Nick Gibson for SPRING OFFENSIVE
There were moments.
I was slipping in and out of moments.
I was hazed by the stacks of lights that swung above me
and my eyes were forced to re-align themselves.
The air was worn out, ragged, heavy air,
it was the kind of air you found on planes;
Re-cycled and reverberating through your lungs,
the capillaries in my chest stretching in an attempt to push it round my body.
There was white noise coming from straight a head
but eventually I managed to focus and begin to read the autocue.
The message was simple.
The message was translated through years of abuse,
it was sudden and pertinent and we were all ready for it.
It was a sweeping kill that tripped us all,
an audience now standing on point, looking from one to another in the hope of gaining some clarity.
As far as we can make out the message transcribed at approximately 10:37 am on Saturday morning, February 2nd was this:
ìBabe if you leave me Iíll die, Iím just seeking your affectionî.
I laughed like a mutt around the bins,
I couldnít stop myself.
He was beaten and torn and his teeth were falling through his gums,
his shit breath touched everything that moved
and his family were blaring insults at him down the wire.
This was a time for coping strategies and kind words,
for a community to resist the isolation of one,
his legs and arms should have been bound as we stroked his hair,
and told him he was among friends and future lovers,
the studio door should have been shut,
well-wishers and people from the past welcomed in for this sit down ceremony.
The presenter just blinked it away,
his landscape now re-written,
left to haul itself over the embankments and iron bridges
that stood as marking points for us all.
He couldnít indicate what had gone wrong or at what point it had all descended,
he could vibrate and whimper, slowly pulling out bits of hair and copper,
he could pace with vigour and balance but could not see his destination,
this was no idle circus show,
not a rotten birth canal that he could damn up with bile,
it was a eulogy, tailing out and slowly seeping into the ether.
It was a series of events cobbled together to form moments in our lives.
I sit there sweating, why isnít anyone talking?
Theyíre going to lock the doors and seal the windows,
Theyíre trying to stop the light alarms that are ringing through all our ears,
Fifteen minutes ago we were heavy set and fat,
We idled minutes away, back-dropt by a class war hot on our tails.
The lines were defined and we made an agreement;
We would watch on and coo and kaa while you and your ex wife got dragged through the mire.
You, you loosened, your tie and you began the onslaught,
Accusations were thrown, the past dredged up and slung.
You sat there, on a pedestal whispering cadences and time signatures into their ears,
Directing play and waving oncoming traffic into each other.
This babyís got legs.
I had come in through the out door and was quickly hushed and shuttled into my seat,
Sit there and be dutiful, beat your wife when we tell you,
Cough up a lung and admit to what youíve done,
spit it out,
But I couldnít.
All I could do was think about slipping away un-noticed and climbing up on that ledge and getting all umbilical with histrionics.
Maybe my toes would graze the concrete as they swung on point,
Iíd wish one of my friends were in the audience that day,
they could have taken me home and put me to bed for another night,
But now Iím lying here, vertical against the wall with the blood rushing slowly to my feet.
I canít talk; my mouth is full of resin and my teeth brittle in my cheeks,
Iím clasping onto my chair but thereís a hailstorm outside so I canít concentrate,
Did he just mention his mother?
I can imagine him, going to that precipice that overlooks Montreal,
Heís wearing his fatherís suit and holding a Polaroid of you,
The collar on his shirt is too tight as he moves forward,
a life constantly on tilt, only to stumble back,
The snow has been melting for the past few days,
but the steam doesnít rise this high,
The dogs catch the worst of it;
they get fevered and keen at the smell of blood,
Theyíre down there now waiting for their supper,
Its not coming today boys, sorry.
There are a few things that need to be sorted out first,
Like finding my keys and writing this letter a hundred times.
Iíll have to re-examine every comma,
Iíll hold a mirror up to myself and ask some serious questions,
Iíll put both feet in the lake we used to visit in the summer,
and through the sky youíll rush, careening over mountains and city-scapes.
Youíll be moving fast,
etching out your silhouette across the skyline and finally covering me,
both of us streamed on auto-pilot,
summoning the girls who turned us into pets and the boys who we bullied,
youíll grab me by the hair and pull me into the woods,
the ember song that my grandmother hummed will come back to me,
this is my logic button, this is a cable routine.
I stand pincered at dusk, readied by my friends in the barracks.
We dug him from the earth today,
He was cool, pale and plump,
His body moistened by the early snow weíd had this year.
This was how the wake should have been done,
Him lying there and us forcing him to explain himself.
For weeks after Iíd go up to that ledge,
Iíd look over to the East and see the barricades,
Men and women entering their slip streams and heading home,
Did you do this every day?
Did you transcribe your name onto the bricks,
Laughing as you wrote?
Were you there when the carís all left the city for a day,
Heading for the mining towns and great lakes?
They left a note for you that read ëjoin us in the springí,
And they meant it.
I think back to that day in the studio,
The broadcast coupled with a resolution,
Why did they let you walk out of there?
I would have strapped you down and told you to stop being so melodramatic,
What did the onlookers think as you displayed all your evidence?
You were making serious allegations and pressing even more serious charges,
You were compiling lists and symphonies, directing concertos that got all muddled in the middle,
It was a frenzy caught and controlled, it was a husk and a weep,
This was no battle cry, just a simple set of facts.
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