Sylvie Hill

“Mercy Street” by Peter Gabriel (For anne sexton)

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams all made real

All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody’s head

She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam

Lets take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let’s take the boat out
Wait until darkness comes

Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs
In the cold light of day

There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone

Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your inside out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy(‘s arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
‘swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy’s arms

Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide smooth
Tugging at the darkness, word upon word

Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
To the priest-he’s the doctor
He can handle the shocks

Dreaming of the tenderness-the tremble in the hips
Of kissing Mary’s lips

Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your insides out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy’s arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
‘swear they moved that sign
Looking for mercy
In your daddy’s arms

Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy

Anne, with her father is out in the boat
Riding the water
Riding the waves on the sea

Ann Sexton‘s poem, “45 Mercy Street”

“What Else Is There?”
by ROYKSOPP

It was me on that road
But you couldn’t see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here

It was me on that road
Still you couldn’t see me
And then flashlights and explosions

Roads are getting nearer
We cover distance but not together

I am the storm and I am the wonder
And the flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions

I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

It’s about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for

I’ve got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there

Roads are getting nearer
We cover distance still not together

If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosion

There’s no room where I can go and
You’ve got secrets too

I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

Muhn (c’est ‘meh’ en français)

So it was 13 years since we met
He was ‘touched’
But had no emotion
and went ‘muhn’
I said “wow, 13 years”
and him?
He put on a poppy …

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Oh! Le mec sans yeux …

Photo: Wolf Eyebrows Blog

Oh! Les yeux ‘sociopathe’ (taquine)

Olive Tree (Mystery)

He said “shut up a minute,
You’re always talking”
Funny, I could say the same for him,
But didn’t, laughing.

“Look around,” he said
“At the mouths, hear the accents”
Bob Marley stretched out on the wall
The patrons, guy in Iron Maiden, the bar staff.

“Hear the music, look at the people,
take it all in, you muppet.
You’re in Brick Lane, London, UK”
On the Verge of something …

Across the street through a flat window
Grew a thing, and he said:
“It’s an olive tree” for which
I’ll never know if he was joking.

He said “stop, look around, it’s Covent Garden now
bloody shops,” he complained.
I was excited, thought he was about to
Get me to contemplate stillness again.

When I walked through my door
I had arrived home, alone
And there was no one there to
Shut me up, I was still.

“Look at the sofa, the TV and this scene
nothing’s changed,” I freaked
except for maybe me
and the thing planted inside this body.

On the verge of growing into something …

She said: “Make sure it’s what you want to do
Not what you think you should do.”

I had gone back next day in the day light of Brick Lane
The olive tree was gone from the flat, did I tell you?

Easy come, easy go
Nothing meant a thing
So I did what I should do
And kyboshed the seed.

In the silence and the stillness
I struggled to find it pretty
There is no seed, no tree
No olive branch to extend to him.

“Stop a second,” I said to me
“See your health, hear your energy
18 months, plus 9 gone, you’re free
— of this insanity.”

And with that, I laughed
And did what he had said,
I shut up, I shut him out
I shut off, and looked around …

And as wrong as he was
For a girl like me
He sure got it right
In showing me the sweet poetry …

of life.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Note: As I completed this poem and went to look for the photos of the ‘before’/night and ‘after’/day in Brick Lane, I realized I had the windows mixed up. The day-time vacant window where I had thought the tree was removed, was actually the flat NEXT DOOR. This means that the olive tree in the flat from the night before was, infact, intact, and still there! That’s the Hunky Dory flat because the tree is in the window about that shop. There never had been anything growing next door. This means that whatever grew before, remains Hunky Dory; and in the non-Hunky Dory flat emptiness, there had never been a seed fertilized, blossoming, so no loss really. Yeah, that’s what I’ll say to me. That’s what I’ll have me believe.

Panting Up River, Getting Down With Shitty Creep

I think I let you take me because up until that point, you seemed not taken by me.

So many times I felt guilty for feeling let down in your company.
I distinctly recall stiff hugs, plain-faced Janes by your side.
Except that one that wrapped your arms around her, you seemed to take in stride.

I think I let you take me because up to that point, I was never taken so rough.

I somewhat thought it novelty, but I do know how to make love.
Your heavy, dark, thick, lush and weighty touch and tug
Your quickening breath far above my face, oddly nowhere near enough.

I think I let you take me because up to that point, you seemed not taken by me.

Nor taken by anything, really – lack-lustre, miserable and gloomy –
Darling, like Leonard Cohen, I tried for us in this way to be freed.
But you’re so locked up tight, armor turns inward
Pierces heart, colds and ices your warmth center.

I know I let you take me because up to that point, I was not taken by you.

Fear intrigued, aloof spooked, closed off, un-feeling, brute
And I blamed you for taking, but realized in the making
love, my hands on your back, on your ass did move “true.”

Because remember how I said I couldn’t touch George Clooney guy just for the sake of touching?

That I needed to feel my hands guided by the “who” the man was/is inside, and unless I can do that – no fucking?

I know I let you take me because up to that point, I was still sleeping
I had forgotten you were robotic and how little you thought of me.
So when I lay my thin body next to you, I wasn’t initiating a thing!
She said “you put yourself on a silver platter, you were surely saying something!”

All the times I spent with him, I never said a thing.
He did not listen, so I was resigned to believing his incapacity for hearing.

So what would I be trying to say as I lay down beside him in the morning?
Perhaps just “be” …?
That I know you more than you know me?
That compared to your women, I make love superbly?

In the moment he exploded into making me a mother

Sure, love could be love, more like his sister feels for her brother.
More like an enemy he treated me in his non-negotiated release
In this there is spite, there is being mean and being unseen,
In this there is no meaning, there is no lover, just disease.

No peace, just fighting to feel something for himself with a stranger.
Off Tottenham Court Road, down on Gower, South of Euston, up from the river…

I call you a creep, but some beauty in you I have seen – strains.
Selfishness I can laugh off, but immovable numbness in you – drains.

Panting up river, getting down with a shitty creep
Was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

Getting your dick wet in a stream of unconscious goo —
Tell me now, darling, was it good for you?

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Rupert Martini

Rupert Martini
Shaken, not stirred
Excitement, provocation, feeling the headbuzz
Of a million electrified nights of
Fights
Hurts, between lovers
Kind of shaken, not stirred
More settled after the shake
Like the beer, bourbon, wine or vodka
Placates his
Nerves.

Rupert Martini
Shaken, not stirred
Loses the girl, a thrill for a chase next time
Fueling secrets, private flights
Fancy
Between lovers
He shakes inside her, she does not stir
Flat-rich, sweet like: thick
A mango lassi
Sweet tango lassy, eh,
Last dance, chance: UK.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

THE STORY OF O … my God! (aka The Fuckers Cancelled Motörhead)

Beautiful chest
Nice, perky tits
Great hips
Like your lines.
Great feet
Pretty hands
Terrific ass
Wise eyes
You’re nice.

You feel.
You’re nuts
You’re hot
You’re wild.
Passionate –
Insane –
Demanding –
Daring me to love.
You’re mine.
His list: itemized.

Can I get you anything, you’re sick?
Can I fetch your groceries, give you a lift?
Here’s some lunch, I brought it, I bought it.
I have no empty drawers, but my bookshelf: make-shift.

Got your favourite tea.
Massaged your feet.
Served you ordeuvres.
Bought you a treat.
Made you a CD.
Gave you a gift in between
the six-course sushi
Valentine’s Day surprise.
Got two rings.
(Gave two rings).

Never thought of marrying until the dick.
Hey asshole! You do know I know what love is?

You’d shit on ME for talking like a teen
You said “teenage boy down round at the pub”
Yet at the actual pub all you kept on
Was when was the last time, if at all, I got fucked.

Are you serious, are you for real?
Or that you can’t talk “fucking” on email?
But in person is this like foreplay
Or is this a don’t do what I do, just what I say?
Never got a word in edgewise, anyway.

You got a great ass.
“So do you.”

Why don’t you ask her to marry you then?
“She could ask me, too.”

You really are from a land down under.
Inverting shit: never surrender?

I say this. You say that.
C’est ceci. C’est ça.

It’s on again. It’s off again.
Well, not … with … us, it ain’t.
We were so bloody off,
We got it on.
What the fuck?

You’re annoying.
I would kill you.
(Or have you killed).
You never stop talking.
You look like a witch.
“Yeh ehn ehn ehn”
said the witchy witch witch!
Your hands are fucking icy:
Fuck off, don’t touch me!
Where are your tits?
You’ve got a nice singing voice
for a muppet
Shut up. Shut it.
I’m gonna to come.

Wait!
Violent touch
Expressionless except for when puffing up
Secret whisper
Soundless come
Heavy breath
(Fuckers cancelled Motörhead).
Motionless eyes
Nothing inside
Heavy, dark
Hairy, stark
naked, confident
walkabout in
Slender cock
Race-horse physique
Feet.
Felt something weird
When you didn’t pull out.
Heart.
Throb.
Hands: the kind all girls dream
Of.

Beware: hands to strangle ya!

I say this. You say that.
C’est ceci. C’est ça.

The Story of O … my god!
Fuckers cancelled Motörhead.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Naturally.

How could I ever be cross with you –
you made sure I got home OK
you let me lose control in the end.
Naturally, it was your turn
come: morning.

I demonized you to some mates –
tell yours I was a bad lay
that I was blackout central dangerbay.
Naturally, I love incredibly
came: mourning.

My little death comes from –
not coming, which saved me
levitating, from which I’d have fallen too hard.
Naturally, I had you 36,000 feet in the sky, though
gone: leaving.

What would we ever talk about now –
that you found me annoying
that I found you annoying
that we found we had a pretty good time, considering?
Naturally, it is too intense for me
continue: soaring.

disappearing: sorry.

dickhead: sorting

© Sylvie Hill 2013

dixon / “Beeline” / 100x40cm / spray paint and synthetic enamel on canvas / 2010

Solitary Soul (Little Death pt. 1)

“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of distress,” said Milan Kundera in Unbearable Lightness of Being.

There was chance and fortuity; today two signs: an actor with your shared name
in a program watched to make me laugh, and the word “roma” in a rapsong refrain.

If love fell upon ladies at the train station and in the ocean,
What fell upon me at Russell Square tube Station and South Bank shore of London?

If I met you through a man, who looked like a man, who I left a Good Man for
Does this mean I’ll find my peace in returning to his value, and suddenly be reborn?

Das schwerste Gewicht, yes, I’ve returned to Kundera, the book the Good Man’s dad recommended in ’94.
And I’ve been reading of Tomas, a man like you, so a few chapters in, I’m indebted, of course.

The Good Man’s last name appeared written on two trucks on the tarmac
As I sat in the airplane, with you in my skin, questioning my dumb luck.

Grandma Kazakov had dad at 42; this year I’m 39
If it’s in the genes to bring babies late in the game, perhaps the time was mine?

If in death, a life is saved by immortalizing a love lost, unrequited or not made
Then my preventing the chance for a you + me (it could have happened) should frankly, make my day.

The Good Man’s last name appeared on two trucks on the tarmac
As I sat in the airplane questioning my dumb luck.

Did you know I was to dedicate my first book to the Good Man first?
But your name is there, what does this mean: Are you my eternal return?

If I could have been killed in the rickshaw, and you saved me that night
Is the metaphor here that we keep driving through the city lights?

My mother always dreamed me getting hit by a car, not paying attention
You had told me already to stick on the mains, steer clear of the side street distractions.

But I think you know, as a solitary soul,
it’s so quiet here I forget how to listen.

To never hear your voice again and the way you say “spring chickensss…”
That is my end.

Little death.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Dark Alley Dream Death (Little Death pt. 2)

In Tolstoy, Anna Karenina meets Vronsky at the railway station.
Anna returns to the train station and throws herself under a train.

In Chopin, Madame Pontellier meets Alcée Arobin, he teaches her to swim.
Madame Pontellier returns to Grand Isle ocean and drowns herself.

I am by no means a tragic literary heroine but in reverse of awakened:
in slumber, I had nightmares of getting lost in the streets of London.

You are by all means an unforgettable character who told me of London streets
and rescued me in a wayward rickshaw when the Indian split with me down a dark alley.

You are therefore the answer to my dreams?
Are you not curious if you will appear when I sleep?

Did you scold the man?
Did you call my hand?

Did your heart beat worry a thousand beats deep?

I do not plan to kill myself, but my life feels over and I am lifeless.
You were a map, tour guide, and direction; I’ve since blocked all your addresses.

Little death.

© Sylvie Hill 2013