On Friday I had a poem published on Poetry Shelf for NZ Music Month. It was the first time Paula Green has taken submissions. I wrote the poem over the weekend for the submission and was delighted for it to be selected. Pretty cool to see one of my works alongside people like Harry Rickets, Cadence Chung, Ben Brown (one of my favourite NZ poets) and Dame Fiona Kidman whose The Book of Secrets I remember studying in 6^th form English a lifetime ago.

The Thistle is a little slice of memory of the 90’s punk shows at Thistle Hall, which was once on the corner of Cuba and Arthur Streets and now sits on the side of Karo Drive on the bypass out of town. I wrote a little about it here.

The poem has a pinch of wistful lament for a time of teenage possibility and communal action, and a memory of a less gentrified time when Cuba St saw drinking in the streets and police out in force with riot gear of a Saturday night. I’m told shows still happen there and that makes me happy.

The Thistle

Climb the stairs, and tight to the right. Up into the old tea merchants.
There was no lingering smell of potted empire when I reached the top.
Rather the punk cologne of dak, scrumpy, sweat and leather.
Wander in past the array of anarchist books, the dangerous tools of revolution.
Now a google search would be a lot quicker.
And ‘the man’ can keep his tabs remotely.
And the revolution is remoter still.
The PA is old and clad in carpet.
The amps are shared, the drum kit communal.
The masses form up; the sound system rumbles.
The old, the young, and the great unwashed, we are all in this mess together.
We are all a mess, in this mess , together.
Then two sets in, the inevitable disruption.
In flow the police, with shields and truncheons.
And down the stairs we flow, barrelling to the left with a scent of bourbon.
And out into the night of yellow and black, so full of nineteen nineties energy.
So full of pregnant possibility.

Thistle Hall is a community hall which played a key role in Wellington’s punk/alternative/underground music scene through the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 00’s.