Without Mythologies-The Weakerthans (One of my favorites)
A soft breeze with the slippery concrete black and full of muddy slush, contrasting with the hoarfrost, clean and hung on a tunnel of silent shivering trees (the ones you said you’d like to be), and the birds that screamed at the sun now buried deep down below the ground, beneath the snow, I press my shoulder to this wall between us. I know you are behind me but I press my shoulder to this wall, determined not to turn around. I know I’ll see you standing, still that statue that I molded in my mind to kiss, so beautiful you’ll never move again. Someplace far away, at some sad table littered with bad light, with chipped plates, in 48 frames from a movie on the cutting room floor, you said “True meaning would be dying with you”, and though I wanted to, I did not smile. But now I will give up on this wall that we have fought with, never uncover meaning behind our rich words. If I could I would make you a raging river, with angry rapids, supplied with rain, so you could always meander and forever be able to run away without contending with myths wrongly interpreted with pain. A harsh wind.
Plea From a Cat Named Virtue-The Weakerthans (For sake of adorable things)
Why don’t you ever want to play?
I’m tired of this piece of string
You sleep as much as I do now
And you don’t eat much of anything
I don’t know who you’re talking to
I made a search through every room
But all I found was dust that moved
In shadows of the afternoon
And listen, about those bitter songs you sing?
They’re not helping anything
They won’t make you strong
So, we should open up the house
Invite the tabby two doors down
You could ask your sister
If she doesn’t bring her basset hound
Ask the things you shouldn’t miss:
Tape-hiss and the Modern Man
The Cold War and card catalogues
To come and join us if they can
For girly drinks and parlor games
We’ll pass around the easy lie
Of absolutely no regrets
And later maybe you could try
To let your losses dangle off
The sharp edge of a century
And talk about the weather, or
How the weather used to be
And I’ll cater with all the birds that I can kill
Let their tiny feathers fill disappointment
Lie down; lick the sorrow from your skin
Scratch the terror and begin
To believe you’re strong
All you ever want to do is drink and watch TV
And frankly that thing doesn’t really interest me
I swear I’m going to bite you hard
And taste your tinny blood
If you don’t stop the self-defeating lies
You’ve been repeating since the day you brought me home
I know you’re strong