poetry

Slip

I will slip in under your radar

to a room bathed blue in TV-light

where pictures haunt and flicker

empty, and the sound turned quiet

edges of my teeth touch, catch

weak magnet unsticks

clings

I will slip in like the noise

of soft rain wakes you up

next morning wonder

how a bright wall

gets impossible to see

in slabs of summer sun

when shadeblooms shock the eyes

I will slip in, I will slip in to your pocket

finger me like a half-forgotten coin

smooth from use, warm

savouring the many chances and

ways to spend

 

Recording (poem changed a bit and have updated it above) https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/slip

https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/slip

 

Photo: https://unsplash.com/@aajanita

The Winehouse Years

winehouse

We moved into a flat in Camden, London in February 2007. The springtime arrived as I walked the canals. Tried to make me go to rehab I said no, no, no was the soundtrack not just to our lives but everyone’s. As the tendrils of blossom in the air led to open windows and summer started to take hold, you heard it everywhere. From cars, in department stores, late at night in Woodys kebab. Her voice, her pain, her darkness. The poetry in those words seemed to echo my own scribbles from an earlier time. Like everyone’s early-20s angst. She captured something. Meet you downstairs in the bar and hurt, your rolled up sleeves in your skull t-shirt…

We hit the pub. We hit the pub, we hit the pub. When we didn’t go to the pub, we drank at home. You could buy a bottle of O Gallo wine for less than a fiver. I sometimes felt embarrassed how many we bought and how often we’d be over there in the dusty corner store. Camden in the mid noughties. And I worked in Primrose Hill. Worst fulltime job of my life. But it was living like a rockstar goth. My boss was from Gang of Four and I’d see Liam Gallagher in the local pub. Actually you heard him before you saw him. No one else talked quite like that, that accent, in London. Ran into Led Zeppelin in the local off-licence. Slim and still got the hair. What a fox. Whispering excited at spying Grohl in TopMan, racing home to match his tattoos online.

We were all chucking it down every night. And I’d tread a troubled track… so many times I’d walk home with a skinful, mournful but delighted. My music, the sky and me. We drank all the time. On the weekends. Hanging out in the horrible toilets at Big Red and dancing to 20s swing with trannies. Oh, what a mess we made. And now the final frame…

We saw her once in the Hawley Arms. The tottering beehive, black-crayon eyes. She was so tiny and she held us all in her throat with those songs. Her carcrash life. It’s never safe for us. Not even in the evening, because I’hhvve been drinking…

Daydrinking in the beergarden of The Lock Tavern, where you’d ascend a teetering outdoor fire-escape staircase to reach the ladies’ loo. Look out from three-stories high over Camden and London and the pink sky and feel like you could die with the beauty of the world and a table full of friends and being in your 20s and so much wine and it’s Sunday tomorrow. A whole day for recovery. The poignancy of those moments when everything was. Just. Right. I will not forget. I would not change a thing. She walks away, the sun goes down, she takes the day, but I’m grown…

Vale Amy the artist on International Womens’ Day, soundtrack to some of my best-worst years x

Pic: https://www.undergroundarts.org/event/1542691-back-black-philly-tribute-philadelphia/

Some context: I quit drinking in January, so I’ve been thinking and blogging a bit about this stuff. It’s a fascinating journey, life. Thanks for indulging me. 

Passionfruit

There’s a tangle of tears

trapped inside like

one of those wire balls

of fairy lights

 

quivering like a mouse

with stone-giant hands

how to hold the precious things

while the rest gets torn down

 

walking as ghosts

puppet-shadows loom behind

grotesque approximations

of life split in two rhymes

 

somewhere cracked open

like a passionfruit, purple rind

waxy, strange, so different to

the gold ooze inside

 

What I want to say is

there’s an ever-distanting, displaced

version of me

and I’m worried about her because

she’s going on her way

and I’m here trembling

like a rodent

who’s been caught in sharp light

not sure whether to run or die

start a new life

my brain held in

rock-giant hands like

a bowl of bright-smelling ooze

studded with shiny black seeds

and those softspider veins

while cave-light shadows

make small mockery

of insignificant me

with a snarl of tears

caught inside

like a barbed-wire bottle

of fairy lights

 

 

 

Photo: https://unsplash.com/@californong

The Fundamentals

Today snow light

Lit television-blue emerging

Rising sun struggles awake

Wake up tired

Sleepy in the morning

Dawning, a latent creating

Writing these words

Letters on the page

Notes that bridge

Spanning and expanding

Stretching the mind

Thoughts get recorded

Posterity is fog

Misty but still

Quietly sifting through

Beyond. Pushing

Shoving. It’s a job

Work towards

Journey / the destination

Here

 

So this is a new poetic form I just invented (maybe?! please tell me if it already exists!) where each new line starts with a synonym of the word at the end of the previous line. We will call it a Claireform poem 🙂 

Photo: I got arty with my camera and a cough drop (not mine!) this morning.

 

Boy blue

 

Like a triangle of stained glass

No, a diamond in blue

curl of censer smoke

caresses air bubbles

joyful

trapped in stasis

imperfections to some

perspective

looking through the lens

tears and beer froth

framed in lines of black

lions and jackals claw

endlessly

don’t trouble

a split of smile

twist of glee, the cackle

and the pain of it all

days many and so few

deep into something new

remember? I remember you

my little boy blue

 

 

Photo: Yu Siang Teo on Unsplash

 

 

Rubik’s path

 

It twists as you step it

have to swap as you go

when you look back where you came from

the way is closed

in this sense unique

some people don’t like

unlockable, blockchain reaction

when familiar is sweet

so now you’re sticky-stuck

and toffee-glued

in sugary metaphors

— are grammatical confections

bad for your health?

don’t wait too long

for the penny to drop

the other shoe to

drop the pressure

somebody’s gonna…

never gonna

stop

 

photo: by Claire Doble

2019 goals – writing and otherwise

It was with some trepidation that I looked back on my “writing goals for 2018” post this week to see if I’d achieved what I set out to. I somehow remembered that I’d been too ambitious and I really hate and fear failure. But I was pleasantly surprised to see I’d known from the start that this year was all about finding paid work and that would mean my own writing would suffer.

I guess it’s fair to say, I’m pleased to have achieved what I set out to do – get a job. But I’m also sad that this meant, as predicted, way less creative writing for me. However, despite saying I wouldn’t manage it, I did end up doing most of GloPoWriMo2018 global poetry month in April, so that was a bonus. I did submit a few poems, short stories and creative non-fiction but all were rejected and I didn’t have time or the jive to revisit/rework them and keep submitting. Rejection stings. Then some family issues mid-year, combined with starting work really diverted all my energy to survival-mode.

I’ve been on somewhat of a journey this year (forever). My birthday falls in January and 2018 was a significant one that made me reassess a lot of my ideas and habits. It’s a process that is ongoing but I’d also like to acknowledge here the hard work I’ve done throughout the past 12+ months that’s along the lines of trying to be my “Best self”. This has involved mental and physical undertakings.

I’ve been trying really hard to shed some outdated beliefs / habits / addictions and insecurities. I’m not 100% there (is anyone, ever?) but I think I’ve made progress. And it’s part of the journey to take a moment to congratulate myself. It has not always been easy or enjoyable, although sometimes it has! Well done, Claire.

A big part of this year has been my running, too. It’s funny, when we moved to Zurich five years ago a friend here mentioned “there’s great running trails here,” as a selling point at the time. To which I scoffed dismissively “not interested, that is NOT my thing. At all. Ever! ” Well never say never.  In 2018 I clocked up more than 1,000km of running. I’m stupidly proud of this. Not just because it’s a big number but because it means I was consistent. In rain, hail, snow, sun, heat, blahblah I kept on jogging all year. I went for runs in Zurich, Rome, Sydney, Porto, Perth, Ocean Shores, Dübendorf and Venice and I completed my first-ever Half-Marathon. And, to tie it back to my previous point: running has hugely helped my mental health.

It’s been an interesting year. When I look at my blog stats, they’re way down on 2017, which was a wonderfully flourishing period for my writing AND I did the 26Cantons52Weeks to boot. I wrote some decent stuff in 2018. I was going to say the quality had suffered, but I just read everything and… well… I like it! But I also know the difference it makes to write regularly, as I was doing in 2017. So I hope to get back to that in 2019. However, I am going to err on the side of sensible because I don’t want to set myself up to fail. So what are some reasonable goals…

  • Short stories: I’d like to focus on short stories a bit more. I had some success in placing those in 2017 when I was really working at it, and I think it’s a good way to go. If I can write or hone 4x short stories I’m happy enough with to attempt to place them in 2019, that will be a good outcome. (Actually I already have one on the boil)
  • THE NOVEL: I keep saying how I must get back to this. Maybe 2019 will be the year! I think if I can dedicate a few months of evenings / weekends to focus on it, it could happen. Maybe another NaNoWriMo?
  • Running: I would love to run another half-marathon this year. Maybe even two – one in Spring and one in Autumn. I don’t have the bandwidth to train for a full mara. That’s a goal for 2020!
  • Poetry: don’t think I need to put goals around my poems anymore. They can just come and go as they please.

 

Happy (almost) new year! What are your goals for 2019?

 

Photo: a wicked angel my son made at school

the nothing things

these are the things nobody owns

given free and worthless

made by no-one knows

in a country far away

encased in cardboard and foam

slickshine of stickytape

sliced through and thrown

clean from the box

as though untouched

but

whose fingers caressed

plastic casing and imagined

those in the west

unwrapping

their creation

did it pay for for a day, an hour, a week

chucked on the heap

weep, world

steep price to pay

these are the nothing things

that nobody wants

made, shipped, given, slippedmemory, unregarded

thrown away,

still… will… outlive

 

Photo by armin djuhic on Unsplash