poetry

Motherf*cking February
Photo: Marco Ceschi via https://unsplash.com/@spantax

Photo: Marco Ceschi via https://unsplash.com/@spantax

A little something for everyone this week. Here’s a short spoken-word piece

 

Every mother looks tired today

Or perhaps it’s the harsh light of Monday

As she sat with a baby in a sling

With the sun on her face

I could see the exhaustion

of the night before

And I also saw

Those dedicated mums meeting their friends

In cafes for lunch

Trying not to be in the way

Trying to get their two year olds to eat something

It’s not even much fun

But better than not having gone

What a mess they make

And I think maybe I’ll just get a job

And outsource all my childcare from now on

Every mother looks tired today

Motherfucking February

 

Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/motherfcking-february

Us and Them

horses

We’re the ones here now

it’s us. that’s it

on the spot

in the place

my face

and yours

just a set of real people

all with our own lives

loves

pains and joy

so why

do we feel so afraid

of Them

that They’ll come

and

take it all away

 

This blog has felt a bit neglected lately. The weather has been too snowy for canton visits and I’ve been trying to keep my poetry aside to submit to various journals and stuff. I’ve also been doing the first edits on my novel and writing some short stories and trying to get some other people’s stories together for an anthology (phew!). I think I’m procrastinating a bit, but I’m also enjoying myself… mostly!

This morning I saw a repellent poster from a local extreme-right political group that was scare-mongering about women in burquas. It didn’t even have an organisation name on it, but I know who put it up. What’s the German for Stop Punishing Women just because you’re a Fucking Coward? This country is so small, it sometimes feels like you know everyone. It seems barmy that people still feel so afraid of women looking different that they’d seek to ban it. I don’t know. I’m probably not making much sense. I got really angry. 

Clairevetica: Year in Review 2016

Lake Zurich

Although it’s against popular opinion, 2016 has been a good year for me. Maybe one of my best! It’s been a great year for this blog too. In fact, a lot of my joy in 2016 has been directly tied to Clairevetica so it seems appropriate to write this post.

This is the year that I randomly decided on 30 March to participate in a month-long poetry writing challenge: NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo. I feel like that spur-of-the-moment decision has changed my life! A month later, I’d written 30 poems in 30 days, I had a bunch of new followers and was following heaps more blogs myself. It helps that it coincided with a friend/local blogger starting a Switzerland blogger group so I simultaneously followed a bunch of local blogs as well as all the poetry stuff. Clairevetica has gone from having around 50 followers to having 200. Impressive. And I really thank you all for following, liking, commenting and supporting (both on the blog and elsewhere) – hell, even just bothering to read all the words I write! Fittingly, as I was writing this post, I just got a notification from WordPress that I’d achieved 1,000 likes on this blog altogether, w00t!

However, stats aside, perhaps the most important thing about the poetry month was it meant poetry went from being a thing I occasionally dabbled in to a Thing I Am. Alongside my various other jobs and titles, I’m now “Zurich-based poet, Claire Doble” and fuck that makes me happy.

My most popular poem was The Earth / His Purpleness about Prince and Earth Day. Which seems even more appropriate since this year is ending on a media storm of all the famous people who’ve died, as well as there being ongoing worries globally when it comes to ecology and politics.

Other current affairs poems I did included The Unicorn and the Lion about Brexit, Stars and Stripes about America, Over Heard and Cincinatti about Johnny Depp’s breakup and that Gorilla grabbing a child (remember?!) and Landfill – deploring all the waste.  Other poems I wanted to mention again included Alison, which I’m humbled was read aloud at the funeral, Morning Song, which really evoked something about my life here and Rollins Rules, trying to capture the give-no-fucks spirit of the man. While I’m thanking people and noting poems, I should give a shout-out to my ever supportive husband, Himself: Respect! (and love)! 

I also wrote a few book reviews In Deep that’s stayed with me and I am a Feminist as well as a couple of film reviews from Zurich Film Festival.

I had my spoken-word debut, and went on to do a few more spoken word recordings. Possibly my favourite so far is Vanish.

And, of course, I had a good dose of soul searching and attempts to find my way – Time Out of Mind and Writing for My Life/ Fighting for my Life (which is my second-most viewed post of the year) . It’s nice for me to take a look back at these and see how things have worked out (mostly well).

I also started and finished writing my first novel – which I should mention as it’s pretty huge. Although it doesn’t have a lot to do with the blog…

In the midst of all this, we had an amazing summer of international visitors to Zurich. It was so great to introduce our adopted home-city to friends and family from near and far and to spend time exploring more of this gorgeous country with them.

As I said in my previous post of New Year’s Resolutions. I’d like to do some more travel stuff in 2017 with our 26 Swiss Cantons in 52 Weeks challenge. I’ll do more poetry of course but hope to get stuff published above and beyond Clairevetica. And you can follow my spoken word stuff on Soundcloud.

Happy New Year everyone – I’m so delighted to be writing so much and to have all these Clairevetica followers old and new. I appreciate each and every one of you. Here’s to a rockin’ writing 2017!

Wynyard

Wynyard Station Entrance. Photo: J Bar

Wynyard, Wynyard

your windy yard

the vent we sat at

after dark

what a lark

all dressed in black

our faces painted

our hair teased up

 

Wynyard, Wynyard

your 70s brownness

serried escalators arc

unconsciously modernist

a real-life Jeffrey Smart

Wynyard, Wynyard

Sanctuary in your depths

the handicapped toilet

full of thick brown tiles

count them and you might

have the number of miles

we danced

or pranced

with trails of gossamer and tulle

following us through

your pitched inclines

our tresses

our rounded arms

brushing carelessly past

your unspecial address

with Town Hall before

and Circular Quay after

(the queen of the harbour

with her Cahill crown)

 

Wynyard, Wynyard

our gateway to town

the Hunter Connect

(always made me think

of that Computer Cat pet)

we kids

let loose

and yet

in your wide brown history

merely

another set

of passers by

as your steep shoulders shrug

and shudder with the trains below

an ancient spot

dressed up, ignored

tired of our bored

congress

 

Wynyard, Wynyard

tho

it seems odd

to cherish a dusty park

a station! a bus stop!

just off the bridge

Wynyard Wynyard

I hope you know

I think of you

(it surprised me too)

if not as the place

where dreams come true

at least a spot

where dreams embark

even scruffy ones

after dark

or: gave up, headed home

waiting

for a taxi to the North Shore

it’s changover time again…

enough – I’ll say no more

about

Wynyard, Wynyard

 

Link: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/wynyard

I don’t know why I suddenly had a nostalgic pang for this central-Sydney station but there you go. I did spend a lot of time there I guess. One for the old Sydney goths out there – particularly the North Shore ones (a select group to be sure!) And, obviously, I had to record it because anyone unfamiliar with Sydney will not know how to pronounce “Wynyard”.   PS: Does Sydney do ‘Poems on the Underground’? 🙂

 

 

Published work

 

I had two poems published in two online literary journals at the beginning of December and thought I should take a moment to boast a little! So, um, here’s a picture of a Christmas-themed lemon cake I baked for our local Xmas market to celebrate!

 

Write to Me was published in the UK’s Allegro Poetry December “Travel” themed issue. This was one of my letter-writing poems http://www.allegropoetry.org/p/issue-11.html

 

And my first ‘official’ spoken-word piece, Beginnings, was published in The Woolf – a Zurich-based literary magazine. http://thewoolf.org/2016/11/28/spoken-word-beginnings-by-claire-doble/

Vanish or “Deleting photos, killed time” – spoken word

Photo by Rayi Christian Wicaksono @Unsplash

 

How the time vanished

just wicked away

having its wicked way

with me

I clicketty, click, click clicked away

and killed that time stone dead

it seeped out at the edge

as I trimmed the hedge

I pruned and I snipped

thousands of photos

down to one

or none

or just five-hundred and four

of the best ones

gripping that platform

with my mouse-clicketty fingers

as the world

vanishes

telegraph-portalled into a right-click

for more options and

it’s never finished easily

so queasily and

dizzily I try

to walk away

hey

if we don’t pay

but we freely stay

and our time, our time, our TIME

has all gone away

oh, I think we have paid

we’ve laid

our offerings at the altar

of an online church

secular worship

our selfie flagellation

I don’t know what’s worse

the addiction

our willing cahoots

the news

filtered

through chamber upon echo chamber

as it hits our tired eyes

it could all be lies

made

by performing clowns

now I feel ill

I need to lie down

try not to panic

this too, will all vanish

 

 

Link: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/vanish

This recording is not as perfect as I would like because, ironically, I ran out of time. And I won’t have another chance until next week – so I figured you’d rather hear it now. The poem was inspired by the daily prompt – Vanish

Black Friday

Autumn leaves

 

the final smell of roses

late autumn wind

trams clank machinery and

waft bygone ages at me.

I’m thinking about excess

consumerism

all those Black Friday bargains

unwanted

shelves full of unread library books

piles of fallen leaves

and where does snow go?

no… not those last three.

when our needs are met, we look to art

we’re shopping instead

Sirens – spoken word

 

The things we can’t say

but do

the way

I’m thinking about you

but I know

it’s not good

to be stood

on a precipice

or at the edge of a dark wood

and the sirens call me

longing

pining

to jump

into their entwining arms

“Fuck it all up”

they sing in whispery cries

How will you know

if you don’t try?

Might get

your heart’s desire…

It’s all fake

a sham

I can’t make

any argument stand

and yet

that tickle

of breath

of possible

mischief

is the flicker I need

to continue

this speed

fuel

for my self-stoked flame

burning through my days

when my heart’s on the wane

it’s lame

but I need something to blame

or just

keep me sane

 

This is my latest spoken-word experiment – thanks to everyone who has offered support, advice, feedback and coaching. Especially those of you who have gone above and beyond – you know who you are! 🙂

 

Soundcloud link if you can’t see it above: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/sirens

 

 

 

Adventures into Spoken Word

 

It seems the universe has converged to tell me that NOW is the time to step into the sphere of spoken-word. I’ve been talking about doing this for a while. I was blown away by seeing Kate Tempest perform recently, several kind people have suggested my stuff would work well as performance poetry and now I’ve actually been asked to produce a spoken-word piece for a local publication (exciting! terrifying!)

So I’ve been messing about with Soundcloud… and here’s a little experiment and a taster. (This is not THE poem – just a little off-the-cuff-poem to test the waters).

What do you think?

If you can’t see the Soundcloud embedded thingy, click here https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/cleaning-house