Sylvie Hill

Treasured: It’s like come for one song, stay for the ENTIRE album here

EVERY single track on Reuben and the Dark’s album, “UN LOVE,” is a magnificent discovery of such soul, mystery, depth. Absolute quality without pretension.

The ‘style’ of music transcends a few genres, but it’s at home next to some Wake Owl, Sarah Blasko, darker Tragically Hip, Damien Rice, even a Lindsey Buckingham back beat on “Weightlessness” … for me.

It’s got the dark felt feel that’s luscious – but oddly accessible. It’s climactic at points verging on anthemic. I keep dancing to it – swaying, moving meaningfully, or just raving to the triumphant parts.

Dude is from Calgary, seen a vid set in Montreal. What the fuck is the story here?

Take off, take flight – try this guy out tonight. Take a trip through some cinematic-dramatic without the drippy theatrics. Like the real-deal in front of your eyes, seeping soul, again – without attitude.

There’s a genuine reflection to this album that’s quiet, honest – and astonished humble.

Catch him live on tour. He’s in Montreal in February 2020.

Messenger (Happiness)

My dear, you don’t understand “happiness!”
You expect so damn much from it!
You want it to stay on, to stay put
to never leave your side
like a satchel that keeps banging
your thigh…

Do you wear this purse to bed?!
In the shower, or in the garden?!
Why do you insist then
that it should be constant?
And measured in the same way
as years before now when you dreamed it?

Happiness is nothing but perspective.
Go get it.
Happiness is acknowledgment
of a greed for something not in your remit
Nor in your wallet or that you need.
Like envy.
Happiness is your insurance policy
against change and fear of
how it will leave you in its wake.
And we all know we pay too much anyways
for insurance and of the high rates.

The key to Happiness is –
Not having it.
And to have taken risks
so you know what you’re made of.
Happiness is knowing:
You can handle this
and that you won’t melt
when it’s raining.

Happiness, dear, is your simplest thing
— not avoidance, nor escape, nor drowning.
Happiness is a total FACING
through which, my love, effacement
of all the pains and blames become:
translucent
and melt the fuck away in your
forgiveness.

These days, for me, happiness is:
The satin smooth liquid curve of a hollandaise sauce
on a poached egg I can’t really afford
and once punctured drips warm
that I enjoy so much I enjoy with toasts.
It’s the odd velvet curl of a rishi green tea
that seems so healing, that I purposefully drink
so slowly, so ever so very, very slowly.
It’s the busy scenes of downtown streets that signal
I somehow packed up all my bags – for real
and with faith, belief, and a real net-less leap
came here alone, few know, and in a different province
tonight I sleep.
Finally, isn’t happiness the body knowledge
of being loved and sexed, (for me it is vital, important)
and climaxing with a beautiful lover Other in bed
and the recognition that if it doesn’t happen frequent
that its transience you ‘get,’ and RESPECT?

Happiness just … happens, often haphazard
and happenstance, doesn’t it?
Just watch a flower grow, die,
and vanish
and you’ll know happiness was in
the impermanent
and the fleeting experience of
its scent,
And Nature’s lessons.

Like a warm-skinned man
and his slight smell and imprint,
happiness washes off today
but you will pass by some more
tomorrow.
But you may not know it
Till it brushes by you
So let your senses find your happy
And put your brain to rest..

My dear, you don’t understand “happiness!”
You expect so damn much from it!
You want it to stay on, to stay put
to never leave your side
like a satchel that keeps banging
your thigh…

Like a bag of things that never
leaves your back
which you carry around
like a messenger of stuff.

But surely the weight of it gets too much.
Let go, put it down,
and rest here a moment
— watch, it will come.
OH! I see it there for you…
There it is! Right now!
But don’t touch…
You must not hold on…

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 28, 2019

And I Will Go With Flow

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight upon retiring was its memory.
I thought of your beautiful white face
And thin body on Queen Mary Street
And your apron when you cooked us dinner
As I watched Three’s Company.
1982 was my best year, it seemed.

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight closing the light was an inkling.
I felt your apathy, your indifference to motherhood
How sometimes you loved me, other times, not so good.
How you could have done without us
That it was apparent in your indifference.
And that’s anxiety: always wanting your love.

The concern of “I don’t belong here”
The worry of “why am I here”
Any situation where one needs to feel deserving
Forget it, I was always looking over a shoulder repeatedly.
Maybe THIS time, she’ll like me!
Maybe THIS time, she’ll keep loving me!
Oh mother where are thou when you are far away
Choosing to watch Coronation Street than talk to me?

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight upon retiring was its memory.
How as a child to adult I carried your uncertainty
Trying so hard to ignore your ambivalence toward me
But what relief to leave Ottawa, your womb, and divorced memories
For a city of my choosing, and my new start just for me.
I will never return to Ottawa – never a home for me.
I have no home, there are no roots, I have no family.

What governs my address is – money.
What decides my postal code is – apartment vacancy.
Where I want to be – San Francisco living.
Or an island in fresh air running a café, serving humanity.
So I go there in my poetry
Forming attachments between my feelings
being awed at mysteries
And feeding off little fantasies.

Why just today I was hiking with my cocker in Marin
And taking a beer in Big Sur!
Bathing in my bath tub in open air
And grabbing a wine in Sausalito with her.
I was inviting you back to my café
And helping a customer with a wheelchair get in
I was wiping mustard on my apron
I was taking foreign cash from my clients
I was planning for a new menu board
While doing social media posts for tourism.

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight upon retiring was its memory.
Say, I reckon the further I have ventured away from my family
The healthier I have become, secure in my sanity.
But I’ve no roots like a tree in a community.
Let me float like a breeze that cools sufferers on hot days.
Let me be a big blue sky that cheers up melancholic ways.

See my rootlessness as my goodness
And my floating, a lily pad for snails, frogs, if you must
Like a ship with no anchors, current take me as you wish
Without anxiety sogging my soul, let the lightness like a breeze
…take me where it will.

And I will go with flow and ease
No more pushed or dragged by anxieties.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 27, 2019

Starlight Holies

All those boys of many nights – trophies
But the few who got inside – my holies.
Holy art thou who made their way in.
Savoured by my flavour for these bearded men.

All treated entry as sacred.
Except the last one, which explains my fate therein.
The only one with whom there might be children.
The frustration that all I want, he’s got on his island.

That so far away is a man with a piece of me
That I float around across the world in a fucked-up memory.
I want it back, back on my own continent
For if I’m thought of there, I am there: unembodiment.

And I am weightless, then, not an entity in flesh
Even though I was meat to his entreaty once in London.
There are men in Britain and New Zealand
Who have had my self, my body, and rear end.

All those boys of many nights – comedies.
But the few who got inside – my entities.

Making love is a creation of a tangible accuracy
Having a kid of it is the purest evidence of its engineering
But without purpose or appreciation all vanishes
And memories are like punishments lingering in distance

Like starlight traveling from dead stars beyond
The resonance of an emotion: from anger, becomes love?

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 27, 2019

Ode To My Incense (…and when?)

Tonight I burn a small stick of incense
lavender, from the Montreal shop of herbs.
It burns in a wooden casing bought from her
in Wakefield as a gift for my birthday, many years.
It reminds me she wanted her man so much so
that she video-oh’d him daily to say hello.
She knew what she wanted. And, she went for it.
From Paris, to Ottawa, and now Amsterdam she’s got it.

As the small stick of incense:
lavender, burns – in my Montreal apartment
Am I thankful my house is not in flames?
That the stick burns safe, ashes to remain?
It makes me think of the other night:
I slipped on water in the kitchen: GREAT FRIGHT!
Grabbed hold of the nearby wall: survived!
Smiled, thinking: ‘Could have cracked my skull open, alright!’

And the small stick of incense:
Lavender burns – in my Montreal flat before bed.
How grateful I am to still have my skull!
Such inconvenience a stranger to have to sweep my bloody from floor!
And I had just been watching a film, had me feeling –
It was about a woman who leaves San Fran for New Zealand.
“Oh! I have no money for such a fabulous island!”
Preventing a fall, I smiled miles-wide on my way to the toilet.

As I did my business…
I thought, “this is Real Life, isn’t it?”
That I can walk upright…
That my legs work just fine…
That I have health to hike…
And eyes for sight…
Why are we waiting to retire?
Why not live things now we know will inspire?

As the small stick of incense
Lavender, burns – calming presence,
here is where lays the happiness:
It is in gratitude that you have legs.
And when you don’t have legs
It’s gratitude for wooden or synthetic pegs
Or crutches, or a wheelchair
Or whatever your repair.

Perhaps happiness is everything that remains
behind when you lose what you expected to gain
until the very last moments you sigh your last breath
You will still be happy to have made such distance.
Unless of course, you are stuck in a rut!
This is not happiness: you MUST MOVE about!
And if you bring into your life SOME momentum,
you can be assured of your motion to propel and movement.

Tonight, it is the wood stove fire smoke up the pipe
that we used to stoke together at my cottage at night.
My, it’s been near a decade I’ve slept so tight
next to a handsome man I called love, and ‘mine.’
I’m in the City now, single, but I miss the fire pit.
Wood logs, dirty hands, mowing lawns, and BBQ spit.

But as the lavender incense stick was lit,
it burns like life leaving ashes behind it.
Like memories taking shape of the stick
or disintegrating easily with the wind of my breath:
WOooooooOOOooosh! You’re gone – in an instant/instance.
How do things re-take shape like a stick of incense?

How long does the lavender calm linger in air
Before it starts to wreak of a bygone era?
Oh, little stick of natural essences and oils
Oh, little skinny body of mine that toils.
Burn me bright, will ya – and breathe me in!
Who will smell me sweetly into the evening again!

And what wooden box shall encase my position
And hold fast my lingering scent … and fading stench?

… and when?

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 27, 2019

CEMENT (BÊTE ON)

Affinity.
Undercurrent.

Hello two words from where did you come?
I never said what I felt for him was love.

But affinity suggested kinship in marriage.
And undercurrent reckons romantic intention.

Ah, but I dreamt of you last night
for the second time in my life.

And just as I was then – zen
when your email-letter came in

I even took a moment to read it
there was no anticipation

I did the time difference
12:38 on a Sunday a.m.

Your sentiment, expressed
I very well knew it fit

Always thought me lovely you said
Always thought me off me head.

It did not convince me of anything new
Nor reinforce what I already knew.

It made me sad at our communication
At whatever armor blocked union.

Affinity.
Undercurrent.

Hello two worlds from where did you come?
I never said what I felt was less than love.

(His friends would laugh at my writing too much.
His family arrogance I assumed would think me under-class.)

But what devotion I would have transferred thu!s
But our little One would see your games in my trunk.

Such chest pains and lungs aghast in Brick Lane
Watching your madness erupt again and again.

Such docile calm in my dream last night
Like the replete and released you in the morning light.

Two most amazing nations
Autonomous plates – tectonics

We get close like misaligned jaws
that work, yet pressure causes fissures

Bang, rub against the friction and quake felt
Aw what wonders from my womb we’d have built

I did not feel it ethical to benefit beauty from accident.
Why did you not tell me all the world was built like this?!

Affinity.
Undercurrent.

Because our explosions in our heads
Our pains in our chests

And our very strong expressions and intelligence
That are muted by fear, paved over like cement.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 13, 2019

Computes

My God! What is it about your
Broken English
and your atrocious
expression
and you’re unreliable
half-assed attempts
to see us?
“Could be nice” this
my ass, with the dog
or the Bar de Courcelle
shouting the orders
to: “come right now !”
and: “of course I miss you.”
If you had only a clue
or relationship glue
alongside your Milwaukee
or DeWalt, you fool!
If you had only turned up
on my front door!
I would have dropped my bag
mid-hallway
sighed, smiled
made a B-line
for your body
wrapped it in your five foot
eight or nine
or seven as our parts aligned.
I would have forgotten
you’re a tool.
How many women
you’ve done this to.
My heart would have been
summoned, too.
My body moved on you
with instinct
and intuition
about a bad match.
My God! What is about you
that years since,
nor months hence
I desire no one
but your beard
and defined chin?
Your stupid expressions
and your big strange mess.
Don’t think I don’t know
The tests –
No one is told to wait
six weeks for it
unless they’ve just had
unprotected sex, sure of it.
And you’re so deranged
to do the math
of when you last
used non-latex
with a friend who was
fucking you
between her ex, and again:
T’es sale, man.
Fucké au bout.
And what does it make me
if I have adored
someone like you?
And does math add up
when nothing counts
nor for you—
computes.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 8, 2019.
Image: Jover

Oh,You Gorgeous Man!

You gorgeous man,
you got me thinking
by pulling us through two cars
across the street
and into the alley
like Coronation Street
or Duluth
just to fucking see
a quaint tuckaway park
in Ville Marie
on the way to the fake beach
with real fireworks
that set off
as I didn’t watch
but tried to capture it
on my phone
what of?
You gorgeous man,
you offered me toilet paper
from a porta john
and suggested
the Haitian grub.
I don’t think I liked the meat much
The beer was refreshing
But like flavoured water,
genre
Gorgeous man takes you places:
Down the brick-laned alleys
And the dead-end dim-lit cul-de-sacs
of Montreal streets.
Just like that!
And at Village
au pied du Courant
he shifts from tables to chairs
to art displays
and walkarounds
variety
but not ADHD
to a yurt-like thing
when it rains
and the walk home
tolerant of your refrains:
“Of OH MY GOD THIS IS BEAUTIFUL!
Of OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!”
Oh you gorgeous man
whose perfect, fit, body I did touch
for whom I didn’t think much
naked
for I was stuck
strangely fierce
for a fuck-up.
You gorgeous man
who spreads my …
mind,
wanting so much
to DISCUSS
to communicate
to just talk into the
calm nights
to hear you talk
to stay patient
as you go on and on:
What wonder it is
to not feel sorry for a man
what joy it feels
to appreciate this friend
as the good friend he can be
and to have a million things to say
whenever we meet
to connect to humanity
through conversation
just talking
and humility
femininity
masculinity
honesty
and …
integrity

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 2, 2019

In Our Fake Empire

Your truck.
You turned it up
the volume
quite loud
summer sound.
But not before kissing me.
So tenderly.
Your black hair
growing long
silver-laced
sprouting out from
under the Mao cap.
And, your dark, young eyes
looking at me
with surprise
that you were this:
in love.
That I looked damn good
in the front seat of your truck.
And like the track
in your truck
blasting as we took route
night-drive
summer winds
windows down:
We were half awake.
Dazed in new love!
We were half awake
baked by that day’s sun
from the cottage
where we made love.
And BBQ’d our lunch.
We were half awake
in our fake empire
of my condo and your
being lost.
Your depression.
My expectations.
And me on the rebound
And my maternal extinct
In loving you like
My flesh, my blood,
son.
Wanting you
To break out of your funk
My not helping matters
by doubting
your love.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 1, 2019

Eat, Kill, Fuck

“Men and women can’t be friends”
he said, as I rejected the very notion.
They can! They can, I expressed
“Have fun undoing 10,000 years of evolution.”

“It’s true, they can’t,” he said tonight
If given the chance, men will tap it.
Not unlike what he said to me in London,
and something I refused to admit then.

“Can I eat it, kill it, fuck it,” he said.
I laughed, “you’re so very much like him!”
“I’m atrocious. Low social filter,” he said.
I sighed, “you’re so much just like him.”

And when I snuggled beside
It was just to reside
In tenderness for the very moment.
But…

“Looks don’t matter
to guys who fuck behind closed doors.”
Add to that “take what I can get”
and if given the chance, he’ll take her.

The factual accuracy
The blatant honesty
The bald-truth notions
And clarity…

Made you less of an asshole
Make me more understanding
And grateful for the rekindled friendship
I judged in the past, mistakenly

For bringing me healing
In Montreal evenings
Through stark revelations
And connecting

But he used to just look at me
He wanted to be with me
He said he could remember
What I was wearing.

And what with his marriage
And you not wanting personal
It’s OK now, I GET limits
And will not extinguish

A gift like this again.

Whether by eating and consuming
Whether by killing, and disreputing
Whether by fucking, and cheating

I’d ruin it,

This time with the past
Repeating its tracks
I will not make the same mistake
And deny it.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, April 2019