1. |
Thunder East
05:10
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W When our apartment collapsed,
And black mold filled the cracks,
I thought losing our bed was
Worse than our student debt was.
I was afraid we’d grow apart,
You’d see how blind your bet was.
When our home rotted away,
The trees jumped out of place.
I saw their roots and I wondered
When you’d leave and thunder east.
I know you miss your Mom,
I won’t try to be her, but I’ll try to be calm.
We learned we had to get educated,
Enroll, and withdraw some loans,
When I was learning how the world was
Before getting crushed by what it is.
All day, Toronto is growing into glare,
Climbing up toward the cranes in the air.
The city’s building something,
Extending beyond our reach.
I should write my old professors,
Tell them how I spent the year:
Nervous and drunk in equal measure.
Tell them how much passion I forgot here.
I moved back to the city,
And you moved here with me.
I’ll search the bars for understanding,
While you wonder when we’re leaving.
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2. |
Step Twice
03:47
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Weeks tend to wither when you walk.
The wind whipped up, and almost blew me off the Queen viaduct,
While I was reading that overhead ode to the river.
Watch it slither in the bad weather.
I had my headphones over my ears,
Deaf to the deafening traffic.
I slipped on inexplicable ice,
Under sur-zero sky.
How long have I lived here?
That small-town exit seems so long ago.
The lake seems further away.
I felt my hair extend beyond the railing,
My neck offered my head to the highway,
But my hands were steady, ready to grab me,
To stop this city from killing me.
Having saved myself from nothing,
I turned toward the east end, pretending to rush.
In the direction of sewage treatment plants,
Increasing rents, and swarms of new parents,
I skirt the endless boutique stores
To the apartment I can’t afford anymore.
How long have I lived here?
That small-town exit seems so long ago.
There’s a million wallets between the water and me,
Buying rooms in rebuilt factories.
Past the lofts, and up to Dundas,
There’s nothing but bikes in the bar.
The Don’s a lousy excuse for a river,
And wine’s a lousy excuse for a drink.
I’m a lousy excuse for a drinker.
I wish we could admit that we will disappear.
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3. |
Spraying Raid
03:03
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The door screamed as you pushed it,
Tired metal shrieked and stretched.
I heard the thunder as you stormed in,
I was dreaming.
You woke me reaching for your ankles,
Pulling off exhausted pants.
All socked feet and clenched hands,
Spilling groceries and grievances.
Your job sucks, there’s no escaping it.
I feel the same way, and neither of us can quit.
You said you felt like you made a trade.
Living is, like, so expensive,
And good jobs don’t even help us live.
I want to know who finds rich saviours convincing.
Working full-time to feel fulfilled part of the time.
On the bed, I could swear you said:
Let’s never leave this pattern.
I don’t remember my reply.
You took my hand and looked outside.
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4. |
Zaragoza
03:26
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With the confused hopelessness of a housebound dog in a thunderstorm,
I wandered indoors for a while, wondered when you’re coming home.
In the afternoon, I make my way to Bill Hicks Bar again,
Buy another bacon sandwich and consider going vegan.
After eating, my fingers can’t grip anything. I can’t even call you
Without turning your display pic into Jesus outside Zaragoza.
I was thinking about Bill:
He’s either a saint or an asshole, but he’s probably neither.
I think he meant well, but he’s hard to laugh with now.
But he wanted peace, no nukes, and a future with trees.
Then his body betrayed him and he died in his 30s.
So his life is a symbol.
I get home and you’ve beaten me there, having spent the afternoon
At a movie alone. Seeing a sequel you preferred to my company.
We waste our time before bed in a heady tête à tête
On the ethics of Friends and how shitty people were in the 90s.
It’s hard to admit that constant Armageddon is ruining my mood,
To admit that dying with you could be the same as dying alone.
After thinking, my brain can’t grip anything. I can’t even call you
Without turning your frustration into a warrant to let yourself
Stare and doze off.
After thinking, my brain can’t grip anything
Without turning my fear of the end of the world
Into another excuse.
I’ve lost faith in everyone but you.
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5. |
All Will Be Well
07:14
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I read the news today, oh shit,
About the oceans’ rising centigrade,
Ten thousand wartime photographs,
Displays of weaponry shot me awake.
Maybe the sun rose in the West today,
The wrong window trapped the morning rays.
I sat up in a mosquito’s belly,
And watched my arms swim in the swelling room,
Toward my phone to silence the alarm
Ringing across the rafters of my brain.
The night drained away by the dawn,
The edges in my mind shaved my face into a yawn.
I watched the limp beginning of a winter’s day.
It’s hard to picture the spring:
April’s jackets, May’s grasses, June’s weddings.
The way things are going, it could go missing.
I read the news today, oh shit.
All the neighbours know it’s too cold to go outside, the backwards sky looks uninviting as I walk onto the ice. The houses crowding Pape seem like tiny estates for Antoinettish yuppies, eating the entire cake. The street looks abandoned when I turn the dog south toward the glacial slide of a towering lakeside Versailles, walled in on all sides by a slowly gentrifying canyon, with a thousand fucking plaguemasked revelers overlooking the side and deciding where the next up-and-coming neighbourhood will be. But it’s never that interesting. Just developers grabbing cheques where they can, from people grabbing property where they can, with banks handing out poorer people’s money where they can. Turning their mortgages into wounds that never heal, growing redder, with the disappearing hope of leaving in the black. Before the plague doctors come back. I listened to the news when I got back home. I started to feel real horrorshow.
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6. |
Kids of Good (I)
03:12
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I stood below an armrest,
When I heard of Dave’s death.
He was my Dad’s best friend.
I was young, maybe eight or nine,
But you should have seen Dad’s eyes.
When he dropped the phone
It filled the room with a hollow tone.
I never knew who told him,
And I’ll probably never know.
But I revisit that memory
At night when I’m alone.
It gets more and more vague,
With every passing day.
The end’s always the same:
His head was in his hands,
And I can’t even pretend
To offer sympathy.
I ask when he’ll be taking me
To the Blockbuster down the street.
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7. |
Green Zenith (II)
03:51
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Every night for at least a year I dreamed about my grandpa’s heart.
It stopped dead on the highway after years of being stripped for parts.
Some nights I am him driving, and on others I watch the car pull over,
Every time feeling his left arm ache and fall limp on the seat cover.
This morning I don’t remember spilling anything last night.
I was drunk and careless.
To be honest, I don’t remember much.
You didn’t mention it even though you slept beside me.
You held my hands to your face, is this normal already?
I clutch at my own chest, trying to stop it from caving in,
Trying to rest on a breath like I’m saving it.
Maybe my breath is familiar, sour and steady.
Maybe we can’t admit I’m a problem, we’re not ready.
As he pulled over, I wonder who he thought he’d miss,
Who he said goodbye to in his final moments.
Maybe before he had a chance he was in the ambulance
That saved him that time, but later on would kill him.
Every night for at least a year.
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8. |
Backyard Ghosts (III)
04:16
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When I was six, maybe seven,
Our Dad tore down our swingset.
The swings and slide had rusted,
The day before the yard combusted.
Between piles of compost,
Burying backyard ghosts,
I saw the rotten fence shake
And undulate and break.
Beaten by an unknown force
Coming from our neighbours’ porch.
My Dad yelled trying to duck,
“Hey Fred, hey! What the fuck?”
He climbed the ladder on the slide,
Peering to the other side.
That’s memory to me:
A desperate look, incomplete.
A failing climb toward meaning.
I don’t remember what he saw.
Or if it was anything at all.
We never talked about it.
There was no discussion after.
He stepped down, let out some nervous laughter,
And turned back to his chair,
Running both hands through his hair.
I think Fred moved soon after,
A year before he’d retired.
I heard his wife died in her garden,
And he blamed himself for that.
I don’t even know if he was married,
Or anything about the guilt he carried.
I wanted to ask, but never spoke up.
“Hey Fred, hey! What the fuck?”
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9. |
Greenwood Park
02:43
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You said if we moved you’d miss Greenwood Park.
Even the whispering windows on Alton after dark,
Glowing phones calling cops on off-leash dogs
And off-leash teens smoking weed and laughing wrong.
Like shit was waking up and uprooting their trees.
After the dog came along, you finally felt like a family,
The cops and noise complaints let us know where we stood.
Are you watching out for your neighbours when everyone’s a hood?
We had to leave, move closer to the DVP.
In the end, it made little difference to me.
What I really miss about Greenwood Park
Is how it made you hopeful at the start.
On clear days, you could see the lake,
Through all the condos standing in the way.
The truth is, in all those years I remember,
We never felt like we belonged or were members of a community.
We rented space among owners of property.
The streetcars whistled,
You whispered, you felt like a family.
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10. |
Station
03:55
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Heading to the subway,
I felt nervous and distracted,
I talked your ear off as we approached the tracks.
You got on your train before me, headed West.
You boarded pretty quick, to High Park to meet a friend.
Headed home, watching chaotic screens on the platform,
Counting all the eastbound people of St. George
Who had their prayers ignored and hit the singing doors.
I had nothing to be late for, blending in by looking bored.
On the train, I read the ads above my head,
For private schools, high-camp musicals, our daily bread.
I wished you had stayed a few more minutes.
And here I am ruining our date and making you tired,
Just to throw a few straw men on the pyre.
The ones who gave the province to the Fords,
‘cause the centre wouldn’t hold anymore.
At Castle Frank, I thought about a song I don’t like anymore.
It makes me feel like I don’t know what I’m writing for,
Maybe we should fight some more.
When I woke up, I wasn’t alone. I was home.
And you were saying we could change things tomorrow.
We didn’t think we would burn alive in our lifetime.
But the station’s on fire.
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Outer Rooms Ontario
A generally well-appreciated band from Ontario.
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