dresscoding (2008)

lining up outside Sugar Lounge under
conspicuous surveillance parasols rope
barriers please leave all attitudes at home
as if getting past brick of a bouncer wasn’t
enough gender selection no hoodies immediate
access for the ‘club babe’ persona you
refuse to cultivate remaining true to
your otherness /
_____________a studied ugliness no
sportswear of any description no
entry for all-male groups down the
rabbithole a privilege no guarantees
non-members turned away (with the
exception of cool clubwear) we’re on
the guest list can you pick the plus-one
self-proclaimed doorbitch smiles us in
(average spend on alcohol £32.70)
(more for males) first we’d better
define conspicuous consumption
designer shoes ok /
_______________lucky we know Jim
the promoter & Zane the DJ’s a 16yo
prodigy of course he’s not allowed to buy
himself a drink /
_____________these clubs like comic strips
thought balloons packed in tight many
frames to a page club drugs & drug clubs
Britain’s night-time economy (NTE) the
flawless cocktail at £35,000 a pop consists of
a large measure of Louis XII Cognac half a
bottle of Cristal champagne brown sugar
angostura bitters flakes of edible 24-carat gold leaf
& at the bottom of the crystal glass
an 11-carat white diamond ring












Note: This poem owes a debt to Phil Hadfield's article 'From Threat to Promise: Nightclub 'Security', Governance and Consumer Elites' in the British Journal of Criminology, and his presentation at the Club Health conference, Ibiza 2008.

Plotting _____ at the school reunion (2008)

I love you plot how you
gratify our need for
change when afraid
to act too schooled
kicking grit
across pavement this
bad wind splits
our bones we
don’t enjoy ourselves
gamblers & drunkards
our teachers were we
trade old jealousies
internally debate cause
of our sorrowed lot oh
class of ’94 we
have not made it we
have failed at difference

Berlin (2008)

The West controlled the U-Bahn. Underground train lines passed under the wall at certain points. Passenger trains from the West would pass through 'ghost stations' in the East, never stopping at these.

*

The communications tower spiking out of Alexanderplatz still casts the old omniscient spell at night, red eyelets flashing over the grey grid below. Socialist system a torn web still dangling from housing blocks, the eastern Ratthaus. In the former GDR, kids were herded into group potty sessions to sow the seeds of collectivism.

*

Chunks of city scattered amongst derelict blocks, may never be de-fragged. Temples falling into disuse. Underground clubs in abandoned vaults and warehouses; strobes spray lightning on sweat, shaved heads, concrete.

*

One dark dividing wall to split the brain of a city. Graffiti coats the surviving segments.

*

The opening of the wall was a bureaucratic slip – a rogue document inserted to sabotage the machinery. Paper jam. At the press conference, without pausing to consider the words or their meaning, the official read out the memo.



Published in Shadowtrain #23, October 2009.

With difficulty (2008)

Some Buddhist am I

drink
compulsively, & smoke

& I could write
the saddest poems of all
but you may never hear them
they are so quiet.

Let me be the poet asking,
‘how should each creature remember
to be happy?’

or ‘how will the fibres
of my book
flag a way out of suffering?’

Though writing lines like
‘what love there is to give
I have not given’ –

that is no way
to start,
or is it?

How to begin
again
again?

… there must be
much deletion

much deletion
before the sun goes.

Long hiatus...

It's been over 4 months since I posted anything here, which is the longest gap I've left between posts since early 2005.

Monica and I have been travelling around Europe for the last 3 months, but now we're back home in Melbourne.

I did write a few things while travelling, so I'll gradually post those up, along with news of upcoming events, etc.

It's good to be back...