Hanging around in Melbourne pubs and clubs in the 1980s, being cynical and feeling sorry for myself. Ah, to be in my early thirties again! Not! Teenage fashion junkies Playing poor Fifty dollar hairdos Labels on their pants Hip shack rhythms collide Push through the sweat Women yawn together In the breaks They wait for […]
(Bronte space thoughts 2012) Vacuuming stars at midnight From a grubby seaside carpet Nick Drake background hums My seventies London soundtrack Feel sixteen at sixty-one Rushing fast to sixty-five Single bed room Sanctuary and prison Full creative life Empty of passion Put away childish things Time to be a proper man Right.
In 1977 I spent 9 months in Bermuda programming and installing a database for an international insurance company. I worked hard and played harder in those days. I also spent a fair amount of time alone and introspective, observing stuff. Like palm trees. Who do the palms wave at When the wind blows cool With […]
(Bermuda race riots 1977) Smoke in the darkness Unspoken fears Bubble to the surface Like scum or hatred Anger blows away Illusions of friendship Reveals another racist Jungle bunny talk Makes me want to vomit Out the unctuous stench Of misplaced white pride
Ah, love and loss and heart ache. Where would poets be without it! Better now thanks. Twenty year old poem that still works, I think. Feel free to shoot me down in flames if needed. She’s gone Through the aperture A last glimpse Then She’s gone Tears at the airport Happy kind of crying Home […]
Living in Melbourne in the early eighties, I became obsessed with the poet e.e. cummings for a while … this is my stumbling attempt at his style. captivated by smiles gestures and rubbings he was funny when it happens along i thought when you least expect it and straightens your back with a spring in […]
Re-worked this timeless oldie … images and observations from a northbound road trip to join a hippy sports day in a distant valley. I made it up about the hob-nailed thongs! Day-Glo spacy waistcoats white overalls hobnailed thongs modern rural highwaymen armed with stop/go signs bright pink earthmovers make a night-bright sight stunning moonrise on […]
From the days when I drove taxis in the Sydney nights. When mikes were live and we talked to the operator. When we didn’t wear grubby uniforms and cash was king. Skirting another peer group, Avoiding another clique, The party round continues as he left it years ago. Manic panic weekend living, Crowded driving solitude, […]
Here’s one for my mates in the old neighbourhood … Bondi Disfunction. Eastgate they call it But that’s just a name Down home and funky Where real folks roam Not like its neighbour Smarty pants Westfield Upmarket and spunky Where names are chains Chrome gloss enticement On levels and floors Flashy visual excitement In half-empty […]
An attempt at a poem in the referential academic style. You know, like the consumptive poets of previous centuries who seemed to have to make classical allusions in their poems. Taking the piss, really. But it is a kind of love poem. Returning home to no Penelope I’m no Agamemnon Armageddon leaves me for dead […]
hugh wade 