Sylvie Hill

Une Coque Héroïque: Quelle Chicane – c’est dûr!

I

Serge Gainsbourg’s concept album
About a Lolita type called Melody Nelson
According to the writer, Darran Anderson
Was a lament, a forecast of what he knew would happen.

It was a premature goodbye to Jane Birkin
After he was let go by Brigitte Bardot
He knew love doesn’t last for long
And relationships end, bring on death, so long!

I’m not Serge Gainsbourg.
But I’m happy to share Russian-Cossack heritage.
I’m a Kazakov by a Grandmother who moved to Saskatchewan
I carry the Jewish Armenian nose of a long time, past.
My first name is Québecoise
And I do like sex
But could never handle the amount of Serge’s booze
Nor chain-smoking les Gitanes cigarettes.
This is the hard truth.

II

The engraving on the ring I gave un mec
Quoted the Sisters of Mercy: “No time to cry,” as if!
His read MUCH more amourous: “Mo graidh”
That’s suitably, “my love,” in Scottish.

He didn’t flinch an inch or criticize the inscription
But what kind of promise ring is that but prophetic projection
Of tears I cried in my family life and that I knew I would leave him
Did he know at the time, I was driven to EXPERIENCE?

I’m not Jacques Brel.
But I’m happy to share his observations and big mouth.
I’m expressive because I’m Canadienne Française, LOUD
I carry my maternal Grandfather’s Acadian poetry and blood.
My first name is French
And I do like tendresse
But am not daring enough to leave the cardboard factory
I am safe in my complacency, parasseuse, bêtise.
This is a hard fact.

III

YOU, on the other hand, LEFT your island for adventure!
YOU have real stories that would entertain Brel over dinner!
And YOU provoke with slapped-flat observations
That would have Gainsbourg laughing in hysterics!

YOU are like Brel, and you did NOT get tied down by a wife.
But YOU seem to have one to whom you may return when you die.
And YOU sometimes can look ugly, in fact kind of scary
But your charisma and your talent turn you gorgeous and sexy.

YOU are like both these men:
you are dangerous and stylish.
You have a personality that is curious
and you eat pistachios that are Turkish.

Do you SEE why I needed to bleed on you,
do you know what you were for?
YOU are for when I put lentils in my tacos,
and I hear you sardonically say: “That’s nice, dear.”
There is hard proof.

IV

Some folks get down on their knees
Sing for change and beg in the streets
Like Edith Piaf who sang to eat
Was the joker and comedienne.

But I’ve no balls, so I sit at a deskjob
Reserve my evenings for writing songs
Playing it safe, I don’t smoke cigarettes
Except – when it all went nuts in London.

I am not Edith Piaf.
But I’m happy to share her curly hair & laughter.
I’m social like her because I’m French Canadian bavarde
That’s my maternal Grandmother’s who they used to call “môme.”
My first name is French
And I do like men
But am not in the spotlight enough to try all of them
So I write about what it would be like, in poems, instead.
It is hard to hold back.

V

But YOU have played many a stage
And swaggered with your guitar
And YOU will play Hoxton Square soon
The irony of that is not too far.

My point about the prophesies and projections
The Artist’s boho lifestyle and romantic enticements
Is that sometimes our life path is much clearer to another
In the way a life is made clearer by a Writer, Musician or Biographer.

So, I scratch back in time to remember
What you said about me; vantage point is better
And all your observations good/bad were true
You were harsh, you were hard, which is why I made love to you.

And when you said the best sex you had
Was with a wild German girl one time in the past…

Well, I’m not her, but had to laugh …
I share her youth and roots
I am on fire because I’m a dual-dueling nature of Canadian and ¼ Jew
With blood by a paternal Grandfather who’s German, ¼ American to boot.
My first name is Sylvie
And my surname truncated German to Hill
I prefer to hide in forests
Make mountains out of mohills
Keen on woods
And hard wood.

VI

And as long as we’re playing word games, fine:
See what lies between the letters of “Rhymes.”
And “Rhythms.” Do you see: There’s me, and you
And thm, so here’s our lesson:
It’s that everyone we meet, my Love
Is not so much our lover
But simply depending on what you’re looking for
At the moment,
becomes One of us, used to discover
it’s circular and dual
But I laugh at my innocence
You probably know this, yes?
You’re a hard sell.

VII

You are my Decoder
Ahh, siii, I’d have fucked you till your balls fell off.
No! If only we had more time and there was love.
And no ocean and annoyance between us.
Ahh, siii, you make it hard for me now
Ah, basta! Not any cock will do, now.

It’s through a fuck that we learn about love:
Gainsbourg was not a pervert, he was a provacteur.
He wasn’t a misogynist he was a tender clown in private.
Brel was not a player, he was honest with his emotions.
He wasn’t a bastard, but transparent in his motivations.
Edith was a sensational woman, living by her rules
She loved men as intensely as she felt life through her tunes.
And you, you were distant as ever with eyes hard as marbles
And in your momentary touch, revealed your romantic violence.

It’s through a fuck that we learn about love:
And it’s through fucking that Love finds us
Not in the act or the particular actor
But in the absence when our hearts grow fonder
For a Decoder who can make sense of our lives
For which we’ve labored for years and pondered
In an instant – and just like that, his fingers snap:
Like the rebel-artist who sees through the bullcrap
And nails with precision the exact emotion,
It is revealed to me in an instant
I laid claim to his cock by being passive
Afraid to REALLY live life,
I am chicken.

VIII

I don’t have to wait for the album, he wrote it
What delicious fate that I starred in it.

I didn’t think I would come that night, either! (ha!)
And in the morning, I didn’t.

I know he didn’t cast me consciously, or did he?
Hard to tell when our moves are synced often – serendipititiously.

Who writes whose fate here, consciously?
Who scored your scene in my Lost-in-London dream reality?

It’s hard to tell what will happen next; but I am very safe in the silence, don’t break it.
Just the fact I laugh knowing you’d be there instantly for me if I asked if that’s a rooster or a chicken,

Reminds me of my immovable appreciation
Pour notre histoire, héroïque
Quelle chicane autours du
Russell Square Station!

© Sylvie Hill 2014

ART: dixon / “UAhh…Siii!” / 20x20cm / spray paint and enamel on canvas / 2005