KNUCKLE DUSTER
VISUALS BY EVIE TOMLIN.
Introduction (Tanks and technicians)
There was good fighting and bad fighting
There was good sex and not bad sex
There was drinking and smoking
There was sparring and smokers
Changing levels, slips and counters
Brawlers, meatheads, tanks, and technicians
Water, sweat, Thai oil, Sunday morning coffee
And sometimes
so much blood.
There was beer on Fridays and sometimes Saturdays
There was always, always weed.
There were soldiers and children like shins and calves
There was losing
And there was winning
And there was all of us
And when there was just me,
by God there was fighting.
hill sprint blues
My ears fill up with
oceans, potholes, marijuana
Empty things
Sticky things
And what’s left of me in the morning
hums the songs that soldiers sing
remembers you in little photographs
Has dreams of enlisting
And my heart swells up
With the August fruit flies
And the spots in my eyes.
I looked up out of the hollow
and I thought of that dying cockroach
On my well-ran road
And the wound that festers in my glove
That yawning knuckle
And the cockroach didn’t think of me
Couldn’t hear the music
His is a fight all consuming
As is mine.
Middleweights
Fresh beefsteak beats the pulp out of old drowning fuckface
Caves in the blubber and organ at his liver with two happy knuckles
Teeming spittle flies from his trap where the mouthguard breaks tooth from lip
These days we drink beer only sometimes.
Fuckface swings for the mountains
And soon the young gun gets his nose painted strawberry red
twists himself up between his index and thumb.
So much relies on that bone and cartilage
which is both broken and intact until tomorrow morning
And the case of beer that waits in the fridge for next Friday.
Great rounds
I was sparring with Soleil
And thinking about butter melting in a frying pan,
Disappearing for months,
Cutting off all your ass-length hair in one go,
Leaving it all behind,
And being worse off for it.
I was sparring with Roman
And thinking about tall, dark
corn mazes full of dead ends,
Watching an old video back,
Vying for a rush you won’t receive,
Imagining what could have been,
And the colours fade to grey.
I was sparring with Ruby
And thinking about being thirteen,
Not understanding a single thing around you,
or inside you,
Or the body in between,
And then coming to get punched in the stomach after school.
I was sparring with Big Diego
And thinking about a thirty to fifty pound difference that is easy to hold,
But all too hard to take.
I was sparring with Christophe
And thinking of ill-timed remarks,
And well-timed boxing.
I was sparring with Little Diego
And mostly I was thinking about keeping my hands up.
MAXWELL NORMAN’S ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Blood Orange - Coastal Grooves (2011)
Dev Hynes made his debut under the Blood Orange moniker with this collection of danceable pop-funk tracks that feel simultaneously timeless and deeply infused with the post-recession optimism of 2011. The guitars? Reversed and finger-plucked. The synths? Glowy and hazy enough to fit the more driving tunes as much as some of the chillwave coming out around this time (think Washed Out or Neon Indian). Hynes’ voice? A yelping tenor with just enough breathiness to add some sultry sex appeal. And you already KNOW the lyrics indulge in light androgyny to put Blood Orange on the cutting edge of Millennial queerness. While some of the touches can feel a little anachronistic now, I’m in the mood for brighter and bolder music to keep the doldrums at bay. And the best songs here—“I’m Sorry We Lied,” “S’Cooled,” “The Complete Knock,” “Champagne Coast”—could almost bring the springtime to your doorstep. One can dream.
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STIMULANT VOLUME 2 LAUNCH PARTY MARCH 22
McGill Black Student Network Library, a good resource for locating and borrowing books by Black authors. The BSN Library is currently looking for volunteer staffers. Anyone can sign up.
Black Writers Matter, edited by Whitney French, is an incredible collection of works by contemporary Black writers. You can order the E-Book or the paperback via University of Regina Press.