2025 Competition Entry:

Enough To Say by Joel Giroux

Genre

Country

Artist

Website

Co-writer(s)

no

Performer(s)

I’m the sole performer: piano, bass, vocals, bass 6 (rhythm guitar).

Description

A sad apology for no longer having the heart, or stomach, to continue in a relationship

Bio

Joel Giroux is a poet, singer-songwriter, and ghost-writer who has worked as a college English prof, an Intervenor with Persons with Deaf-blindness, and in the trades as an hydronics installer. He is the author of two chapbooks, hounds and grapefruit (pres sure press, Toronto, 1990), and Larger Than Still Life (believe your own press, Toronto, 2003) and has been published in Existere, The UC Review, The Trinity College Review, The Quarantine Review, in the anthology More than a Gathering (Wet Ink Books, 2024), has had his work read on JazzFM 91, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2006. He has a poem upcoming in the online journal Eunoia in February. He works at Novel Idea bookstore in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Lyrics

Enough To Say

Am I the right one
for this job?
Our back and forth
just cut me off.
You waste your time
waiting on me to start
while I can’t wait
for you to stop.
Am I the right one
for this job?

Are we the lovers
that you knew?
If I turned into someone else
so did you.
You point your finger
and I don’t know who
points his finger
right back at you.
Are we the lovers
that you knew?

Isn’t it enough to say
that I have had enough?
Break apart my words and they
will always cough up dust.
Leave outside my love long enough
and it will turn to rust.
Isn’t it enough to say
that I have had enough?




Is this the journey
with all our bridges crossed?
That map we followed
it only got us lost.
We found our bed
in a field of snow
and a cold wind
blows on top.
Is this the journey
with all our bridges crossed?

Bridge

Am I the right one
for this job?
All night I wring my hands
in the presence of
your second wind
your broken heart
and that list of little things
that I can’t get right
Am I the right one
for this job?

Isn’t it enough to say
that I have had enough?
Break apart my words and they
will always cough up dust.
Leave outside our love long enough
and it will turn to rust.
Isn’t it enough to say
that I have had enough?

Music and lyrics by Joel Giroux

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