(As performed with Pith and the Parenchymas)
The rainbow
The moisture
The shame of your effort
Your deal
Your subject
The veins in your chest hurt
The call
The wall
The man in the jail cell
The clock
The birds
The ground where the hail fell
The push
The pull
The blood of the camera
The pain
The time
The national anthem
The stride
The smirk
The smell of your body
The twitch
The hail
The air in the lobby
Your heart
Your head
The lies of the feeling
Her hair
Her curve
Her touch is appealing
The death
The rebirth
The reason for smiling
The water
The bathtub
She drinks what she’s hiding
The snake
The squirrel
The calm on the mountain
It’s sleeping
Don’t wake it
Every calm is a renouncing
The cops
The crops
The tractors at midnight
The plane
The ceremony
Daughters of insight
The rollers
The ghosts
The scum of the city
It’s laughing
They’re squeezing
They’re making it pretty
It’s dusty
It’s rusted
It lives in the shed
The book
The look
The side of her head
She’s tall
She’s shy
She stands in the entrance
The myth of
The raven
Is back with a vengeance
They told you
Controlled you
Made you their equal
But are you
A raven
Or are you an eagle?
The sunlight
The author
The pain of remembering
The glass floor
The pond
Water for tempering
Alberta
Regina
The path of the Greyhound
The garbage
The crescent
Mysterious lake towns
The places
The faces
Cathedrals and quarries
Dispositions
Titles
Saying you’re sorry
The white light
The fear
The dust of the other
The satellite
Spinning
Society’s mother
The true vine
The fake one
The longing for Jesus
The forest
The chorus
She does as she pleases
She’s walking
She’s changing
Into a canopy
Into
An undergrowth
Out of humanity
Into
An orchid
On the side of a tree trunk
A bus full
Of honey
A solitary monk
A frayed edge
A collar
A wall to collide with
The floor here
Is opening
Im going inside it
Her face
The stories
She’s standing right next to me
Its not a
Pollution
To think of her sexually
The shortage
The portage
The online memorial
The skin
The cut
The feeling’s primordial
It’s setting
It’s set in
Stone just for you
It’s coming
It wants to
Open the door for you
The rainbow
It’s breeding
It’s only a breeder
It’s twitching
It’s chasing
It follows the leader
Dissolving
Evolving
Becoming a heath
Exploding
Eroding
Destroying the beach
I love you
I need you
Can you read what I’m writing?
the dawn
The dream
Mysterious sightings
The dust
The saints
Riddles deciphered
The morning
The yearning
The husband and wife are
Together
Embracing
Choking their sorrow
Dreading
Hating
Breaking tomorrow
This song is
For Louise
This song is for Norman
Please stop
Laughing
While I’m performing
The rainbow
The paintbrush
The underwear dream
The gleaming
City
We’re on the same team
The country
The flag
The national poison
Don’t wake
The giant
Your singing annoys him
Jesus
Is here
And he’s sick of your body
The landscape
The red grape
The thousands of parties
The rainbow
Is bending
Back into a shaft
The great forest spirit
Is making its crafts
The world is undoing
All of its knots
It’s giving
And taking
Everything you’ve got
You are
A plaything
A measly distraction
A vessel
For suffering
A rune of inaction
The rainbow
Is speaking
It’s telling you lies
It’s no longer
A rainbow
Just look in its eyes
The mist
Is parting
The birds fly away
The ground
Is rippling
The people can’t stay
The raven
Is calling
The eagle will answer
The shoes
Are shackling
The beautiful dancer
The house
Is shaking
The earth is moving
The eyes
Are looking
So very soothing
Press your
Head on
The chest of your love
The rainbow
Is growing
It towers above
There go
The buildings
There go the beasts
Stay with me
Darling
Or hurt me at least
I can’t
Be pure
When the rainbow comes through
I can’t
Endure
What the rainbow will do
What is
Death
But the loss of a pulse
It’s just a minor
Change
It’s nothing else
It settles
Upon us
It turns us all rainbow
Feel
The cool tingling
Where did the pain go?
Let neither of us
Flaunt
Our masculinity
Let neither of us
Flaunt
Our femininity
I’m ready
To speak
In the interview now
The rainbow
Is wondering
What to do now
-Chris Love is a third-year biology and humanities student at Carleton, and plays in the band Pith and the Parenchymas.
