Roncesvalles 2013

All Text Written, Recorded & Performed by RM - Copyright (C) 2024 RM/VMH - All Rights Reserved

Logged transmission - 6926 kHz - in the Summer of 2013, in the neighbourhood of Roncesvalles, in the city of Toronto, a pirate signal of memory begins to transmit.

Preview One

The Frankenstein Poetry of Sorauren

I admire the Frankenstein poetry of Sorauren. Misshapen, asymmetrical, delightful. This architecture is a chaos dream. It’s a blood red brick aged to orange (rusted) in the sun, set in memory (& today, it is my street) Anarchy has always been a favourite of mine by (architectural) design. This used to be wide, open & plain, but now it’s incomplete. You’re not here.

I lived here once, with you, pool pit of longing, deep, soft wrist kisses in between letter between vein. I could tell you easily scent, precise, dive, bona fide slave to memory, I am buried here. With you.

& People will analyze. They’ll look for method. They’ll wonder why it is I do what I do. I think it best that I tell from the start, that it’s you.

(&) How do we resurrect a city? We tell our stories. We give in to our longing, we do not approach nostalgia for what was but more, desire for what must be.

You have to know the depth of our loss. Feel it scream bone deep, flesh withered & beaten black. You’re not going to bed tonight, darling. You’re staying up with me.

This is Roncesvalles 2013.

Preview Two

Crawford, North of Dundas

I am told that confidence is required as a condition of employment. The posture is shoulders relaxed, calm mouth, keen stare. Strong legs, steady motion, keep your rhythm in between conversations. You’re going to have to get used to running. You’re going to have to become accustomed to hearing the word ‘no’ The ‘no’ is simply momentum propelling you to your inevitable ‘Yes.’ I want you to champion the word – I want you to hold on to the possibility, even as time & again the door is shut. You’re going to find this a lonely occupation. You could talk to all the people in the world in one day & it would still feel like you’re all alone in the task until there is that ‘Yes.’ And that is the very thing you’re going to fight for every single time you hit the street. And this town. This town. You're going to have to let yourself fall in love with it even though in the end, you know it’s going to hurt you so badly to do so. You’re going to be cursed with the memory of every street, every door. You’re going to have it locked away in your memory all the things we have been & are no longer. & It will drive you mad & you won’t know what you’re to do with the memory except to claw your way right back into it. And even then, it won’t be enough. Not for you. That’s the thing about the old bones of architecture we leave in place like a phantom building of so many ‘once was...’ The once was is the thing that haunts. The once was is what you’ll feel in your fists every time you slam your hand into brick trying to find the once was of the foundation of this town.  Facade, remnant, ghost. You’ll become intimate with the regrets of every corner, the ‘I’m not following you.” The terrifying familiarity. The romance, the unrequited (the dark, the sweet)

 Crawford, north of Dundas, looking south to Trinity Bellwoods.

How many years?

 Seventeen. I counted every day.

Trailer One

Macdonnell Avenue

I haven’t trained in the study of cosmic phenomena. Fiction has a tendency to blur lines of believability or no.

I can look up at the stars & detail to you every single celestial occurrence in the sky. I can tell you it’s assigned name, pull basic facts from a map, chart the origins of discovery, the who & the how, but I can’t tell you composition – not elemental, but soul.

For what is it but soul, or some kind of consciousness, at least – that explains (how else to explain) the cosmic (of) this.

A Quick Word

As I’m wure you’ve seen elsewhere on the site (specifically at Emergency Fundraiser for Salim — VMH) for the past year, my brother Salim has been dealing with Stage 4 Liver Cirrhosis. Without a liver transplant soon, he will die.

His work has now moved him to long-term disability and that affects his benefits as well for very expensive medication. The financial strain on him is only exacerbating his condition.

We’ve been running a fundraiser for him, but it’s going pretty slow lately. We’ve also set up a campaign to help find him a living liver donor, but there are layers of bureaucracy that make it challenging to receive a transplant from a living donor in this country

The fundraiser is for his rent, food & medication but more, it’s to buy us enough time to find him that living liver donor to save his life.

I know it’s hard out there. I know it’s the holidays, I know of the financial uncertainty of things. But if everyone reading this donated $25 or more to him, it buys him that time for me to find him that living liver donor and we save his life.

If you’re willing to help us, you can visit this link - Emergency Fundraiser for Salim — VMH or simply click on the ‘Donate’ button below (& if you do, on behalf of my brother & my family, thank you)

r.