Sylvie Hill

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Lady Was a Lady Laid to Rest

With one hand on her heart
the other reached out
she’s made beautiful on a sardine can
that otherwise would be thrown out.

Someone’s scraps are another’s treasures
and you and me were like garbage pickers
just trotting about, scouting, lifting
for ourselves, and often for the other.

Muse: I’m sorry to throw you out like this
but you treated me like discarded rubbish.
Lady, is that laid lady, laid dead
or for now, just sleeping?

SH 2014

Art: dixon / “Blight” / 88x27cm / spray paint and acrylic on metal / 2013 (painting for FallDownGallery)

Reflections, this season …

Muse: you’re fucking with my chi. It’s a one-way mirror where you’re blocked but I can see you and today I looked, by chance, saw you shot in a rearview mirror – but I had my lady looking glass, YESTERDAY. When did yours go up; does my head in, that’s another Code Red coincidence, only, involving a mirrored reflection! Just as I was writing my last letter to you TONIGHT, wrapping up my fucking collection. That’s the second time I write, then your visuals pick up in tandem. Of course the umpteenth time you’ve responded in kind without seeing the question. I saw your pipes I texted after midnight, pecs in an outline of a shirt, solid chest I wish to Christ I could remember. I talk to myself, laughing saying “SEE, this is so crazy!” as the sailor in me on a Hero Quest toward Museless please & 40, in a Robot Voice, says: abandon ship, abandon ship… he’s just a goddamn mermaid, SIRENS BLAZING: come ON, what’s up with that shit?! Est-ce possible? I resist, resign myself that it’s any meaning for you used to match your ex-girlfriend’s head, so whatever, and eat a profiterole instead. Fucking social media raising buried Muses from the dead. By the way, did you see the code in the mirror to the left? I’m a fucking genius, bereft, that is. Even concealed the ‘s,’ and the last line sorta doesn’t make sense but writing on a girl’s tits? Yea, I thought you’d approve of in an instant, dick. I laugh and I jest then I remember that we only carried on like this in our heads. In person, you fogged shit up, made it blurry, left a mess. And baby, this time, I’m packing Windex …

SH 2014

It’s settled then.

All the electricity floating around parts of this body
Sucked into a heaviness by a magnetic reality.
All the unbearable lightness of thoughts, feelings flowing
Now are condensed into a perfectly shaped: knowing.

From America at 2:52 am, years after pouring beer on a post-gig dinner
Came the wisdom of a travelling musician friend as he sipped tequila in winter
He told me he slept with women because he was craving tenderness
And it was about seeing how a girl lives, her dresses, not just rocking a mattress.

He said in short it was about ‘abandon.’
Who is the puppet, who plays the strings beyond the guitar with the band, then?

That part of my heart that I tell you swelled when the UK Other answered Code Red
And retracted in recoil when he insulted me dead
That part that blossomed, opened up like a flower
Was warming, expanding, calming and washing over me like …

abandon.

Like a magnet that sucked together all the metallic filings of my synapses
It sucked from every part of me thoughts, feelings, impressions of him.
It freed up my veins to absorb other energy
It cleared my mind giving sense to the reality of …

abandon.

I had been so focused on his loveless act for which he showed zero tenderness
That I was blind to explaining to anyone around me how impossible it was to resist.
My mind knew he was a dick, my heart wanted to be his friend.
In the night it was full-on abandon, yes …

He said in short it was about ‘abandon.’
Who is the puppet, who plays the strings beyond the guitar with the band, then?

I wake up every morning, my brain replaying the scene
I remember unflattering snippets but mostly not much of anything
He’s been inside so many more women after this
But he’s the last one to touch these lips.

I got lost in London, he brought me home
I was not abandoned, but I was alone
I was tied to a sinking ship
I signed on for this trip
And like sunken treasure amassed at bottom of the sea
The pieces have settled in me.
And finally I feel treasured, free.

That’s because I know now:
There are men who fuck because of a hard on (Him).
Then men who make love for abandon (sorry, Keith).
The former are soulless selfish cunts who will roam from one to one: watch them!
The latter are soulful sharing gents who pass through with hippy love to grant a traveller and themselves:

abandon.

He said in short it was about ‘abandon.’
Who is the puppet, who plays the strings beyond the guitar with the band, then?

It’s settled then.
Goodbye to my Muse who treats people like refuse (read: garbage).
And to a new man, one day, I’ll say, after the band has played …

“Let’s get outta here,
wanna get … lost?”

Is it better to be lost in love
Or loving the Lost in abandon?

I was the latter and proud of it
Did my tenderness soften his cartilage?

© Sylvie Hill 2014

Art: dixon by Juan Carlos Noria / “Tempest” / 100x100cm / spray paint and synthetic enamel on canvas / 2010

Tweets by @Sylvie_Spoken

Too For You

I dreamt we went to Bloomsbury
like Sylvie Plath and Ted Hughes!
Instead of The Lamb up the road
it was Bloomsbury Pub, you choose/you chose.

I choked:

You asked me when I last had sex
I didn’t really care for that!
You asked me to point to ‘where was South?’
Your mind, the contest, I love/I loved.

I longed:

You raged when I went on and on
in letters, you didn’t want to get “personal.”
But all you asked of me in person was private intel
I withheld details that were principal/in principle.

A prince and his disciple?

Together, we went to Bloomsbury:
one Sylvia following the heels of her Hughes.
Who fooled who?! And, what a ruse!
Were you amused/a Muse?

Bemused:

You’re someone else’s lover
a world apart and over – true?
The other half of a dueling duo:
your beauty, natural to you two/too.

Good Goddess, you
Fucking fools.

© Sylvie Hill 2014

ART: dixon / “Two” / 55x55cm / spray paint and enamel on canvas / 2006 — with Juan Carlos Noria.

Distance

The tube stopped
They loaded us unto a bus.
It was a long journey
With no breakfast.

Luggage like a baby carriage
When I lay it to rest, I’ll be carrying baggage.

But I made it:
Got a Heathrow salmon sandwhich
Changed my pounds and euros into Canadian
Hands full, boarded.

I stared out the airplane window
Imagined: boy or girl? On the tarmac.
No doubt, big brown eyes
Thick, chocolate locks – reminds.

But it’s your mother, father, uncle
Sister – brother?
Who wouldn’t know
The secret (mine wouldn’t care less).

And nephews with a cousin
In Canada
They wouldn’t know
How could I do this to them?

These things flew from my head.

If my life was different
If I had been better treated
I could believe a kid with one parent
Might grow up feeling needed.

But I feel deeply
And I would hurt intensely
For every minute the kid
Wanted to know his father deeply.

A mother and a kid
Should not bond on this!
There was no distress.
Only action, swift.

I had 72 hours in which the plan would be most effective.
In 12, I had it sorted; jetlagged, time difference.
Travelled from England to Canada across the Atlantic –
Thinking: can I go the distance?
I did not go the distance…

Yes, I told your friend all this.
I never heard from him or you again.

The tube stopped
They loaded us unto a bus.
It was a long journey
With no breakfast.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

ART: dixon / “Go the Distance” / 21x30cm / spray paint and acrylic on paper / 2010

I Dream Of Reds

I dream you answered the code red
My heart swelled, spirit soared when I saw it:
“I dream of reds” dude with the bald head
I never did forget that.

Didn’t have the balls to ask
You took me to task
I had said I wanted to be a guilty one
Having fun, getting lost.

Your eyes were blank in the flesh
Otherwise I would have beamed my light
And broke your steady glance
Would have grabbed at your hands.

You did not see me for who I am.
But a clue was in exactly how I moved my hands
On your back (I remember that), and on your ass,
I’ve touched no man like that …

But when I had, there’s a man who said
“No woman’s ever touched me this way”
Another said: “No woman’s ever loved me this way”
Another still: “hold me like you hold me that way.”

You did not hear me as I am.
I said you were right 90% of the time
You corrected it to 60, so maybe
You were listening.

I dreamed you answered the code red,
Said: “Yes, I responded directly to your call.”
So I’d know if in the morning
You broke rules that plagued the soul

For a reason,
Not for treason or mistreatment.
It’s sheer faith I go on believing we connected.
That my calmness signaled to you I was in agreement.

I didn’t think I was going to go that night
I felt sorry for you that you knew this
We stayed up too late until the morning light
Despite this accident, no regrets, not unfortunate.

What is, is believing that fate is a mystery,
But all this because I thought your man looked like Ian
Or Danny.
The whole shit was concocted from an inquiry
The whole mystery nothing but – forced meanings.

They say we have the same nose, darkness and intensity.
One said you look exactly like an old boyfriend.

That time I said I felt safe on the sea
That I didn’t always see your ship but knew you’d be
There if I needed and came calling
You’d leave me a sign to let me know you weren’t far away.

I don’t know what to ask for.
Don’t know what I want to see.
Shall I get lost in London in dreams
… so you can come rescue me?

I know it was all make belief
I know you think I’m half crazy
In truth it means absolutely nothing …
And at the same time it was everything to me.

You think you’re powerful because you got off?
In the moment, I nurtured: I touched, I loved.
In that, my darling, you showed what you’re made of.
As did I: and in this game – I won.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Laure: The “True Whore” as Muse

In a letter to him, she speaks of being liberated by his callousness, as if his cruelty has made her stronger:

“I believe in our life together . . . I believe in it the way I believe in everything that brought us together: in the most profound depths of your darkness and of mine. I revealed everything about myself to you. Now that it gives you pleasure to laugh at it, to soil it––this leaves me as far away from anger as it is possible to be. Scatter, spoil, destroy, throw to the dogs all that you want: you will never affect me again. I will never be where you think you find me, where you think you’ve finally caught me in a chokehold that makes you come. . . . As for me I am beyond words, I have seen too much, known too much, experienced too much for appearance to take on form. You can do anything you want, I will not be hurt.” More …

Laure is a French writer named Colette Peignot.

“Cold Discovery” by Smog

And though your teeth have gnashed through death
Still you come to me so gently
And find a soft place on your body
And rub me with it

Of this I won’t soon forget
You’re the one that will remain
You’re the one that will remain

Bust a lock with a rock
Don’t need a key to have me
This was your cold discovery

We needed a fever then we needed a cure
The bait no longer lured
Say goodbye quick as you can
A car waits for me just across the border

Wish me luck
No good luck, no bad luck
Just wish me luck in my cold discovery
That you are gone
My cold discovery
That you’re the one
That will remain

Oh I can hold a woman
Down on a hardwood floor
Oh I can hold a woman
Down on a hardwood floor
And her teeth can gnash right through me
Looking for a soft place
And of this you won’t soon forget
I had no soft place for you to rest

And this was your cold discovery

I can hold a woman
Down on a hardwood floor
I can hold a woman
Down on a hardwood floor

And this was my cold discovery

Few saw it for what it really was