Sylvie Hill

The Manhandled Muse Who Cocked His Head and Blew

But which man can handle being a Muse?
Is it you, Hiding Hues off a feminine whim
ready to feel somewhat intimidated
or impotent like the female poet suggested
men get when a woman
wants them?

“I go both ways, darling,
best to keep one’s options open”
Was something he said that I once thought
– Dange – er – OUSE! –
That I once thought excluded me from him in any
potential arrangement or
situation.

But which man can handle being a Muse?
It seems the homosexual lad in the dress-up garb
half-naked centurion or dressed in woman’s scarves
can deal with being idolized —
my female gaze upon his manly frame
loving their beauty, giving them praise.

I only really ever see nice pictures of erect cocks in gay porn pictures, you know.
The heterosexual guys, if they are even that, have this look in their eyes, shallow.
Not saying the gay splayed cock-out has more feeling than the straights.
But certainly they seem to take on wild positions more freely than the hets.

So maybe your off-handed remark was just a joke I don’t know.
If it’s true, the real me, it won’t suit but my poet self, enthused!

Otherwise, my “darling” here’s the deal.
You’re a man with a mouth full of attitude
deflecting punches by the multitude
surviving, somehow, in asshole servitude
to sharp British wit and that fucking,
FUCKING South Pacific machoist bent.
You’re a man with a killer look
despite big, big eyes like two licked Lindt chocolates
— the King Kong marble-sized ones, melting, in unison.
Yeh the bloody kind with the chocolate cream inside.
Your tough exterior, but a pudding inside.

Here’s the deal: I remembered how you smoked.
Sucked a drag, inhaled deep, cocked that head up and blew.
You jangled when you danced a bit.
You make expressions with a face like a bitch.
So if you’re manly and know it, I’m turned on by how you show it.
*I* absolutely won’t fucking get it, but the Poet Me requires it.
Because if you don’t keel or feel it all effeminate
when a woman poet fantasizes about your bits
then it’s either that you are REALLY that compatible,
or you don’t give a toss, and think my poems –- shit.

© Sylvie Hill, 2013

Paris via California

I don’t forget you once said ‘yes’
to a train to Paris
for lunch.
I went to San Francisco instead.
Because the bed in the flat wasn’t going to be big enough?
I sure as fuck wasn’t making a choice to ‘be’ with the other one!

I don’t forget that when I got there
I wrote, you said
‘my song is there’
I watched it, recorded it, with a bowl of popcorn
and a Sapporo.

Excited in California.

I don’t forget I wasn’t alone
LC2 in the South Pacific
waiting for a link to
upload.

So I missed the chance in Paris.
Went to Mission District.
And still – wouldn’t you believe it!
We had our ‘visit’.

I don’t forget you wrote
“How random”
when I posted
as if it wasn’t anything special.

But I was the ONLY one who would see your song.
And you KNEW I would not get it wrong.
Next morning you awoke to a piece of me on your screen,
the night before I had your voice in my ears
before my sleep.
on 25th Street, Mission.

Secretly, I like to believe we both had a good laugh
at the intercontinental connection
flawless, glitchless execution
always nailing it with sharp precision
you spell funny but your words mean something
I spell write but I find I loose words’ meaning.

I don’t forget.
How could I!
My heart was pounding, my hands shakey…….
in California, you wouldn’t believe it but I didn’t have to look hard.

“What” found me now, didn’t it?
How can you forget this?

©Sylvie Hill 2013

You Think I Give A Fuck?*

So you had yourself a good cry
Over the fact you thought I lied
About liking you, you had no idea about him
He’s just a figment I couldn’t play if I tried.

So you cut us off for good
Been 8 years now and figured you should
Fuck me off cuz you won’t get fucked
Real mature, real punk rock.

So you forget how you first lied
About having a girlfriend in the back of your ride
“Yeah, but you’re smarter than her” you replied
Telling me softly: “I want to be inside.”

So you fucked it up really good here
Over the fact I forgot you were real
Sorry about that, it’s only email
Don’t act like you loved or feeled.

So now we’ve gone down in a blaze
All our conversations, exchange of brains
Good trick, buddy, to make a girl beg.
You think I give a fuck? You’re lame.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Art: dixon | Juan Carlos Noria (www.juancarlosnoria.com) –
“Blaze” — with Juan Carlos Noria.

APPALLED

I was appalled.
Fine, fair enough even if I was the one that started a conversation about that stuff.
It was my lack of a sex life I was allowed to talk about.
I was the one that started divulging how I was begging for it and gagging for it in a relationship that had gone south.
I was the one saying that after all my supporting him, least the guy could do is put out.
I was the person relaying the curse of the discarded and how easy it is to become adulterers
Because I was she who was talking of a he who didn’t seem to crave it as much.

So what the hell right did you have to ask if I like to come hard?
“Do you like to come hard,” you asked, just laid it on the table like the lighter you used to light our cigarettes.
Like you just flopped it on a base like a flaccid penis on a night stand or table
Probably you make it with lots of girls,
My friend could tell.

“You always go for the underdog,” my mate said, saying I should do better.
“Always the dark horse for you, girl,” he said as his mate got a little closer.
Confused me as I thought about the singer but then the ‘kind guy’ right beside me.
Here’s one good choice for a man who’ll care
And the other who I know could ravage me.
Kind man, beside, seemed to intrude on space, too near she.
Forward man seemed to hover back, at the same time already inside me.

© Sylvie Hill

You are not ruined, you’ve been bruised.
You are not done, you were undone
Drowned without a life preserver
among the ruins and the rocks.
Let me float your boat, my love.
Take you to a higher ground.
You gave it all, and asked for nonesuch payment
but not to be fucked over in deception.
But let the only ruins here be rocks.
Keep moving Melvina, don’t get stuck.
Be my mad Melvina! Not that sad Melvina!
Let me love you like this, make you strong!
For I indeed am ruined, and I rock.
I hide in make-believe somesuch-loves across the pond.
I run from the boys who treat me nice, feeling the pressure’s too much.
I can see the lies in some men’s eyes and still I try to justify
why I want them gone.
I’ve been used and called really bad names.
I’ve chosen unwisely and played stupid games.
But I’m travelling now to London Town.
I’m accepting offers from the ones who are fun.
I disregard and don’t question my intuition on the sketch
I give wisely, avoid the drama, and keep a level head.

You are a ruin that’s been gutted by and upon a Love you called “My Rock.”
The carnage. Tears. Hurt. Pain. And, the blood.
But Fab Melvina, to higher ground!
Be Glad Melvina, to far beyond!
Relics from disasters are preserved as instant treasure.
You, my love, have character and a story, more so now, than ever.
The sailboats at the harbour-front float like suburban boredom.
You, my ship, my Mad Melvina, are an Explorer:
been there, done that, and seen some.
At the end of the day who’d you rather have near?
The deadbeat drifter or the exploring seeker?
Like James Joyce said at the end of “The Dead”
‘better to pass boldly into the other world in the flight of some full passion than to dwindle slowly with age.’

This, my love, is called feeling.
Capsizing like a drunken ship runaground is nothing more than reeling.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Painting: Andreas Franke

Camberwell.

Take me down to Camberwell where once they cured the ill.
By the pond in South London where they took the ones unwell.
Sit beside me in the grass if it be dry or damp by rain.
Hold my hand and promise me a silence and one refrain.

Take me down to Camberwell where once they brought the sick.
To South London all her mad would flock to water in the sticks.
Lay beside me in the shade and look upon the sky.
Nudge my shoulder, laugh at me when I’m overwhelmed & sigh.

Take me down to Camberwell where I know you have your home.
By the village near Herne Hill where you thought I was once in town.

I will be in town.

I write this after a dream of being with a lost friendship in the woods.
I write this after a dream of being bothered by men in New York.

Take me down to Camberwell so I’ll have a place to visit in my mind.
By the place in South London, you know, where lepers went to unwind.
Kick back with me upon the Earth where all the British sick did go.
Just a short shift on my quick trip, to cure me of this —-

© Sylvie Hill 2013

ophelia by Marek Fijalkowski

BABY, CAN YOU PLAY THIS?

Lately, I’ve been waiting a lot
to know if you know how to play this.
If you know that what you’re doing is the best way
to get this.
I point here. Here. And, here.
Lately, I’ve been thinking you know exactly
what you’re doing.
You stay far away from flirting.
You say nothing of my beauty.
I have no idea if you think I’m pretty.
And I love it.
Do you know that?
Are you aware of my duality?
Would you embrace it?
You’ve, to date, enraged it.
I thought you were mad at me for speaking filthy
and wanting it, but reserving it. Did you even understand it?
I ask you to say nothing so that you won’t break the fantasy.
You should SEE the love we make in my head, it’s crazy.
You should HEAR how you make me feel, I’m easy.
I put words in your mouth like “I know you want me”
I put words in your head like “She feels so fabulously filthy!”
I make you feel things like “her suck and tongue is bloody ecstasy”
I make you know things like “she wants a good fingering.”
Lately, I’ve been waiting a lot
to know if you know how to play this.
You nail shit. You always fucking get it.
I told you once how I did this, not to this extent
But how within seconds, it ceased to exist:
— Imagination met with reality at Heathrow, and that was it.
No more lover in my head. No more protection in my bed.
No more friend from London. The end.
Lately, I’ve been waiting a lot
to know if you get this.
People say you’re a dick.
I admire you in my head because you resist.
It means we can persist.
I adore you with my body because you are a figment.
It means I can revel in it.
When they say girls like assholes, I challenge that a bit.
If you are not interested, that’s fine with me, it’s permitted.
You know it only makes you seem smarter,
as if: carrying on with a chick, overseas
especially since you are the rock star!
See?
I flatter, I pet, I pouf and feign.
‘Well played, mate, so you won’t get played,’ they’ll say.
It’s what I do: protect myself in these ways.
And one time a guy I was starting to love got so high he penned:
“I’ve conquered the Hill,” but was quick to amend:
“I don’t mean that to condescend.”
I smirk and smile because
lately, I’ve been waiting a lot
to know if you get this:
You can take me. Berate me. Trash me. Negg me.
Strangely, it’s comforting.
It points to you knowing – exactly –
that what I need is you to not need me,
that shit scares me,
but to appreciate my insanity that keeps us both
very sane in these ways
in balancing my wanting and desire, sustained.
I should think if you if you do ‘get’ this,
It shall be resolved that you know me more intimately
and how I have the propensity to hurt you and heal you simultaneously.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

Art: Juan Carlos Noria | dixon tile for Neurotitan Group Show, Berlin (2010)

Bored, Red

Let not your position be anything but still, on the couch,
eating pistachios.
For me, and you were always doing for me, you were
do not move a fucking muscle.
Don’t write direct.
Just leave signs on the Internet.
– red –
or send nothing but a sharp line
about as stark as your naked cock, erect
penetrating me on some London hotel bed
from behind.

Let me tell you I thought it was like a precipice
– a rock face, on the edge.
Like the rush felt right before jumping off a cliff.
But this is (blue balls-out) helicopter hovering, this –
in FULL control.
In full flight of this some full passion.
And if you contact me,
you’ll fucking wreck it.

Let not your position be anything but still.
You got bored. I saw red.
Need/want you stiff, like a board.
So, in the end, this.

SH 2013

ART: dixon | www.juancarlosnoria.com

HOLD THE FORT

What the hell are you doing here?
I’ve seen your legs on horses.
I know the shape of your calves and most of all
I’ve seen your manly feet in photos
enough to know that’s them there touching me, oh no you don’t!
The hair on your legs and the warmth of your buttock on mine, your strong manly thighs from water polo.

What are you doing here?
I sent you to the sardine-can Jesmond long ago.
You broke the seal when you came in
which explains the little breeze on my skin.
I filled the fridge!
You probably didn’t even notice…

What are you doing here?
I’ve brought my laptop, tea pot and books
and a typewriter to keep writing clever hooks
and lines to fish for a response from you.

Well if you stay, just keep yourself over that way.
You know we always worked well when I fawn —
and you feign total disinterest, making me feel safe.

In my-your fort, holed up in Camberwell.
Up from the pond that heals well.

© Sylvie Hill 2013

In The End, This…

“I don’t tell you about my sexual exploits when I was then, so what makes you think I want to hear about yours?” he shot back, and I raised my brows, turned down the corners of my mouth, grunted and figured — ‘good point’.

But why the fuck should he care? His anger excited me. I hovered like a helicopter, buzzing heated in a strong mix of emotion feeling disciplined by a sharp tongue and moral mind fighting to protect a friendship. To safeguard the integrity of a friendship. Then it tasted as sweet, but sour, complicated by thoughts that maybe this guy liked me? Maybe he didn’t want to hear of other guys fucking me? His force but seeming vulnerability endeared me immensely as I feared another altercation, worrying of my next misstep. His force and his honesty and the delusion it could be some mystery, like he was attracted to me, was savoury. Either way, it confused me because I thought we were platonic and could talk about anything. And this all enticed me to want to love his body clothed and naked and rub it raw and manipulate him into so many positions and yield to his commands all with the expressed purpose of relaying for him in body, sure, of telling him through body, yes, some shit that went down with me on drunken nights between the sheets, and always with the goal of finishing in exhaustion leaving him only enough energy to joke at the end of my trip, “now wasn’t that the best lay of your life,” in an accent I have long forgotten but spoke-imitated on self-loving nights, allowing me to comfort the uncertainty I perceived he waxed in wit and waned with edge by telling him this: “You are the best one yet.”

SH 2013