie fingers in his car.
Mom’s photo plastered on box in basement: gun range for Dad’s pellet gun shoot-outs.
Mom rejecting/ignoring me for my migraine, and that I’m incapacitated to help her out at her cottage.

And when True Love came in ‘93, I was scared of it.
Felt so unworthy, low self-esteem, unappreciative.
His mother thought me way too wild for her precious.
His Dad said the mother ought to loosen the reins a bit.

At 43, I am practical and logical:
Love is a mere circumstance of demographics.
And I care nothing for divorced dads in suburban ruts.
I’ve always been into men who fought for space in the London underground.

So thank you for the silent supper last night.
In waking up: I felt your presence, alright.
To have hope, I will – as I do – lock the emotion down tight.
And say you are just protection for what is not in sight.

© Sylvie Hill, 2017

“LADY, YOU HOLD NO MEANING IN THIS STORY.”

Sunday, November 12th, 2017

“LADY, YOU HOLD NO MEANING IN THIS STORY.”

And, my, just last night your name came:
Name-surnamed on the news here –
Character in a movie there –
The film* repeated it in refrain,
I laughed, thought, Universe:
“Really?! 15 mentions, again and again?”

Last night and a few nights before that,
I had found myself peaceful and content.

And then it creeps up, in veins.

And, why, just a couple months ago
Bridge border of Quebec and Ontario –
Taking in a sunset, the rapids,
Saw upon a rock your name spray-painted, different appellation.
I laughed, thought, Universe:
“Really?! So bold, in my face, near home, can it be so?

That day and a few days before that,
I had found myself resolved, zero sentiment.

And then it creeps up, in vain.

I can see if I conjured up the coincidences
That I might be accused of madness.
But when I’ve pulled through and set precedents
To not let my brain, nor spirit, descend…

…And still the Universe brings me little signs?
That I now laugh off and say: “Whatever, fine…”
I can only hope I send it back a message quite clear:
It is settled and I am not seeking him here/there.

I once asked him of all the perceived synchronicities
Did he mean this song meant that or this for me?
He said: “I hold no meaning in coincidence,” maybe thought it mean,
But instead like I usually do with his words
I played with them on so many levels, of course:
Direct, it was rejection –he cares not a thing for me!
Deep, his direction/guidance: SEEK HIM NOT IN PERCEIVED MEANINGS, PLEASE.

And, say I had always wanted to be waiting if he were ready?
To rekindle a friendship –
To say we’re sorry –
To somehow find a real understanding,
Said the Universe:
“Lady, you hold no meaning in this story.”

Last week and not one sooner earlier than that,
I found myself planning a trip back to London.

Trip details? The coincidences are insane.

I will go to Bloomsbury in April to turn 44.
You will not greet me, popping on your poppy, at the Jesmond door.

How long ago was November 16 and 17, twenty thirteen?
It is just time passed, and manufactured believings.

Sylvie Hill 2017

*film: “Silver Streak”
Painting: Jack Vettriano

Jack Vettriano painting

POWER

Saturday, September 23rd, 2017

water

POWER

There’s so much more I would do that I enjoy … if I were a boy.

In my quiet hood full of the fullest big matured trees that turn the night sky navy, tree-lined streets quiet without a peep, and dim-lit verandas (with no one on them), I would walk for hours in flip flops and a mug of tea, past nine, I would. But I do not because I am a woman, so I sit on my porch. You’ll find me reading under the bright LED under-porch lamp light, reading, and a fright scared as to what weirdos may be peering at me — or worse, none or any.

I would not hesitate to wake at 6:30 am and go to the mountain and hike, then swim naked on the beach by the sun’s sky at nine in the morning. Without a dog. And similarly, those nights where I dated a boy who cooked me steaks on a BBQ seconds from piste seven in the the forrest and our walk there — by moonlight: he could fend off monsters with his strong hands and crack a killer with those skate-ski thighs. Brute force, I was protected. But I wouldn’t dare go in alone. And I couldn’t kill the kitchen mouse like he did in the country home.

I would travel to Lagos, Nigeria … and try coffee that I don’t even drink in Morocco. Find out what the fuss is about in Istanbul. And definitely go to this New Zealand and sea kayak, and hike, and run, and swim in lakes and salt water, and go to beach parties and outdoor BBQs. I would try bars in L.A. and actually go out past dark for late dinners in San Francisco. I would cycle in Mauritius, and I would eat some dumplings in Shanghai.

And some women do it, and they are great. But do they do it alone, do they?

I see the older ladies in travel brochures on hikes in faraway places, and have always seen them on my mid-twenties travels across UK, Isle of Man and over to Ireland where I was scared of the drinking and driving and drugs and rough co-ed youth hostels. And I think, if Nature intends for my body to look and seem less fuckable through future-years menopause then I shall no longer be a target except to weirdos looking to off old ladies and by then perhaps it will be a blessing because who wants all that suffering in old age with the demented mind and broken body?

If I was a boy, I’d go riding hard on a Marin mountain bike in Marin not worried about my period, and I’d try surfing not worrying about my neurological brain fog nor weaker body that could see me crash down on coral reef, bleeding.

As a girl I find it challenging to find a man who is protecting without forcing co-dependency. I’ve seen what that looks like and in the end, I wasn’t even ordering my own tea.

But as a girl, I know what it’s like to be loved by a man who knows your strength and makes you push your limits, and tells you, that in contrast to his independence, his dependence on a woman who has taken emotional risks, gambled heart and healing, adventured in body and trekked her soul and sexuality to so many unknown and foreign masses, and who has travelled her brains far and wide, is not a weakness …

… and that it’s OK to say you don’t feel safe.

Sweet Poisons

Wednesday, September 20th, 2017

kitchen

Sweet Poisons

What is that magic
That finds itself amidst cupboards
On evenings too tired to head to the grocer’s
And yet you find something for supper?

Not the perfect ingredients
Or those you’d have laid out perfect
For some recipe tried and true
And sure to be pleasing to the palate?

But you find it – among tins and cans
One egg left, an onion or a yam.
Noodles and a carrot or pepper left
To make something you can enjoy yet.

What is that magic
Then that keeps you leafing through books
In search of clues to mysteries
That will reveal our Life’s truths?

That magic that insists this obsession
Is leading to something in its persistence.
Because surely four years now passed
Is a bit ridiculous…

It is as if I am starving
But only a certain order will do.
Yet supplies were once fresh to me
But ignored, expired, past their due.

Oh hell I am so hungry
But like ignoring it night-early mornings
it passes as you forget it to stay in bed
longer as if drunk or hungover with a lover.

Blood sugar levels drop: we go hazy.
Thinking and logic so messy.
When we wait to be fed the perfect meal
What magic is it that turns up a feast

in our rubbish bin

That we no longer hide shame
About enjoying it?
Sweet poisons.

Sweet poison dependencies like
“It will all work out”
and tricks like the cupboards always filled
with something useful to eat from.

Sweet poisoned memories like
like rotted salmon that makes me choke
His protection, attention, entertainment, support
Dished rich: on a plane-plate we dropped

And broke.

SH 2017

Bend.

Wednesday, September 20th, 2017

Matter of Disagreement by Jason S

Bend.

Loss of light lately. Take a look at your plants. They are starting to reach for the light of your windows to the fading sun in a dwindling season where we are discombobulated by summery heat roasting our shorter days when we usually would be digging out scarves from ottoman storage.

Watch the plants and then watch yourself because the leaves on the trees will fall and the chill in the air will hole us up again in ourselves. And lesser light and dark skies and bright lights of cars at night are coming on. And while cozy in evenings by fires and crisp days of blue skies and frigid cold on skins in dead of winter, it’s another summer gone and plans missed, vacations not taken, and evening walks in a neighbourhood not safe enough for a single woman.

But in a hopeless dying season ahead comes the belief that our cycles can shift and we’ll have our rebirth yet.
Watch how you bend with or against the wind. And mind your Self that bends to the light and warmth of the burning blessing in the sky that rises and in the late late afternoon — always, relentlessly, sets.

SH 2017

What Is So Sickening About a Cure?

Sunday, September 10th, 2017

fixing_our_world_by_cat_girl28

Why do we linger in a sweat-heat of discomfort and tolerate such madness within ourselves and outside our front doors?

You know that feeling when you’re working for a judgemental, punishing moron. When you get bad service from a mean waiter. When a family member is sociopathic, or the bus driver — uncaring. The salesperson arrogant and cardboard?

We FEEL uneasy. We carry the tension in the body and conflict in our psyche. We come home sad and frustrated. Deflated and demoralized.

And that’s just on a personal level.

Imagine an entire populous sensing the threat of an unjust leader, and the dissatisfaction of settling for an unsuitable Guide.

Like a metastasizing cancer, our poisoned consciousnesses persist, and grow. Yet, we KNOW of the cure — and we do nothing.

And still we eat the junk food of rotted soul food of shit TV like the Kardashians, gossip, war talk and social prejudices that don’t make any healthy sense.

We tuck away in our little worlds self-isolating in nuclear families, by ourselves, or with work colleagues, addictions, and distractions, to assume a modicum of utopia according to rules that make sense to us.

But then we set foot outside and notice our infrastructure doesn’t make sense and pollutes. That our economy doesn’t support the needy. That our elders are shitting bloody stools in toilets bowls and sitting in closets staring at walls until it’s time for their fish sticks at lunch and a cocktail of pills to keep them tranquilized. And, kid – don’t bother me, eh, I’m on my Blackberry – go watch TV, mom and dad are busy and not even with each other.

And so it goes.

Krishnamurti said there is nothing healthy about adjusting to an unhealthy society.

So, watch to what you conform.

Listen to your body when it ails facing convention or ‘the way it should be.’

Watch a plant shrivel when it has not nutrients, and bends desperate toward the sunshine when it needs light.

Why are you polluting your ecosystem with dramas? With pot over which you’re forming a dependency to cure your anxiety and with which you are too insecure to function… normally? Why are you numbing instead of seeing a therapist that is the same cost as your alcohol and expensive meals out and a bigger breath of fresh air than your cigarettes? You know your stickiness to porn is because you’re afraid to get close to her?

Spoken like a true white girl with a good job who lives in a nice rental in a good neighbourhood. As if the poor can afford shrinks and a bag of shopping at Whole Foods, I know.

With so much illness in body, spirit and mind — my question today isn’t “What will fix it?” I know what can. The question to ask of anyone maintaining their sickness:

“What is your sick protecting you from?”

Put another way: what is so sickening about the cure for you, and our world’s ailments?

Sylvie Hill 2017

Image Source

This Can Go Both Ways (aka I’m reading too much J.G. Ballard)

Saturday, September 2nd, 2017

fill

This Can Go Both Ways (aka I’m reading too much J.G. Ballard)

A society where healthy married men
Sleep with me for release
from their dutiful lives and superb wives
And we each fill a few of our needs?

In this Society?

Madness! Vile and virtue-depleted!
It is the stuff of a J.G. Ballard novel I’m reading:
Of utopia, idealism and ideas-bending.
It makes more sense than present reality.

But think!

Parents called me boy-crazy
But it’s only now I see
The boys who liked and loved me
Saw ME for me, and saw to MY needs.

With them I got to love and reveal
Secrets and support THEIR dreams
Unlike my divorced and troubled parents
Who didn’t seem able to give an emotional shit.

So I connect:

Fierce-fast, intense and mused
The boys over Internet in far-away dominions.
And dreamt and wept, pleaded, bled and amused
myself with their constant attention and erections.

And I go solo here if someone seems a bore
And with whom I have to waste my energy to score
And entertain with stories if they’re high or a moron
So I choose solitude and go it alone.

If sex be a currency to secure a dealer
Who can feed me something for what I feel for
Do not call it rude for take a look deeper
You’ll see this is what men are engineered for.

It has been men who fell harder and faster
After we’ve touched and gone longer and barer
And if it be said “men are always thinking about sex”
How to channel that sharing into a gift?

I’m not a cheater.

I’ve never cheated
Nor ever will
And feel disgusting
At the backroom deals

The husbands who proposition me – wives, unknowing.
Who suggest with little suggestive things…
Is it wrong by definition of our monogamous society
Or stupid because they do not come out with it clearly?

“We invite a guest,” one man told me
an open-marriage: strong and free.
“I’ll be fucking my on/off again girlfriend back in New Zealand.”
Not a prick – fairly factual: it was just fucking.

Two kinds with open minds, big hearts and decent
While Society favours the suburban and vanilla?
I do not want your husband, but can I help feed him
I’ll get my fill, and he’ll return to you completed.

What a scheme!

Madness! Vile and virtue-depleted!
It is the stuff of a J.G. Ballard novel I’m reading:
Of utopia, idealism and ideas-bending.
Could it make more sense than present reality?

SH 2017

Kiwi

Saturday, September 2nd, 2017

Kiwi.

I thought this had a lifetime warranty.
That I could come to you whenever in need.
“To heal heart chakras,” it said: “kiwi.”
Fruitful irony.

SH 2017

kiwi

THE NATURE OF OUR HUMAN NATURE

Sunday, August 13th, 2017

THE NATURE OF OUR HUMAN NATURE

The food was garbage … but my room was spacious and so clean, the maids wonderful, the tourists comical and kind. And that Cayo Coco beach in Cuba (last March) was the most turquoise brilliance I’ve ever seen after my Benjamin Moore “Caribbean blue” painted living room wall, I’ll say.

When I arrived at my room toward 6:00 pm in the evening, I was excited about the heat and the view. And without sorting my suitcases, I departed quickly to run down to the beach by myself to touch the ocean water, to spread my feet on the sand, and to view the wide expanse of water as far as the eye could see.

maxresdefault-13

To think of the sea creatures underneath, the mysteries, the dead bodies from sea wrecks, and to consider the pathways of voyages and discoveries — and a world FAR from our world of Ottawa.

I couldn’t help comparing the sound and movement of waves to our own breath. The regularity of the ebb and flow, and the heave and release. The push and the pull and the continuity, consistency and ever-flow.

When will the ocean die?

Because our breath stops. And then we die.

That is the end of our ocean force within, and there is no more movement and flow of water-blood through our veins to pump our hearts that machine our systems.

But what is the machine that runs Mother Nature? Where and what is the HEART of Nature that allows its waves to pull in … and push out?

Nature heals. It gives perspective does it not? It infuses cities through greens spaces, communal gardens and balcony gardens with Life and hope that not all must bought at the grocery store, and beauty need not be bought always at the florist or only in exotic countries.

We deviate so much from what is natural, which is sadly, the most unnatural thing in the world.

While we can’t all run off to live mediterranean lifestyles nor could I survive the tropical heat of Caribbean hotness, it’s undeniable that we’re like plants who need nourishment of the Earth’s materials.

So why do we eat shit? Why do we not replenish our ecosystems with fresh blood through exercise. And why, WHY do we pollute our minds and hearts with toxic crap and dramas?

I like rivers, too. They are wild in the rapids and they don’t give a fuck if they are falls. Torrential and turbulent, a gorgeous spitting mess of noise … that flows out peaceful and clear and provides surface for lily pads and quiet canoes.
Ah, the nature of our human nature.

Much like we are ruining the Earth’s pristine landscape, we ruin ourselves with oily disguises, forest-fire tempers, scorching pain and polluting thoughts.

REVIEW: “Moonlight” – THE GUIDING LIGHT OF HAND JOBS

Monday, August 7th, 2017

THE GUIDING LIGHT OF HANDJOBS

Interesting how we romanticize anomalies, which supports stereotypes. And win awards for it!

A black man who carries the touch from a bisexual but balanced, kind chap who jerked him off on the beach and kissed him softly as a late teenager into his adulthood, and never touches another person, nor lets himself be touched? Awww….

Black men, in film, are stereotypically portrayed as tough heterosexual men charged upon sex, sex, sex. But here’s a gay male Black man who keeps himself after a meaningful touch that frees him while binding him to a secret.

I’m trying to assess if the value of this movie, of its winning an award, is mere — shock and awe? Is merely the appearance of ‘unique’ storyline or what.

We loved this story for its sentimentality — but do we realize that this is what a lot of women do already after a monumental temporary sexual action, but likely may be judged as “damaged” or “hung up on some guy?”

Or, what heterosexual men do after an epic touch by a woman who awakens them, retreating from random sex, and so are called “gay?” for when they reserve their subsequent touches for something equally as meaningful?

The movie “Moonlight” about this Chiron here who as a young man – even late teenager – is touched (literally masturbated to ejaculation for which he sweetly says “I’m sorry” — “You have nothing to apologize for,” says the Masturbator) by a nice man in Miami named Kevin, on the beach, by moonlight, with a kiss — won the Academy Award for best picture last year.

I found the flick a wee bit of a rip off of Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” about a woman in New Orleans named Madame Edna Pontellier, who is ‘awakened’ by a man named Robert who teaches her how to swim. (Chiron, as a young boy, is taught to swim by the local Drug Dealer who takes him in, and whose wife mothers and cares for him). Edna’s learning to swim shakes up her spirit and encourages to try other things — painting, leaving her husband, having dinner parties, associating with the village Single Lady weirdo named Mademoiselle Reisz.

Edna “finds herself” by moonlight and water through this awakening, and kills herself, in the end, by drowning into the very thing that brought her joy.

Chiron also lives a death by not opening his heart to anyone after Kevin, nor sharing his body with another man.

The genius in this film is in the ending, and the parallels. The ending sees Kevin just holding Chiron’s head. Not fucking him. This was brilliant to me, because it reveals the simple kindness of Kevin, and recommended — to me — that sometimes, a touch is just a touch. Kevin and Chiron don’t fall madly in love in some epic Hollywood scene. There is simply a kindness exchange, which encourages me to consider that some monumental sexual touches may be nothing more than a “nice moment”, but not binding for eternity.

Also, Kevin symbolizes parallels – he keeps the clean kitchen like Drug Dealer’s wife Teresa, and makes him green tea and cooks him “the special” back before at the diner. He is also instructional (in his jerking off Chiron), like the Drug Dealer chap was in teaching Chiron to swim.

In all, the message to me was the power and beauty of Guides in our lives. Those who nurture us (food), keep us safe (protect us from thugs and drug houses and druggie moms and give us a warm bed to sleep in), and initiate us into our passions and sexual selves. It’s also about forgiving the Guides who fail us (druggie mom who is incapable of providing for Chiron).

So, I reckon – well done Black (Chiron’s nickname) for portraying a sensitive and honest portrait of what it looks like when our innocence is challenged by growing up, and by circumstance, all the while maintaining our purity.

I’m thinking of the Lars von Trier film, “Breaking the Waves” where the experienced burly man who works the rigs marries a local virgin. When Burly Guy becomes paralyzed and hospitalized from an accident, he asks his wife to continue having sex — for her sake, since he knows he awakened something in her and does not want that to die because his body is broken. And, for his sake, so he can experience desire through her stories of her fucking other people. Of course, it’s Lars von Trier, so the “innocence” is preserved in the most perverse way and to a tragic ending — but for me, the sentimentality hit hard.

The idea that we “save” our Self for someone who awakens our spirit and soul through sexual release is a beautiful one.

There is too much, SO much casual fucking that wreaks of stink and mechanical gyrations in the half light. Of course, personally, I could never take in an inexperienced man again in my life, but someone who healthily reserves his cock and touch NOT out of pent up reminiscence of a prior exchange that blew his mind, but for reasons of appreciation of the power of (that) touch … and his disbelief it can happen again combined with a willingness to invite it (not challenge or test it forth).

Chiron didn’t put Kevin on a pedestal, and Kevin doesn’t present as having loved Chiron. And, this is OK.

The last lesson of this movie about the power of nurturing and guiding, is that with the RIGHT person, casual sexuality can be transformational.

BUT NOTE that for this to work, your sex guru has to be bisexual like Kevin — or, whatever Kevin is. And is the ambidextrous male/female kind-hearted “type” the ONLY type who can effectively offer this NEUTRAL, but sweet and kind experience.

In that, it sounds a vote for transgendered love? Or, to rethink traditional gender roles, and to consider where in a heterosexual union, a similarly casual jerk-off on the beach would effect the same feelings. In the gay exchange where Chiron’s homosexuality was taboo, it was recognition of his secret and the Green light that it was OK to feel that way that touched our hearts, I think.

In the same way perhaps a partner nods that they’re into kink, or validates any of your preferences you thought weird.

It reminds me of manly men I have been with who may have said “hold me” … “but don’t tell anyone.” See: cute, because we don’t expect a ‘manly-man’ to say this.

Which brings me back to the ALLURE of “Moonlight.” I can’t believe a film about a hand job won an award in AMERICA! Well done …

…but then again: James Joyce’s Ulysses started off with a hand job.

Awww, the guiding light of hand jobs. How all great awakening transformations start, eh?

No wonder I enjoyed “Moonlight.”