Sylvie Hill

Mistakes

I don’t get sad about not having had love.
I had it in abundance!
The flowers and love letters!
Words poured out tender!
Vows promised, made!
Rings exchanged!
So many pictures, great sex
and conversations, and those trips.

I don’t get sad about not having had love.
I had so much of it!
By beautiful men
Gorgeous inside and out
Time and time again
So helpful and so generous
Teaching and patient
Side by side
Supportive while it lasted.

I get sad about pushing it all away
Or wanting more than enough.
I get sad about not seeing his proposal…
Or ignoring it as him just being drunk.
I get sad at all the tests
and the hoops
through which I’ve made them hop.
I get sad at pushing them to prove
their love when their commitment
was so obvious!

I get sad that my latest fiercest attachment
was for someone not available to me.
By distance, character, past love, history;
It was the safest place for me to be.
By God writing books about it, even
The non-realness, distance comforted me!

And I have gotten what I wanted:
Nothing. Why, nothing at all, really.
When I used to walk down the street
Two men at once in love with me.
When they used to fetch me from work
Or walk off stages straight for my face
Now no one calls, or addresses me.
And they have all moved on.
Except for two of course
And I wonder how strong
Is the others’ bonds.

I don’t get sad about not having had love.
I had it in abundance!
The flowers and love letters!
Words poured out tender!
Vows promised, made!
Rings exchanged!
So many pictures, great sex
and conversations, and those trips.

I get sad that some of us are born from womb
Not out of love, but anxiety and doom.
And intuitively while I can sense
the touch of a man and his mind
and instinctively while I see
his look of love and his kindness…
That I will forever doubt
it should be for me,
and I fear I will pass him off
to the next girl to be free
of my fear of receiving
or the fear of releasing.

How to be equal with a saviour?
How to seek protection wearing armour?
How to not belittle the grandeur?
How to not be jaded by how all past
Gestures and favours
And fierce love and admiration
that die with a guy once you’ve shunned him.
I’ve gotten what I wanted:
Protection.

…from myself.

Because I am dangerous
Which is why I (m)used.
None other than him
Could handle my ruse.
His heart would not break
My printed words he could take
Vile mind, sharp tongue, a rake
Tough as fuck to my shake.

“I Dare You To Love Me”
the picture said.
Muse 1 sent me a Superman postcard
Saying: “I’ve found the one.”

And inside my body
A void I chose to stake
A womb filled or no –
The outcome and what comes out,

Sadly,

For this woman
Has always felt a mistake,
either way…

Sylvie Hill, December 23, 2018

Verbal Vomit (on moving)

In my packing for my moving
I’ve been weighting shit
and getting rid of things.
Wondering sometimes
when I lift a box here
or there
how is it when you moved
from London
back to New Zealand?
How do you decide what stays
what goes?
Is that why you didn’t have records:
heavy, not practical?
By God I can just imagine
how you’d package pottery bowls!
Those fuckers’d survive a tsunami
knocked about heads of the dead
I bet you’re a killer packer:
accurate, marker, precision.
(Ah my non-real over-familiarity
about who you are and assumptions I entreat.)
And while brushing my teeth
it occurred to me
that I will enjoy so much
living in the City!
Finally: the boulangeries,
fromageries, marchés, boucheries!
Remember the letter I wrote you
About Parc Laurier, it was so exciting!
But I’ve loved my cabin-country.
Solitary, more than with
old lovers who took over.
“I like chainsaws and shit.”
Ah, we used to speak of fires and water.
And I smiled just now
– needed to write this random missive
– that while I’ve forgotten you a bit (as if)
– yet your name is on my new couch
– while I hadn’t remembered you a bit (as if)
I was looking at your photograph
In the last minutes.
And I smiled and to write this…
That just as you left your country
for the city and back again
in the cove bay of where you restaurant
I, too, will leave for the City,
and the immigrants.
But maybe save for a place back in the country?
By the kaffe on the water?
With the sunrise on the ripple
growing older in my 60s in retirement
amongst a garden, a walk to the pub
the air, a dock and me alone again
in nature
in thought
in remembrance of what I had, lost
in nature smiling at reflections in a pond
untangling toes from moss
hanging with fishes I’ll fish for my lunches.
Yes! I will go first to where there are people
LIVE LIFE FINALLY I HOPE TO BE INSPIRED!
But maybe return like you did…
Follow in your footsteps…
returning to your homeland…
Why did you change your mind
like you told me they said you would
and return
to nature,
is that your nature?
“They don’t understand my life.”
Well I have no one in mine
to draw me to a lifestyle or a way of life.
No one to say they know me and will support me
I’m a long way off from where they made me.
My hometown is in Calgary.
Ukrainian food and Russian eyes, accents, embroideries.
In fact, the politics and antics of my French Canadian family
have always scared the shit out of me.
So we’ll see:
In my packing for my moving
I’ve been weighting shit
and getting rid of things.
Wondering sometimes
when I lift a box here
or there
how is it when you moved
from London
back to New Zealand?
I try to pack my memories
Store those little sad things.
I’ve since thrown away entreaties
of you as a guide, for some reason
it’s died…
numb; a testament to the poetry being shit
or maybe “open” and calm?
Nonetheless the writing isn’t fit
when you’re not mainlining a muse anymore
it’s just real life, grocery lists,
and verbal vomit, innit?

Sylvie Hill December 23, 2018

I’ve Taken Flight

Would you call it raw?
or flawed?
That I bummed a smoke
at an airport
back from Toronto
and three glasses of wine in
reading a book on Elon Musk.
Thinking “By God! Musk is like him!”
What they say of him as “mean”
Is being realistic
And logical just like you!
And folks say, “don’t make excuses
for Aspergers – he’s just an asshole”
But I know your truth.

Would you call it raw?
or flawed?
That I listened to “Flaws”
While puffing smoke
Like outside Soho
Where you pretended not to know us.
But really it wasn’t cruel
It was you being You.
And this time I heard the airplanes
roaring into the sky and the force
made me think of your touch that night and truth.

Would you call it raw?
Or flawed?
That when I read of geniuses
I see you there in full?
In your music you nailed it.
In your context you got it.
And could I survive you
knowing your ups and downs
and round and rounds
and your taking everything literal-logic like Spock,
and needing me to just explain it, flawless?

Over pho on Ossington – Toronto.
A city you’d get – having lived in London.
I told him – I’ve not held anyone like that for years.
And explained the drain of holding like that in fear.
In fear of never letting go
And Southern Hemisphere – off he goes.
And can’t compute a ‘so close’
To a “never see him again,” I know.

Would you call it raw?
Or flawed?
That I made your face
in passengers in flight to Ottawa.
That I wished only to say “I GET YOU”
while remembering the night you I got.
How red wine brings me back to the night.
How a Jeep packsack can make me smile.
How a head spinning brings delight
And you might be happy in the ways

I’ve since taken flight.

Sylvie Hill December 12, 2018

Your Mind Tonight

I took this moment to take this photo
as he walked off into the distance.
Parted, he drifted floated in the crowd.
And when he noticed I wasn’t with him
turned around.
No panic. No reaction.
I watched you watch and look about.
Un-phased, but you would have logically
sorted out the maze in search
somehow.
You always, always find your way
and when I lost mine you stayed.
And then left as I struggled to wish you were mine
or at least that I knew your mind.

SH

Magnificent Thunder

The way you needed a woman like a hole in your head
was attractive. The on-again, off-again thing, many in your bed
probably not so much; but, meh, I got it.

When you’d go to the cinema: Whirld and Everyman, and tell me about it:
“You can drink wine!” you’d say without exclamation
and on a quiet Saturday, rainy, in London.

Your vulnerability, I think, was pronounced behind the vindictiveness.
Yet you weren’t sappy, or sloppy, and could always admit
that we all get a little lonely sometime, and you missed it.

And the way you couldn’t be arsed! Nor gave a toss.
Yet you gave the girl your number, you hoped she’d call.
But you were not desperate in your attempts: a dick, and a gentleman.

Self-described miserable old bastard, who could not be bothered!
Yet go on, you wanted happiness, and maybe in search of Her.
You’re so loved, so connected, privileged, and on offer.

The way you were always there and how you bent over backward.
How we connected a long time ago and then it all fell apart.
How you opened a café on the water just like Marker…

Your perseverance chasing tails or blue sky dreams and abundance.
Your impressive character cruel and so kind, and all your meaty substance.
Can never be undone with all the stories told in retrospective…

When you sleep at night
Does your head wander right
Over to your London times of freak and wonder
The one-shot deals and the magnificent thunder?

Sylvie Hill
November 2018

PEACE OF MIND

Tonight, I’m so happy I could cry.
And it’s not from the romance of streets
in Montreal along Parc Lafontaine and people
on Bixi, and me in a blazer blazing fashionable taking my dinner
comfortable- on vélo then shopping at the Rachelle-Berry food store.

It’s not my mug of tea and a good book by the lake
in the Parc where lovers wander and old women take
their dogs for walks as the sun sets on the pond.
It’s not the quiet silent nights of sleep
in Plateau Mont Royal and the summer breeze.

It’s that I’ve got my skull – and his is hacked off his brain by injury.
It’s that I have my health – and hers became cervical pain in disease.
I have my senses – and his dad is going insane.
I have my sobriety – and his is always derailed.

It’s that I make enough in two months to pay your reno.
That I can love you with strength, and touch, and good food.
That I could support you in finances, understanding, and good moods
And you’ve got a gadet in the pocket of your Carhartts.

But mostly it’s cuz I will fail to fall apart
To rush to save another with carpenter hands and Carhartts
To play co-dependent and to be a man’s saviour:
Who wants to fuck your lover when she’s your therapist?

Tonight, I’m so happy I could cry.
Because I get to feel a real man divulging and pride.
His standards high. His patience that ends with his slice:
an unapologetic stance of where he’s at – and he is right.

Just to feel a desire to make love to the grumpy man
to save his tired ass with a vacation and a sun tan
to want to fuck his frown upside down – with a laugh
To just sit there, eating, listening to him rant.

And I know that look when the man is engaged
His eyes roving on me, smiling: says I’m effervescent!
When they are intrigued by my energy and full of LIFENESS
This one was watching TV, bagged, and tired as shit.

Tonight I’m so happy I could cry.
Cuz there’s few if any to whom I could let fly.
And Oli and Rhys in London they’d abide
Reading ‘thousands upon thousands’ of my words, and a million times –

Gave me peace of mind.

And the man with the thing in his pants and his tuque
Let me chat at length first and asked questions too.
Always a back and forth and a shared moment or few
A man who knows he cannot settle down with you.

A man who like you, wants to flee – him to Vancouver.
Who is tired of short Ottawa summers – and the winter.
A man who like you, sees folks around falling short
of standards, and similarities in hard work.

Who like you has his project on
and many of the people around
have no idea of the effort and dedication
but when we come together

or try to — I understand.
So many decades of me loving good men
and those good men always giving me my way
Instead this time I could flex to his delay
Protect his needs and his schedule, and pace

Tonight I’m so happy I could cry
to have enough of a very good life
going on that I’m not on stand by
instead: breathing and taking my time.

Wise.

Sylvie Hill, November 4, 2018

Image: Loui Jover

Dear Olga

Dear Olga because you’re reading
I think of you often since our first meeting.
How long was the plane ride?
We didn’t see it go by!
We talked of lovers, and marriage
And sex and your Montreal living.

Dear Olga because you noted
That I don’t write when I’m gone from Montreal.
That when there: so much to tell!
The future, mon avenir:
What does it hold? You know it well.
I love to hear about your world.

Dear Olga because you were a Nurse of Montreal!
And you know what the city brings us.
And romances afar
And connections that are dangerous!
And that life is for living
Our domestic boredoms, and some full passion!

Dear Olga, my how we laughed at my French Canadian!
You laughed so hard at my impersonations.
Carrying on in baggage claimage.
You made my trip.
You inspire my future.
You painted my face and now I write yours.

To say, Dear Olga, you’re always in my picture.
You stoke my fire, and compassion my closed heart.

Sylvie Hill 2018

Painting: “Suzanne Pense À Son Avenir” par Olga C.

I Am Illiterate

So thank you
For letting me tell you about my men
their bodies and brilliance
their love for me and my love for them
And how every time, without fail
That I looked at my mother’s handwriting
And read the Halmark cards, “for my precious daughter”
How any scribble penned
Of how much she loved me then
Was something I looked at as though it were Turkish
In guilt and confusion
In guilt and suspicion
In confusion and frustration: I AM ILLITERATE.
There: I said it
I am emotionally dyslexic.
For I never could read the sentiments she reflected
I’ve carried blame all my life for being so discombobulated
I could hear her say: “it’s never good enough!”
Passing the blame to her kid — me
That she decided to cut off her love.
I don’t think it was ever there from the start.
I never understand my mother’s language.
Of love, she never talked.
Of loss, always of loss she waxed on.

So thank you
For letting me tell you about my thoughts
of why I never dared have kids
for risk of passing this on:
inconsistent love and such parental on and off.
For I can’t read the writing on the wall
Or if it’s there I don’t accept it at all.
I don’t know what he means when he said: it’s you I love
So I made them make lists, itemize why, and tested their resolve.
And it’s the Hockey Night In Canada theme
Playing on the tele in the late 70s in Calgary
That makes me feel a warmth
That maybe most get from a cozy mum.
It’s hockey equipment, radial-arm saw, and smell of saw dust
Renovations, brown belts, Rolex, and a Montblanc
His distance but his interest in my periodic visits:
My dad in his absence,
And his thoughtful presents in his presence
Before he cut us off, all fucked up
Insecure like a shrink said for his new love,
Hell-bent in hurt, therefore: persecution.

Do you read me?
Do you copy?
Unlikely…
Few I know whose parents dissolved.
And we’re too old for adoption.

Do you read me?
Do you copy?
Impossibility.
You’re married with support from family
You’ve never struggled, have you, really?

I’m a bucket with holes
Through which their love falls.
That’s what the shrink said to keep me coming back
Almost like putting salt in a wound, no?

But healers speak of love
beyond earthly parents to cosmos and the undergrounds.
Find one who will help you patch holes
I have a fondness for handymen, carpenters,

And the kinds who don’t write much
Instead speak tongues fierce and clear

…and email full of fucking typos.

Sylvie 2018

Others

My mother and my sister
They’d always say that I thought I was better
Better than everyone else.
But how can you think you’re worth something now
When your mother and sister are always putting you down?

And my step-mother had sense:
She said sometimes you gotta break a pattern
if you want to get better in the end.
But then look at her breaking off my father and his real daughters
to get a life of love and money for her kid and herself: hoarder.

And my father said I was boy crazy
And wouldn’t you be if guys were the one and only!
Only ones to give you attention?
To listen to your needs and wants and ambitions
And not put you down, shit on your self with criticisms?

And no wonder they say you’ll go crazy.
That single people die younger and lose memory.
There is no one reflecting back their story.
No one saying, “remember when you did this or that,”
or reminding you how much you liked a song or applejacks?

The other day I poured my soul
To a busy friend who said “yeah, I dunno.”
The other to whom I said I was sick,
In the grocery store, said: “Really, not again?”
And if I told her who I was in touch with? “Not him?!”

And no wonder I mused two gents in London.
They always wrote the right things, spot on.
And like my British gal pals with banter to share
Like a few of my guys friends with time to spare
And things to say of interest, and care…

How is it the ones who made you care nothing for you now?
That the ones who cared for you once are nowhere to be found?
How do you gauge a bond, invest when it will dissolve?
How do you buy in to hope, and trust, and how do you believe in love?

If perception be but an accurate reflection like a radar gauging the specs
Then I’d say with age comes more status quo and many lacking my interest.
And an hour at $150 a week can’t repair a cold, unaffectionate mother
And a poem never did seem to rid me of that other.

Sylvie 2018

When I tell people, “I’ll be working for CBC/Radio-Canada” they ask me what time I’ll be on. Some say I’m Strombo 2, The Girl Version. Or the host of a new, provocative literary segment. I’d be happy to be Catherine Pogonat, but like the BBC say, she’s the one and only…

Check out my article here on LinkedIn!