THE WEAKERTHANS - CIVIL TWILIGHT

My Confusion Corner commuters are cursing the cold away
As December tries to dissemble the length of their working day
And they bite their mitts off to show me transfers, deposit change
and I can’t stop finding your face in their faces, all rearranged
and angry like you never were;

And I ease us back into traffic
Dusk comes on and I wonder
Why I’m always remembering you
at civil twilight

For the most part I think about golfing and constantly calculate
all the seconds left in the minutes, and so on, etcetera
Or recite the names of provinces and Hollywood actors;
Oh, Ontario! Oh, Jennifer Jason Leigh!
This part of the day bewilders me

Streets slow down and ice over,
Dusk comes on and I struggle to stop,
To stop to stop thinking of you
at civil twilight

Hey, every other hour I pass that house,
Where you told me that you had to go
I wonder if the landlord has fixed the crack
That I stared at, instead of staring back at you;

My chance to say something seemed so brief
It wasn’t. Now I know I had plenty of time
Between the sunset and certified darkness
Dusk comes on and I follow the exhaust from memory up to the end

At civil twilight
At civil twilight
At civil twilight
At civil twilight

THE WEAKERTHANS - OUR RETIRED EXPLORER
(DINES WITH MICHEL FOUCAULT)

Just one more drink and then I
Should be on my way home
I’m not entirely sure
What you’re talking about
I’ve had a really nice time
But my dogs need to be fed
I must say that in the right light
You look like Shackleton

Comment allez-vous ce soir? Je suis comme ci comme ça
Yes, a penguin taught me French back in Antarctica

Oh, I could show you the way
Shadows colonize snow
Ice breaking up on the bay
Off the Lassiter coast
Light failing over the pole
As every longitude leads
Up to your frost bitten feet
Oh, you’re very sweet

Thank you for the flowers and the book by Derrida
But I must be getting back to dear Antarctica

Say, do you have a ship
And a dozen able men
That maybe you could lend me?

Oh Antarctica
Oh Antarctica
Oh Antarctica
Oh Antarctica

THE WEAKERTHANS - WATERMARK

I count to three and grin.
You smile and let me in.
We sit and watch the wall you painted purple.

Speech will spill on space.
Our little cups of grace.
But pauses rattle on about the way that you cut the snow-fence,
braved the blood,
the metal of those hearts that you always end up pressing your tongue to.
How your body still remembers things you told it to forget.
How those furious affections followed you.

I’ve got this store-bought way of saying I’m okay,
and you learned how to cry in total silence.

We’re talented and bright.
We’re lonely and uptight.
We’ve found some lovely ways to disappoint,
but the airport’s always almost empty this time of the year,
so let’s go play on a baggage carousel.
Set our watches forward like we’re just arriving here
from a past we left in a place we knew too well.

Knew too well.
Knew too well.

Hold on to the corners of today,
and we’ll fold them up to save until it’s needed.
Stand still.
Let me scrub that brackish line that you got
when something rose and then receded.
Hold on.