Punk With Thesaurus

One of my favorite bands hails from the godforsaken wasteland of Winnipeg, Manitoba (home of The Guess Who). They are called The Weakerthans. They play loud, raucous rock 'n roll, and they have a lead singer/songwriter who consistently amazes me with his words. Behind the bluster and the attitude lies the heart of a romantic poet. His name is John Samson, and these are some of the things he writes about.

Measure me in metered lines, in one decisive stare,
The time it takes to get from here to there
My ribs that show through t-shirts and these shoes I got for free;
I'm unconsoled, I'm lonely
I am so much better than I used to be

Terrified of telephones and shopping malls and knives,
And drowning in the pools of other lives
Rely a bit too heavily on alcohol and irony
Get clobbered on by courtesy, in love with love, and lousy poetry.

And I'm leaning on this broken fence between past and present tense.
And I'm losing all those stupid games that I swore I'd never play.
But it almost feels okay

Circumnavigate this body of wonder and uncertainty.
Armed with every precious failure, and amateur cartography,
I breathe in deep before I spread those maps out on my bedroom floor

And I'm leaning on this broken fence between past and present tense.
And I'm losing all those stupid games that I swore I'd never play
But it feels okay

And I'm leaving. Wave goodbye.
And I'm losing, but I'll try, with the last ways left, to remember
Sing my imperfect offering
-- "Aside"


late afternoon another day is nearly done
a darker grey is breaking through a lighter one
a thousand sharpened elbows in the underground
that hollow hurried sound of feet on polished floor
and in the dollar store the clerk is closing up
and counting loonies trying not to say
i hate winnipeg

the driver checks the mirror seven minutes late
crowded riders' restlessness enunciates
the guess who suck, the jets were lousy anyway
the same mood every day
and in the turning lane
someone's stalled again
he's talking to himself
and hears the price of gas repeat his phrase
i hate winnipeg

up above us all,
leaning into sky
our golden business boy
will watch the north end die
and sing 'i love this town'
then let his arching wrecking ball proclaim:
i hate winnipeg
-- "One Great City"


So the fields are stubble,
the garden is done where the scary scarecrow stands
and sees her holding up horizons with her hands.
She's so tired of reading Daddy's lips -- that essay on a frown.
Watch her memories of human voices drown.
Let horsey bray break between the thunder boom.
Make grasses swish meet the cricket's ring.
Let every sound consecrate our whispering words
that Betta never heard.

The backlanes tie the city down; a mess of dirty string.
Winter dies the same way every spring.
As the sky tries on its uniform of turned off t.v. grey,
and the way we watched her watch us walk away,
let every rain clatter down at groaning streets.
Make footsteps tick, talk to echoed walls.
Let every sound consecrate our whispering words
that Betta never heard.

Let every wind howl and creak the creaking doors
to rooms that too much has happened in.
Let every sound consecrate our whispering words
that Betta never heard.
-- "Elegy for Elsabet"