Sylvie Hill

Bison Hunters, No Cherry-Pickers

“J’suis pas un enfant d’choeur”
il m’a dit un soir r’entrant chez moi
après qu’il s’est presenté, almost late
à Place des Arts, pour notre date, en retard, pal mal Bar de Courcelle drunk.

Bon, c’est certain que des bad boys, eux
ont du panache, mais decouverte: Pourquoi?

I thought he was saying he wasn’t a man of heart
That he was hardened, not heart, and a bit rough.

No, it’s that he’s not an altar boy obedient or pure,
He’s a wild sonovabitch, dangerous, and immature.

But like she said in my kitchen
Sunday morning on our visit
Do you want the man who can hunt your bison
Or the one who goes cherry picking?

Smells and mannerisms.
Scents and hairy armpits.
I like me a man whose sweat is tasteful.
Who parallel parks in two moves: graceful.

Whose eyes pierce in concentration
when I’ve confused the fuck out him again.
And who cuts my long-drawn outness
with a “yeah, yeah, so I think I got it.”

The men who speak with efficiency
As they might spear the deer behind trees.
Not the prancer picking berries
talking too much, plucking here and there in glee.

Give me the side by side guy
Who I have to tell: “Look me in the eyes!”
Give me the shuts-down man, fuck,
Who I have to mother to come back up.

Just give me what I’m used to then:
Gorgeous man hands and competence.
Intelligence and tenderness to handle my ways
And our own little quiet connections.

Just give me what I’ve known so much:
Smart guys, liked, with a good job.
Patience and cock to mind my moods
and trips to the lake, river, and woods.

And always desiring that I feel understood
With manners and care for us two
Like a macaroon —

Hard-shelled like on the outside but easily breaks
With my tongue-lashing taste or weight
Vulnerable, but tough withstanding my ass-kicking
Will spear for me what we need & not wimp out in …

Cherry picking.

“J’suis pas un enfant d’choeur”
il m’a dit un soir r’entrant chez moi
après qu’il s’est presenté, almost late
à Place des Arts, pour notre date, en retard, pal mal drunk.

Bon, c’est certain que des bad boys, eux
ont du panache, mais decouverte: Pourquoi?

Because they seem independent
With something going on
But look closer, there
And I’ll telling you what’s what.

The bad boy is the self-absorbed man
Cuts corners, tricks, and cons
He’s lacking in strategy, effective in operations
But he’ll never, ever lead the pack for bison

That takes a leader and a man of honour
A man who is looked up to for their character.
The bad boy is nothing but a good time hunter
Who’ll wound you fast, and let you rot and fester

The man who grabs and tracks his prey kindly
Will win his prize with arrow precision, little suffering
He’ll use every piece of her – blood, bone, meat, and skin
And he’ll appreciate his kill for its value, not trophy win.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, August 4, 2019

Bar Courcelle (You Git)

His broken English
Sounds horrid.
Like some Texan redneck trucker
caught like a fart in a helmet
pissed off at its own stink
spiraling in anger at the Montreal
traffic – and his too many drinks.
And by god if you could hear it:
You’d love it, and it’s hilarious!

“That them world” he’ll say
and the traffic is driving him “crazee.”
And the oddity!
And absurdity!
that emanates from his chiseled face
sounds so dumb, maybe put on
his “so good” this and that,
I loved it, and it was hilarious.

From the precision and wit
Nailed perfect in London
To this Quebec English
spoken so harsh to the ears
you’d cringe!

I just don’t know what to do with it!
When I was stuck in fuck, I got poetic!

But I’m done with musing
This is hardly a relationship!
Like talking to a circus side show
Full of mystery, intrigue and …

Oh – the longing.

The wide-open mouth
And varied tongue
And the comfort he felt
In my arms.

You’re going to get burned
You’ve already been burned.

And his invites to drink
At the Bar de Courcelle
Was an invitation to everything I used to be
and all the hell I have once felt.

And the imperfections
But a perfect nose
And a guy who won’t
let me let him go.

From the precision and wit
Nailed perfect in London
To this Quebec English
spoken so harsh to the ears
you’d cringe!

I didn’t want to go on this trip!
And I’m afraid I’ve stayed too long as it is.
We only need them to cancel the gig
And then we’d make love, have a baby
And … what’s the title of the next book…

You git?

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, July 23, 2019

Magic

It was the right park
But the wrong guy
It was the right sweatshirt
But a different sky

It was a summer thunderstorm
Without the making love
It was a perfect summer night
He was nowhere to speak of.

It was the perfect man
But the wrong distance
He was the most electric homme
But I didn’t want children.

Then there was London.
And me in my condo.
Smoking a smoke
Writing my tales.

And the tracks would come in
From a Brick Lane studio
1 am your time
9 pm EST flying solo.

And there was always an email
And a perfect wit
There was also consolation
And the perfect pitch

And I showed you my field
And said it just a connection
And it wasn’t mutual: “this feels like
some virtual relationship.”

And when we nail “the One”
And we break out the white
And we mail the invitations
And we get the cake just right

How the fuck do you nail it
What is stability but faking it
to the girls and poets
who have seen and touched magic?

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, July 23, 2019

Pull

I moved on you
I wanted to move on you

Like a magnet under a sheet of white paper
shifting the particles wayward.

Guided: like hands on a Ouija board
or like gravity pulls us lower.

I moved on you
I wanted to move on you

And my body shivered
When I told you what to do

And my mind paralyzed
When your high wore off and you got cruel.

Doll, I’ve been with the cruelest of them all
And it’s the fate I suffered for art, by god.

But to go to the stake for nothing at all
Yes, to crash, and burn, and senselessly fall?

I moved on you
I wanted to move on you

…and the pull
needs to push me on.

Suffering is noble when the tragedy was fierce
And this suffering serves me but not at all.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, July 21, 2019

Painting

True Love (What Are You Still Doing With Her?)

“Why are you still with that girl?!!” she said about me, apparently.
I was not threatened. I smiled Cheshire. I prepared the tea.

Laughing. Would you like to know why, darling?
Because I loved your brother the right way, like no other lady.

Because I held him in my arms as he listened to the beats of my heart
And I welcomed him forever on a warm couch, and sober arms.

Because I wanted to hear every word about his day, and his stress at work.
Because he sent me photos from his job sites, from the pool, or chasing ducks.

Because he sent me a video up at that place, taking the dogs for a walk
And sent pictures of his sandwiches and dinners and what he had for lunch.

Because he told me of his whereabouts all throughout the day
And I gave a fuck, even if he didn’t show attention to my stuff, it was OK.

Because I’m older than him, and I’ve had men love me the right way
And because your brother hurts from the inside out, I could see it right away.

And I have no idea what your brother’s laugh sounds like
He never seemed to be glowing a happiness from the inside

Except for when he wrote me after meeting saying he felt hope and happyness
But whether it’s a line you just say to girls to fuck them, or something less.

So why was he still with this girl, the one who wanted safe sex?
The one who doesn’t sleep around but would have fucked your brother relentless?

Because your brother doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground
He’s lured to the bar too much, doping every night, and fucked up

And don’t think I was a pressure, a force, or pushing him
My vision: enjoy love, good times, real intimacy, sex and companionship

And love him well enough to leave him be at 40 to start his family
While I would be 48 on my way with my future king

See for a moment your brother felt a potential for real love
Know that, work with it, don’t trash me and spout off

Don’t take sides – fight him in his bad thoughts
Get his body off of booze, and his mind off of drugs.
(Ask him about Kevin Bacon).

Care for him, tend to him, and love him with all you’ve got
There are nieces and nephews waiting for you –

If he can just find love for himself first off.

This is your brother.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, July 10, 2019

BOTTOM FEEDERS (I WANT TO BE LIGHT)

I want to be light
Not like a broadcasted beacon
Blasted in hasthtags full of random
photos of yoga ashrams and world travel.

Nor of my pretty skin
heated by the South Pacific suns
or surfing, tanned in a bikini
surrounded by foreign friends around a boozy meal.

I just wanna be light!
And radiate a warmth and comfort!
Like the skin under your jeans
on a winter day after you come in from the grocers.

I’ve seen and loved
the darkest. My Dad.
Telling me my mom didn’t give him blowjobs
and shooting his pellet gun at pictures of her face on a box in the basement.

It’s a Dad who rips up child support cheques
as your Welcome Home party entrance
after he brings you to his ‘home’ to Mississauga
saying about your mother: “Never have to deal with that bitch again.”

It’s the beady eyes of a drunk ex
who stole my book launch night again
with his moodiness and fright
as I ignored my fans to delight him in his vex.

It’s my last lunch in Ottawa
facing his addiction shakes and gout
turning anything I say
into about him, so self-absorbed and full of rot.

It’s years, and decades,
and a lifetime of blame
pointing my way, always my way
with them having nothing ever good to say.

Am I just that then – light?
That was tarred by fright:
Blackened as fuck so I could harden,
mobilized to fight or flight?

I want to be light
Not like a broadcasted beacon
Blasted in hasthtags full of random
photos of yoga ashrams and world travel.

Nor of my pretty skin
heated by the South Pacific suns
or surfing tanned in a bikini
surrounded by foreign friends around a boozy meal.

I don’t want to levitate
Or talk of religious context.
I want to swear with my wisdom
in a child-like grace and imperfection.

(I’m done equating ‘dark’ with sexy
bad boys are actually bad in bed, in flings.)

I want to be light and with substance
like an Ocean that’s resurfaced triumphant
after Mother Earth sucked it back, aghast!
when you punched her in the guts with your narcissism.

I want to be light in knowing
I was once breathless for only SO LONG, floating:
Cast adrift by a Narcissist London/Kiwi cunt
And embarrassed I flipped a traumatic accident into flattery:
and said I might have had his baby.

I want to be light in learning
I was once airhead for A MONTH, drifting in dating:
Confused by his word salads, pothead vacancy
Triangulation, bipolar alcoholic addictions, with a side order of lies, handjobs, future-faking & flattery.

Can I be light as I rise above the weight
that drags us down to the ground in defeat?
Can I be light now, please, as I bumble on the surface
Knowing depth is not “deep” without boundaries…

Like she says vulnerability
isn’t so without trust
It’s just flinging your shit
unsafely out in front.

Let me be “SO GOOD” light
That I blind the bottom feeders!
So they can’t find me in their hunts at night
And leave me the fuck alone to revive.

And let me be light so I’m done with this poetry
But not regret the canons I left behind in where I came from
But let me be free to grab the momentum
Toward positivity and become everything I’m made of.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, July 5, 2019

***

For DE, for helping me along my new way.
And gratefulness to musician/artist Joseph Arthur whose instagram videos are like medicine.

(REPOSTED FROM DEC 2018)

I Am Ready! (Not-Rot)

I am ready for adventure on the cusp of a new year!
For double-yoga duties on the first day!
— setting the standard for the remaining.
And I am ready for adventure on the cusp of a new world.
Thriving in Montreal: shopping bliss
at Jean-Talon Market for fresh salmon from New Brunswick!

I am ready to burn it!
That memory-grey lingerie on which sits your DNA.
While you’re over there on your island, forever and ever distant.
I am ready to understand it
That a break in a friendship, in any connection
Leaves us deficient, castrated for a while with dangling limbs!

I am ready to live it on the cusp of a new time!
For realizing I’ve chosen another city in which to FEEL ALIVE!
I am ready for scary, and frustrating and what the fuck Quebec, like…?
And for reminiscing no more on past loves
While getting happy in errands and activities and challenges
And seeing what the fuck I’m made of!

I am ready for adventure on the cusp of a new year…
To search my tribe, to hunt my food, to care for villagers among me, too.
I am ready to give to friends more than I receive.
And to stretch my legs by walk, metro, or BIXI
And to not-rot in a vibrant new city….

I am not your fan.
You were never my man.
And I welcome the kisses and care of new men, bring it on!
And I will invite the right kind of attention
That dances me boldly but kindly into the not-rot.

Sylvie Hill, December 31, 2018

Painting: J Coates by JamesCoatesFineArt on Etsy

French Novel
By Richie Hofmann

You were my second lover.
You had dark eyes and hair,
like a painting of a man.
We lay on our stomachs reading books in your bed.
I e-mailed my professor. I will be absent
from French Novel due to sickness. You put on
some piano music. Even though
it was winter, we had to keep
the window open day and night, the room was so hot, the air so dry
it made our noses bleed.
With boots we trekked through slush for a bottle of red wine
we weren’t allowed to buy, our shirts unbuttoned
under our winter coats.
The French language distinguishes
between the second
of two and the second
of many. Of course
we’d have other lovers. Snow fell in our hair.
You were my second lover.
Another way of saying this:
you were the other,
not another.

How Is Your Rot Going?

Tonight I wanted to call you
To see how your rot is going.
The last time I left you
I was saying “I feel sorry for you”
And you tried to fight me
Beside the Sobey’s
Before grabbing some smokes
To smoke me.

But I was not having any of it.
I said “this is unacceptable”
I am intolerant.

It was my last day in Ottawa
The afternoon before a big night
Of packing my shit
And taking flight
On a big move by myself
With no around to empty my boxes
Just me and my fitness
That you were hoping to destroy
With your alcoholism.

I know how food hurts your stomach
The gout in your foot from the boozing
I know you’re searching to fight me
To see if I love you enough
To put up with it.
“I feel sorry for you” when you glared your stare
and try to freeze me in your evilness
45 years, we broke up at 29
and I’m just getting now –
you’re abusive.

Tonight I wanted to call you
To see how your rot is going.

How your joblessness from being laid off
Because of your fucking moods
And negativity contrarianess
If you’ve lost the apartment
And if you’ve reached rock bottom
For good.

When I said you’re a good man
You said: “You don’t know me, Sylvie.”
I said are you better then or worse now?
And you just glared like you wanted to tell me.
Recently a man said as much:
“You want a relationship with me but you don’t know me”
A relationship, yes, but not with him
Sadly – I know his shameful kind is rotting.

But he was not having any of it.
Picked a fight about some disagreement
To exit fastest to go get fucked up again.

You cannot save an alcoholic
And they are never real in their states.
When you think they love you
And are tenderly caring for you?
It’s just the high talking
Soon, you’ll be easily replaced.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, June 2019

And telling you to proceed please with him into this fair night.

And if you wished your body was younger
Tighter back in the days of never worrying
About posture –
Forget it, because at 37, my darling
You were dumber than dumber.
Insecure, and a nutter.
Full of expectations that could never deliver.
Consuming a fiction like a fucker.
And now …?
Calmer. Smarter. Happier.
Freer in Montreal having made shit clearer.
Choosing a life you want instead vs being a follower.
And you didn’t care to meet someone there
In Ottawa? Who and what where?
And so you told the Universe,
Alright, alright I’ll put out a feeler.
“HVAC, engineer, truck” you breathed it there
Tho, that Elliot Smith patch on the back of a jacket?
Then one night – it all came here.
And the next night – mention of Coriander.
Ah, little signs when the shit is right
And telling you to proceed please with him into this fair night.
And his hands are perfect
And his eyes are steady
And his smile mixes his manliness and vulnerability
And when he whistles to the doggy dogs in the country
You can picture his lips and chin all manly
And so it is with people we fall for
The amalgamation of all things came before them
And you fret it’s a pattern
But nothing wrong with repetition
If this time you’re saner, better
And best of all choosing this man
Instead of just falling for him
Over beer.
And he always said “you can’t be with an artist”
And I always loved the smell of sawdust
Sounds of radial arm saws
Vision of a cabin building – no kids, dogs, veranda
Man with edges and rough but tender
To my smooth lady ways, fiery, childish and blunt
In candour.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, May 2019