Sydney

melancholy restless

I want to go back

to a beer garden in Glebe

on a sunny afternoon

where I could sit in half-sun

shadow my true self in

a cloak of booze

you knew all the pretty boys

in sleeveless tops

and the old farts

playing pool, getting sloppy

I’ll pop to the ladies

the moment’s pause

calm darkness indoors

then get more

cool green railway tiles

old wood and stained glass

that chalky pink scent

bath-bombs and lust

threads through

tunes on the decks

starting up

swells of crowd noise

we’re all getting lush

throw myself off

that sledgehammer cliff

of drinking til dusk

sometimes fly

sometimes crash

the worst when

it just goes flat

the betrayal of drink

if it doesn’t click

think I lost something there

or never found it

you know what I miss?

the obliterating wave

to shift

my set point

I want to hide

in the chaos and slide

caught up, unobserved

for I am so afraid

petrified and stuck

that the only way through

a punishing ride

Photo by Liam McKay on Unsplash

perpendicular

high on the escarpment

in a train

white cockatoo flies

exactly the speed

wing-beats, pace same

I’m choked

with need

to be

in love?

or grief

tendrils reach

from a thorn-spiked heart

sinuous and green

into the thick undergrowth

lustrous, keen

gymeas ridiculous

Quentin Blake sketch

in a stringybark forest

perpendicular

bridges from

a childhood book

with an old man’s pride

and tragic accident

to overcome

oh!

the ocean glints

and froths

whiteblue, whiteblue

in the distance, so

utterly beautiful

that rock shelf

like bricks, like stones, like fossils and holes

I yearn to be

whole

entirely

immersed

with spray in my face

spindrift, salty

it’s something like homesickness

or lust

ancient craving

carving

can’t explain

the deep interior

sea-cave

heartspace

soul-pain

Photo by Ryo Nagisa on Unsplash

The Water Tower

The water tower

perched high on the rise

floating world

of childhood holidays

muesli, orange juice

perfect vegemite toast in Penshurst

searching for

unfear

raw

remember

that girl was

always anxious in a way

now wonder if

my addict’s real

or just someone who

found self-harm easy

and crammed defeat

into flamboyance

a proud sham

now soiled

bored

with final flounces

doused in

sanitiser

nostrils flare

that witch wakes up

occurs to me

it’s moments of practicality

when it could be love

instead of flames

a soft patina

murrs pebble heart

like moss

or not

gosh am I lucky

to be so low

the one

who sees

how it goes

stupid mind that tracks and twists

yearning for

the years

of concrete towers

and hours

of unshed tears

Soundcloud recording: https://soundcloud.com/clairevetica/the-water-tower

Photo: Mihai Lazăr on Unsplash

Dr. Irvine

I had a job in a Sydney shoe shop

with Irvine Welsh in 95

he was a small 23yo Scottish woman

I was a noodle goth, 18

Trainspotting had just come out at the cinema

my friends did heroin

got arrested stealing mobile phones from cars

while I

did time in the storeroom

avoiding customers

Irvine and I took bellydancing lessons

drank Irn Bru in a Glebe café and

dossed in Bondi Junction

with the latest blue-bottled wine

it was before Facebook so

he will never find me now

Photo: John Broks on Unsplash

Mothballs

sometimes remember Bondi

but the moments I’ve known

were in flats with bad circumstances

too much booze

or a car involved

phantom cigarettes

it can’t be the fires

the old smell of shared hallways

in run-down brick blocks

and the naphthalene of

grandparents’ blankets

with sea brine and

stale schooners, a scarred benchtop

we were there

remember?

it was only ever one night

here and there

upstairs

in Bondi

Photo: Bondi Beach by Yang Xia on Unsplash

Corridor

Newtown smells like limes

cocktails and

the soft dark night

smudge of bodies

we’re the old ones now

she says

we talk

gin and jogging, noticing

how I hold my friends

a physical thing

while their fingertips are laid

so gently in my head

like kisses, kindness

and life’s gentle wingbeats

whisper

I’m home. I’m home

Day 19 (sort of) – a poem written based on a paragraph that recounts a scene from everyday life

FICTION: Nice Ride by Claire Doble

Having only just discovered the re-blog – here’s another one of my stories that was published about a month ago I forgot to mention! oops… enjoy!

We weren’t supposed to end up in the bath. It was one of those intense blue afternoons where it’s almost too hot in the sunshine but disconcertingly dark and shivery when you step indoors. The kind of afternoon you get in Melbourne in early spring. But this was Sydney, autumn. I was sitting out on my balcony, eyes closed as I soaked up the brightness when he stopped by. I had other things to do. But he was far more appealing.

Joel was a taxi driver so I always half-expected him to visit anyway. He’d knock on my door to use the toilet when he was passing by and had a spare fifteen minutes. Toilet breaks are the bane of a taxi driver’s existence. I’d learnt to listen out for the engine’s wide hum as he pulled the cab onto the concrete slab in front of my block of flats.

View original post 1,635 more words

Gothlist

This photo was only taken ~20 years later. So beware kids – this recipe can have long-lasting effects.

Recipe for a goth teenager c. 1994

Hair dye

Booze – beer or cask wine

Long black skirt – essential if female, optional if male

Fishnets

Ribbons – purple, royal blue, crimson, green or silver

Acid

Nitrous Oxide

Tattoo/s

Piercing/s

Band T-shirts

Studded wrist bands, belts and collars

Industrial music: see Wax Trax! Records

Fairy wings

Glitter

Black eyeliner: pencil and liquid. Lots

Lipstick

Peroxide

Directions hair colour

Silver jewellery

Ability to travel to/from Newtown and/or Glebe Market

Cigarettes: standard, menthol or clove

Speed

Weed

MDA

Butane

Canvas shoulder bag with band names

Doc boots

Stripy socks

Underwear as outerwear

Safety pins

A corset or something resembling a corset

Lace

Hair spray

Leather jacket: essential if male, optional if female

Mild-severe melancholy/ teen angst

The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxie, Nick Cave, etc.

The Crow: movie, soundtrack, poster

Night clubs

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Deep insecurity coupled with awareness of own superiority

Interest in vampires / the occult

Optional extras: pet rat, dreadlocks, boy/girlfriend who wears black, playing in a band, friends who are also goths, interest in the fetish scene, an attitude

We had a lot of fun, really.

Today’s NaPoWriMo post was to write a poem inspired by, or in the form of, a recipe. Mum & Dad – please don’t read this one.

It’s poetry month again!

I’m doing GloPoWriMo / NaPoWriMo again this April, since I had such a great time of it last year.

It’s kind of fitting that I’m at a writer’s retreat this weekend. So I’m looking at the Alps (above) from my hotel room window, but I’m thinking about my life back in Sydney because I’m doing this writing course about memoir.

This poem came from the GloPo prompt, which was to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, the US poet laureate from 2008-2010. According to GloPo a Kay-Ryanesque poem is: short, tight lines, rhymes interwoven throughout, maybe an animal or two, and, if you can manage to stuff it in, a sharp little philosophical conclusion. (I actually think a lot of my poems work out like this anyway, so this wasn’t too big a stretch!)

My course prompt was to write using your special knowledge of something. I thought about the walk I used to do everyday from home to school along a straight street, listening to my music. Then, a few years later, my walk from home to work along another long, straight street – Wilson Street in Newtown/Redfern – usually listening to Elephant by the White Stripes. At the end of this walk, one morning in Februrary 2004, I passed through the aftermath of the Redfern riots over the weekend.

Plus – the added bonus of spoken word! (link below)

After today, I’ll put this explanatory stuff at the bottom, underneath my poems. Enjoy!

Elephant

the steps I took

to walk to school

were only mine

no other fool

could walk it as I did

listening to songs

my footsteps

tapping along over

concrete where

my name was scratched

several times

then

on another tread

the street beside

the railway tracks

where at the end

the bricks

did meet

and clash terrible

while

(and Jack & Meg)

strode on by

with our nice lives

Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/elephant

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’? 🙂