1. |
St John the Baptist
04:52
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On a long weekend, trapped in summer skin, you stood on the pier and watched that storm come in over Lake Huron. A baptismal font big enough to take away all that you are and all that you’ve done. You stare at clouds that block the sun; your eyes feel the phantom tears well up. You peel off your clothes that stick with sweat, challenge repose: the inertia that you chose. You inherited sin with that frame you’re in. Your muscles move you toward their own consequences. Caught up thinking of what’s been so burdensome: your need to shit, your need to sleep, and your need to cum, they’re making demands terrestrial that tie your hands, forever clasped to make amends. You put all the blame on that body that bears your name, and when the rain hits your pale form dives into the lake. You can just be brave, and if you can’t, just fake, ‘cause it’s all the same. They made the sign of the cross over you and told you about god and the things he wants: boys made with hearts of oak and stalwart earthbound goals; can you still be good if your body’s filled with holes? Be resolute: they’ll make you float.
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2. |
Owen McCourt
02:08
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You know the winter remade you in its image. The road is broken from ice and it grew up just where you did. So why think you can beat it, kid? In your crease, invincible, like you won’t get hit. Then you start to spin. You thought of the team picture after the tri-county win: a hero there to claim your prize (goalie pose, front and centre in the Exeter Times), you knew you’d get forgotten if you stood behind. Teammates are banging sticks hoping that you’ll rise; they know you won’t go down without a fight, but can’t think of a better way to die than on the ice.
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3. |
Monkeypaw
02:38
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If there’s one thing we learned from our parents, it’s how to use old promises like weapons. Forgot to notice how bodies fall into patterns, how we just reflex our ways through each other’s hard lessons. That’s how you ended up lying down on my bed smelling like winter, our lives in intermission. I know you can’t forgive; I just give in. I can’t find the strength not to make my body bend. You just keep on saying those words and shaking your head when I ask if you’re sure. I play the punk: ‘if you’re not now, you never were’. I see our past like so much scorched earth.
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4. |
Leslie Bush
03:42
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She listens to the sound and admits she’s never said that word out loud. She thinks she’s closer to the end than to the start, so why start now? He sees his mother off, sits down, and asks around for pot. It’ll be alright if neither can remember who each other are. She purses her lips; I watch her reminisce. He tries to laugh, but there’s a secret past where he watched them both get weaker, memory slips and heart attacks. She asks if something’s wrong (she read the liner notes from that one song). Maybe there was a guy when she was young. I try to reconcile two kids with a place with a picnic bench inside and the image of the parents they’ve been for my whole life. And while no one knows me better, somehow they seem like a couple shadows always out of reach. How am I supposed to make them survive in me?
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5. |
Corriveau
02:45
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There was a nickname that you shared, but now I guess that it’s yours, watching your old man’s bones get carried outta St Paul’s doors. Reconvene at the arena where he taught you to skate; we stood awkwardly, uncertain if we could be afraid. Knowing the situation needed your most serious face, arms folded over a weakling chest, thinking on nature and grace. You’re slipping in and out of adult pose, trying to earn that broken body like your father’s. To exalt and to mourn our one-day-twisted frames even as the kids we were kept slipping away. But looking down at the ice we all refused to cry. A pain we chose to hide. It seemed important at the time but I swear it goes away when we die: angry and alone and dignified.
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6. |
Jubilee
01:27
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Did you imagine it that things were continuous? And if your cells died, whose are those sins? She says ‘you’ll lose your mind; leave your heart and soul behind. They won’t get old with time. Let them go.’
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7. |
Itchicoo
02:30
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On the edge of town there’s an old trail, through Martin Street School grounds out by the CN Rail. It’s where my brother hung out, but I couldn’t get up my nerve to meet older boys stinging themselves with nettle, looking tough in oversized shirts. They looked primed to hurt, their bikes like boats on unforgiving shoals, bodies dashing upon the dirt. And I guess I heard all about the train tracks, and how Ryan saw some kid sitting on them cross-legged waiting for that train: and when I picture it, he’s calm and serene, and it falls silent. Or maybe Ry finds it in himself to yell. And kids would say he was never quite the same after that – even though he denied it when I finally got up my courage to ask. It kinda made sense, like he just got cut down in his prime, with all that potential but he just turned out beautiful and wild.
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8. |
Gethsemane
02:27
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If they ask about me, tell them about Roger Street. The parts only we could see. How the places we live look so small when you pass by on feet; seems like they couldn’t contain the size of lives that we lead. When you add it all up, it’s just separate rooms where we’d sleep, concrete slabs that we used for back steps, six-foot weeds grown from butts of cigarettes, kisses in the garden where neighbourhood cats would sleep, stones’ throws away from agony, the cemetery where you and he would meet seen through windows where I wrote our names in steam. Gethsemane.
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9. |
Mount Hope
02:39
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Things would happen in that graveyard we’d keep between ourselves, teenagers whispering on the church steps, and statues of saints lit in silhouette. Things like eyes on the gentle slopes of her geography, the rise and fall of sovereignties, advances and retreats. Imagined tyrannies of promises that I never kept; the triumph of the profane. Sacrilege while I’m fucking a Catholic. Denying needs for anything, the quiet ways we learn to self-police, cabals of impulse put to cruelty. When they dig us up I swear we’ll smell sweet. Incorruptible.
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10. |
Alexandria
02:27
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Were you keeping track of the times I changed? I was coming home with a new face every day. There was a smile I saved for you, but I lost it. I couldn’t show someone now if I wanted. It’s just an image, it’s all in your head, and if you forget, it’s gone. You’ve been thinking about “When I Go Deaf”; what’s gonna be the sound in your head? I’ve been wondering if you’ll still have my old voice left in there with all the others that you’ve met, echoing like our empty apartment. It’s a whisper when you let your guard down or it’s lilting like when I think out loud. It’s trembling when you pick up the line, or I’m screaming when I’m so fucking mad I go blind and I meant every word I said at the time.
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11. |
St Michael the Archangel
02:07
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If you can just be brave then mighty forces come to your aid. If you can be bold you might get saved. If we can just be our bodies, live as vessels of defeat, wash up on shores like broken teens. Hammer crosses into sand, hold candles in our hands and forget the things we said about god’s plans. Forget the weight of geography. Forget the face you always see when you drive home. Wipe them from your memory. Erase the maps written on your bones, the family names that try to call you home. Deny the shape of the province where you’re from. Ontario’s dead kids were all suicide risks just for being born in a place like this.
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Beat Noir Kitchener, Ontario
Milton/Kitchener punk, 2009-2016. Thanks for everything.
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