Less Than One

six string - Benoit

twelve string - Elie

vocals - Nicky (backup vocals Elie)

violin - Sue

music by Elie

lyrics by Dj



Less Than One


& then I was given an ultimatum –
a way to proceed
in a damp shade of green –
challenge put forward – never to be sated –
no matter which way
I was willing to lean –

Pass keys & skeletons – let me enter
the path like winter
for fair-weather friends –
I am what I am – comedy of manners
sugar & salt in
the messages I send -

We-eee
have days when
it really feels like
there’s really no exit –
see-eeee
us change when
two feels – two feels
two feels
less than one…

& then I was talking to anyone who’d listen –
some of them sporting
my heart on their sleeve –
attempts at honesty – gimme god gestures –
breaking voices &
wobbly knees –

One foot
two foot
three foot forward –
ice on a puddle
smashed without regret –
sideways
sinways
sorrowful
chewing –
could get much worse -
could get much better yet

(Chorus)


All suspended in
reasonable doubt –
I think we’re someplace –
you’re just crying to get out (crying)
cryin to get out (crying)
(crying)
(crying)
(crying…)

It was almost a religious impulse

It was almost a religious impulse

early this morning

in the long lineage
of nothing coming true

a gap

the world with due
north-east-west-south
messed-up erotic
palpable

in the long walking
over the bridge
to over the bridge

& the singing bird generic
& the sky with singular, blurred clouds
& the comma in the sentence in the notebook

in the strange weather
coping as it will

heartbeat
a make-work project
of devil & angel
making alike

Morning Journals

Morning Journals

#1 Strand

I find I carry back
the slowness you leave behind
wishing to tarry
with a loose grip

you think I waver
for the sake of everything
finally turning out,
turning round

I am not that clever,
the kind talking shows off
my hands still full
of when we came apart

I can't tell you
where you've been
not saying a thing to me
I can lose or give over

#2 Angle

an open window behind the stars,
the way it can fill
the dark sky
with a hole in it

I look and ask if I see
the net of light spreads
the whole story
of tin men squeaking

string of beads
I can see where you could be
pulling the plan apart
so I learn

this is another night
cold with the plain dread
heat can't touch
love loans, fathoms

#3 Autumn

I stand planted in the wave
of your face saying goodbye.
Tomorrow you can remember me
half a step inside.

Love the woe because you're not stingy.
You can say that to me
pulling one step out of the other.

Chamomile sky like green turning blue.
You would think we were lovers
if not something better.

Before you leave I should tell you
what makes the trees bend windless,
the flowers hold on to single petals,
light spill summersault.

Stretch Mark Elegy for S

Stretch Mark Elegy for S

It was a small thing to say
that felt big

& anything that could have

mattered was there
our love in the dust

like shuffling shoes

In the inscrutable corners
refuse built up

not to dump, not to evade

You said it was just
the future coming true
day before they found you there
alone

blood on your shirt

I hadn't known what
to do with the hurt
I was feeling as if for myself

You might have said
I hadn't got to feeling it yet

I delivered the news
talking on tiptoes

Yes nearly all of them
cried, crying

as we do when someone
looking off in the distance
finally goes away

leaving some torn
singing behind

After Chucking the Flat Map (poem for Matt)

After Chucking The Flat Map

Traveling back
you have to come to a wood.
Should you miss it, miss noting
how the gnarled is more than merely
an expletive of old knuckles wearing thin –
if you miss the green/grey raveling inward, the cool
slake of a tan creek, miss the hybrid
of fern & moss & bark & dead
& alive, alive – miss this
& you'll never get even part way back.
The turn in the path that is
not song but stone, the weight of stone:
this is what has slowly happened to the door
you were so sure you left ajar, ever ready to let
what can't stay out, back in again – this is what
comes of trying to get back home again
if you miss the smoldering wood,
tinder for a wise A minor.

Once you get there?
Refrain from eating the strange fruit;
listen to the wind when it blows;
wash, open-eyed, in the complicated
musical rain.

I have no twin

I have no twin

the outer comes in
tin soldier bulimic
before you get there
is it already there

the outer out there
who knows why it's out there
in here the in here
open, upended

I had a story
they said it was wrong
wrong is a word
they seem to like

I had a headache
couldn't look in a mirror
they didn't care
I could hear them so clearly

you who've been there
which way was strong no way
you who observe
is it what being why

I had a moment
the turning was everything
hand on my shoulder
no way to assist him

you who say no
is there god knowing after
you queuing up
rag doll aggressive

the outer is bored
with the inner rehearsing
the tablets of Moses
the dire poem

you who've been there
loud, you're so loud
no one can hear you
aint that a bitch...

On a day a poem couldn't right itself

On a day a poem couldn't right itself

I can feel the poems
& today they don't wish to be a story
confessing fractured plots.

It's what they are, though,
starting with the cracks
that blind/bind thought.

I can sense the poems
placing long stemmed roses in gun barrels
right up until they shoot.

I can feel the poems
that used to be love poems.
They all end in questioning ellipses.

Lemonade traded for beer in the grocery store.
I can feel the poems unable to get drunk
waiting for time to add up to something marvelous.

Love's the only engine of survival.
I take this last with a grain of stinging salt,
feeling ungenerous as I do so because

yes – I am one of those who,
fool heartedly, believe
whether or not, hands in the earth,

I can manage to sow
the requisite,
peppery seeds.

(Nadia's) Picture

(Nadia's) Picture

I draw myself in one man.
The picture I make is unlovely to me

until there is him for a frame.
You call this wrong for some reason

you know but can’t defend. I, on the other hand,
looking both ways at once as I cross

this severe street of yours, taking in
the strong light, the heavy flora filled out

beyond shallow decorum – I look & don't see
me here, woman of small ferns, spindly overgrowth,

a bent stalk thriving in shade. You love too much you say
in a way I won't deny grounds itself in the safety

of tried & tested golden rules, firm hands bent
on pushing back the cold, knees that hardly ever

buckle under pressure. But I have my reasons too –
the way, where I stay, feels inviting if a touch off kilter;

asks more than I can give but with understanding;
is not afraid of slight gashes in the surfaces, the dark blood's way

of letting you know it's always there
& needy – that to be needy is an acceptable way

of witnessing, no less honest than any other. Yes –
I draw myself in one man. It's the frame I won't disown

just because I get unhappy – a life,
accustomed life, hanging, all eyes, in the balance.

Challenge

Challenge

The wrong place to be happy
can be the right place to realize you're sad
if the day allows it, mattering to itself the way
melancholy can, slightly shy.

10 colours left over to map out
a bosom-holler scream
calling from the wild down under
of not knowing what you'll do
if you manage to complete it.

Bring it to me, Love,
replete with mistakes I won't try to uncover
hanging the succulent, psyche portrait
over a window that never before
let the stars in…

On hearing a particularly flawed yet welcoming song

On hearing a particularly flawed yet welcoming song

The scaffolding, what you don't see
but sense, a dexterity of language at issue –
leafy lines & leafing words with invisible sturdy veins
finally responsible for the form incarnate – song
like silk flowers holding up
a bouquet of suggestion,
an idea of scented blooming,
smallish cartoon patterning
of bouncy colour –

would-be love song with fabling twists,
almost no hint of falseness –
& yet, & yet, that trace of the flagrant artificial
turning away thoughts
of passion truly embodied.

Affecting song,
set-list-centerpiece-to-be
at an outdoor, late August all ages show,
the season vying for attention while
the musicians tune up.

Halfway through this show,
the flawed song makes it's appearance.

A woman in the listening crowd,
silk rose in her dark hair,
with full heart reaches out
to pluck a few compelling bars,
hoping against hope
for some lasting prickle
of knowing thorn.

Aspirations

Aspirations

But the gods who are defeated, think that defeat no
refutation. (W.P. Ker, The Dark Ages)

If I had 3 songs, or 4
that I could sing
inside & after falling broken out of the sky
like a kite cut loose
over a park's mowed grass –

had I eyes in my head
not reddening but truly green
watching the late show all alone, say,
when Yves is at work,
the movie stars over-inventing each other –

if it only took a moment
to get over bad blood –
that crucible of spontaneous calculation
trying to hit where it hurts while
Hurting, against its will, dreams of revenge –

no – something soothing
as believing in a long, serene life
that doesn't leave out excitement,
bio-degradable histrionics
leaving room for settled ohms –

if I could take myself out of myself
& if everyone else, at just the right moment, could do so too,
then maybe having aspirations could be a simple affair.
As things stand, what seems most certain
is that Hope must needs depend
on cavernous Trust, no matter, no matter

& the unremitting godly
will have its ways with me…

"Time Heals All" - Garage Sounds Cont. - Dj's living room - winter 2001

Vox - Elisa
6 string, backup vocals, music - Eli
Lyrics - Dj



Time Heals All

The songs are beginning to talk to themselves
Johnny wants to know could we play something else
Making a mess out of every little thing
Cassandra out back just hollering –
If I stay out here I'll need your face
Challenge the heart with a little live grace
You know that the hurt never quite went away –
Time heals all, but not quite like they say

The lovers are planning a mutiny
What once made them hurt has got off scot free
Pirate needs kissin – heart needs a home
But Tom seems bent on sailing alone –
Stranded in movieland watching him pass
I'd like to get close but he says "don't ask"
Patch for an eye some lie cut away –
Time heals all, but not quite like they say

The dreamers are trying to move through walls
Live hands clapping in a rock'n'roll bar
Joey there blinking through someone named Jane
Sarah in sync with her shadows again –
Love song magic – hope's the big deal
Then beat takes over till you are what you feel
Spirit revival – go on – slip away –
Time heals all, but not quite like they say

The prophets are waving their little white flags
Vision hangs on but compulsion sags
The news is too bloody – they'd like to break free
Get back to harmless wandering –
Throw in their lot with poets & dreamers
Make love to the lonely – those fantasy weavers
Live in some moment till there's more to relay
Than time heals all, but not quite like they say

Garage Sounds Cont. - damn - the very end got cut off this one

vox - Elisa
6 string - Eli
12 string - Ben
music - Ben
lyrics - Dj

*** Heaven…


Alias Anna shakin her head
Not quite sure just what’s gettin said
Watchin a movie – 1932
The stars usin others then gettin used

Clamorous portraits sassy as lies
Now Neat Pete’s got a hand on her thigh
Popcorn joker – wired 97
Fleein Hell then stripsearchin Heaven

Heaven
That dream so sublime
Where doin what you want is all there is to doin time –
Maybe up there
Even bounced checks are fine –
Even mad lovers act kind…

Alias Anna clutchin her purse
Got a run in her stockings but she won’t curse
Clickin down mainstreet a little past one
Thinkin life’s funnier than it is fun

Heaven
Where no one is slime
Where being who you are is all there is to feelin fine –
Maybe up there
You can’t fuckup for tryin –
Maybe you’re allowed a few crimes…

Well here is a memory – here is a plan
There goes your last truly spiritual man –
Love like a soundbite – film in the can –
Subtitles goofin on Never Never Land –
Yeah here is an angel – see how she stands
Beating wings scattering feathers – quicksand –
Loves you got tired of – men you outran –
Loves you got tired of – men you outran…

Alias Anna – real name Star
Crusin in some guy’s fire red car
Listenin to music – earbending raves
Really not sure just how to behave

Heaven
Like a lovesick rhyme
Where given kisses for free could buy you real sweet times
Maybe up there
there's nothin crass between the lines
Maybe the gods let you shine -
Maybe the gods let you - let you shine
(shine...)

Suffering on Tuesday

Suffering on Tuesday

no I don't think it's my fault
I think it's "no one's" fault

a close acquaintance –
dare I say good friend?

more useful than that plug word love,
less honest than that stinger hate –

god-y-ness about him/her,
a plain plague with confusing lineage

stumble in the dark, grimace in the light –
all the reasons I have for dis-

connecting

Monday through Sunday,
yesterday through tomorrow…

"a widening circle of empathy"

"a widening circle of empathy"

in all the places
of all the worlds
spent song & sweat

away from the edge
because there is edge
sign language of the healing

slight shifts, worry beads
camera fomenting
strong stiff fret

of lovers, haters
bantering blather
true in its motley heart

in all the places
of memory refracting
the song, the singe, the forgiving

*

there are others who would put it thusly:

I climbed to the top of the hill
& what there was to see
was me no longer
climbing to the top of the hill? –

a pox on us then,
for climbing to the top of the hill…

*
but me –
I want to curve my time
inside your confident smile
like someone belonging,
not merely tacked on

*

minor key chorus
words like windows
harrowing lifts, descents:

yes you know which way
like a cat using whiskers
to test for inevitable storms
lazily on an earned
full stomach –

blessing be then…

Garage Sounds (muted) continued - Elisa doing "Living By Fiction"

vox - Elisa
6 string - Eli
12 string - Ben
music - Eli
lyrics - Dj

*** Living By Fiction


The storyteller – she’s loose in the attic –
Diggin through boxes – tryin to get at it
Scratchin for faces, places, names
Torn maps, photographs, passions that maim –
The storyteller – she got facts on the brain
& everyone knows that those facts need a frame –
So it doesn’t add up? – she starts again
With ticket stubs, dead love, an old keychain –
Makin everything fit – she don’t care when

It’s living by fiction – or should we say friction
Cause one against one against one could leave none
Or three in the morning could come without warning &
Find you still up re-inventin everyone –
It’s funny, it’s tragic – the past made elastic –
It’s searching ever after I Love You’s gone dumb –
Yeah the man in the moon may still ambush your room but
You might not understand if the sequel’s begun –
Living by fiction – a diehard addiction
& stories’ll get to everyone –
Cause stories touch everyone –
Stories are everyone…

Once upon a time – well your face keeps changing
Like long lost friends that the year’s rearranging –
Ben with his bruised eyes gone to the coast –
Wasn’t he the one you counted on most –
Once upon a time – let it start let it end
The accidents studied – the heart on the mend but
Then again maybe not – better go marry Joe –
Throw a wrench in a plot twisting out of control
Make a quilt of your heart – a sigh of your soul –

It’s living by fiction – or should we say friction
Cause one against one against one could leave none
Or three in the morning could come without warning &
Find you still up re-inventin everyone –
It’s funny, it’s tragic – the past made elastic –
It’s searching ever after I Love You’s gone dumb –
Yeah the man in the moon may still ambush your room but
You might not understand if the sequel’s begun –
Living by fiction – a diehard addiction
& stories’ll get to everyone –
Cause stories touch everyone –
Stories are everyone…


(That place by the sea where she slid off your knee –
That look in his eye when you couldn’t say goodbye…)

Living by fiction – a diehard addiction
& stories’ll get to everyone –
Cause stories touch everyone –
Stories are everyone…

Garage Sounds - Elisa singing/talking a bizarre version of "One Ear"

vox - Elisa
6 string - Eli
12 string - Ben
Music (!!) - Eli
Lyrics (!!!) - Dj

Wicken

Wicken

Selah whose wide bottom dwindles the chair
her long skirt a hideout for naughty children

dinner at the picnic balanced on a strong knee
she drinks large gulps of beer never burping

friends say she has a line on courtesy
backgrounds summer-greedy jump out at her

Selah who whittles her smile to suit occasions
children tiptoeing nearer, nearer

musicians playing reels burn to catch her eye
Molly's two cats hiss shy kids out of hiding

time for bed says the mother who knows no better
Selah reaching out to stop the exodus

a dollar to play a video game she says to the tallest
but only if you promise to take me one day

Selah, uncle's half-sister 15 years his senior
with shoes removed she keeps the beat

you tired Selah? she winks for answer
black magic is white magic poorly treated

game of cards Selah? the jokers blithely hatted
a shell game going on under willow by the river

white magic poorly treated salves heartache half-heartedly
Selah knows better than to try to guess why

more beer Selah? she prefers to dance
passion blank magic for shunning the dead

Magazine

Magazine

Ben, back from Cape Breton, un-holsters
his stories, shooting from the hip

the tarry road, the slender girl from Pennsylvania
one night in her pup tent up close to his dome

& all he could think was how staying inside
he was missing getting next to her.

Not as important, he relates, as the missed opportunity
to share more than the single dinner they shared

pages from a fashion magazine burning in the campfire,
roasted corn & local beer beneath stars not bent out of shape,

wet matches miraculously sparking, hanging
fire in the green green season

sloughing off the tension that is all-by-yourself.
"You come to see me in New York sometime" she said

backing out of the duvet zone
of 3 dimensional camaraderie.

"You can count on it" he responded,
he thinks before she was too far gone to hear

In the Midst of Another Crisis, Another Walk

In the Midst of Another Crisis, Another Walk

For the nth time
squalor with purpose
contaminates a measly given –

away, away from
abundance back-ordered
by those who know how
to get on with it.

In transit the holy ghostly song
of the bereft tunefully inventive
across the city, the margins, the tapestry universe,
mopping up endings with crass finesse.

Ladies of my life, men of my living –
my baffled self among them –
we dip into dailyness in staccato sync
with the mopping up, the surprised tallying,
the tease of lungs after gills.

For the nth time
starving children,
the insatiable floods,
conscripted men turning
the crowd, motley, into
it's broken-down self.

I, unmade found made,
walk for pleasure, even knowing
how the way in remains
an incorrigible burden
for anyone thinking
with the whole, teetering
poignancy of themselves…

Post Post

Post Post

Like most confused humans,
I have more memory than
is good for communication.

Messages I'd like to send
can happen before I know
which words to use,
what would be appropriate
given the intended recipients.

Wanting to say everything at once
is what I've discovered
like acid in the mix.

Wanting to quit saying,
an affliction I understand but don't share,
yields a similar outcome –

silence where the telling should be alive,
a roomful of objects missing their
all important shadows,
subjects lost to the reliable order
of palpable, helpful naming…

Survival of the Possible

Survival of the Possible

My way of understanding
clean colours in dirty oil;
in the back of yesterday's rainbow
the sun that doesn't care;
residential sections of my city
no one near joy should be forced
or able to live in –

my un/endorsed understanding
a cat's cradle of endings to figure out
once stammering the little wisdom we own
I'm left bereft, in overly-complicated
touch with the habit of being my various selves
in recurrent 24/7:

hallowed be thy names, children,
stuck to so many names
inter-dispersed through swallowing dictionaries
like so many drifting role calls –

manna, twister, tower, willow –
hallowed be dwelling among names
in all the bent openness
of battered naming…

"It" has something to say

"It" has something to say

Some calling, alive in its re-visioning, host to subjects, visuals, soundscapes, muttering. Calling as in/ vocation, as in a tug of towards, with laden back thrown via muscular flexing into adoptable relief. The walker, the walking in the mind around the walking-in-the-mind – all the smallness magnified, contextualized – sharp(end)ing perceptions like loss-wounds bleeding through their dressings. Some calling of urgent foreignness dart-quick to let know let know, to point out flaws conditioned by generous grace – some raw-as-wonder calling, the utopic "expecting"

again, in adjectival claws the birth pulled freeing –
in a sum of letting out, the story cut loose(ly)
beholden to some calling, some recto verso calling
minding the store house, mining the in sync
in(credit)ability, words like lip lover loser
pop(you)elation turning over
indelible correspondence
like some calling, some
rash in/vocation
says-it-says-me-says-she…

Quest(I)on-ing...

Quest(I)on-ing…

Whenever an element of story was about to take shape, she would momentarily let it be and, if it transformed into a subject, she would then make note not of the subject, but of how the form had transformed.

Nicole Brossard, She Would Be The First Sentence of My Next Novel, 1998.



The subject – vacuity filled full, glass half empty downed with vigour, mystery of what comes next already an opening into what's unknown, a burp, a swipe, gentle, across the damp mouth – the subject needs its say, even as the words that prompt/pronounce it need theirs. The subject has a lot to do with why the words are there in the first, second, third place, creating subjects of their own along with baroque, renaissance, uncovering, un-easing-ness. The subject is the letter home alive amongst the word's adventures…

In Search of Identifiable Difference

In Search of Identifiable Difference

i

There is a way to make of anything, deeply considered, a tidy bow;
of the same thing, moving in on it, frayed string the way
a frown or a cry or a choking laugh can ravel out re-configured,
the same thing different through a slight slant of perspective,
the difference the call of the same thing differently recognized
as indubitably the same.

Channeling the same thing as what you have now, but just missed –
you can't think everything simultaneously –
sucking in the breath dutifully, keeping the wending missed in mind
as the same thing blurs, stretches, fades –
channeling & calling, responding to a call
for the same thing to be not the same but
different, retainable, better –
all your eggs no longer in one basket,
all your hopes rubbing differentiated shoulders –
this is what comes of mastering differences – recognizing them –
among same things.

ii

Hearing a song in a minor key when
you've only ever known it played in a major key;
a beach ball at dusk, metamorphosed brightly at dawn;
risen brown hairs on a blond arm where
mostly they present flat, invisible;
acutely rotund beefsteak tomatoes
heatedly liquefied;
the word taste
tacking on tested –

the sameness, but then addiction to differences-to-be-noted,
incomparable differences tied to the burning stake
of singularity – witch-hunt of revisiting
the mangy diction of a shaggy dog story –
out of that one, backing out armed with same things masquerading
hilarity – I am you, as you are me, as I am…

Most important difference? Or so some have argued?

Under the surface, always under the surfacing &
yes – not telling…

Well the sound sucks - Rip Van Winkle

guitars - eli & benoit
vocals - eli
music - eli
lyrics - dj

_____________________________________________________________________________________

*** Rip Van Winkle


They pull me from my dream
like a fish upon a hook –
I tell them what I’ve seen but
I can’t tell where to look

The streets appear quite changed –
I walk them in a cloud
remembering their names –
I’ve got to live here now

The cars go by so fast –
where’s everybody going?
but no-one lets me ask –
my terror must be showing

Rip Van Winkle on a crowded avenue –
Look me in the eye until you’ve looked me through & through
I didn’t plan to sleep, I just sat down to rest
now everything’s confusing though I try to do my best
everything’s confusing though I try to do my best…

My bed was high & green –
just a hill among hills
yeah I’d give anything
to be resting there still

But everyone must wake –
Is that the living truth?
how my poor head aches –
there’s a pebble in my boot

I turn another corner –
their faces look so weird –
surely they’ll remember
]the boy behind the beard –

Rip Van Winkle on a crowded avenue –
look me in the eye until you’ve looked me through & through
I didn’t plan to sleep, I just sat down to rest
now everything’s confusing though I try to do my best
everything’s confusing though I try to do my best…

The house I used to live in –
they’ve really got their nerve
just a hole in the ground now
around which taxis swerve.

So take me to the opera
or take me into your heart
I’ve lost all the ground rules but
I’m set to play a part

(Chorus)


Tell them what I’ve seen
(can’t tell where to look…)
Well I tell them what I’ve seen
(can’t tell where to look –
can’t tell where to look…)

Audioblogger is Working Again - yay

translation/transmutation

You see it keeps stepping on itself,
the before here, recessed beyond & under
a doubling of itself complicated
by another sensibility telling the wily thing
far more dramatically, elongated-fitfully, filled full.

A thought comes, but where it emerges
the vessel receiving it, the hollowing landscape of a book's page,
rests dissatisfied among pale intimations of itself,
the body & the text & the biting trampling
a triplicate confusion, disappointment.

If further communication wasn't important,
the present understanding, full of black holes, contortions,
might do the trick of acceptable arrival,
even if not where you were thinking to get
in the first place. But there it is – another & another &
another after that, equally stuck on similitude, the crack
that breaks the mother's back to be described just so.

To say it this way is not to really say it, though much closer
than not saying it at all. To say it that way is to preserve
the tenderness, forfeit the anxiety – needle in a pincushion
preciously placed upon a mother lode alter
k-shun…

Why not let the 'in' out? Why not out the 'in'? Because this amounts
to not taking care intelligently – because the 'in' needs the out to
remain 'out', in order to communicate anything more than
permanent loss – because outing the 'in' is naively bad
survival politics.

I could love a leaf: plug confession plunked down among so many
leaping statements making do with leaps. Trying to get to the 'other side'
merely to get to the 'other side' seems, from this vantage point, a cheapening
proposition. Leap it is then…