top of page

"Macbeth and Hamlet down the Haçienda" by Ivor Daniel

a drum a drum

and bass and bass and bass

deep reverb echoes off my face

my cranium thin vibrating party walls


I knew this skull from long ago

and to this end we all will come

but not tonight no way


a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass


I’m on a nightclub balcony

but could

as soon be

or

not be upon

some castle ramparts ghastly

prevaricating indecisive


in languorous admiration of the mass

those dance emotion bodies moving

down the Haç.


a drum a drum and bass and bass -

bad bass bounce Bambaataa bad rub - a - dub - dub - dub

if ever nightclub kingdoms

fall

we’ll all build castles from the rubble of the Dub.


my ears are now in 3D now all-hearing

a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass

strange Techno reimagining of Strange Fruit

or maybe we have eaten of the insane root?

I find a dry ice room of fog and filthy air

a chill-out zone with next to no one there

some walking shadows signifying

nothing


and nothing outside this moment matters

(though I don’t know why I wrote that line because I never thought it at the time -

just lived it)


and in this moment

I know not when or where or who


I am no one / I am Shaman.


an Acid House remix of Slave to the Rhythm

drab inhibitions busting out of prison

percussion clatter rattled like the rending of all chains


my mum would say these tunes all sound the same

(but clearly fa so* young and clever

we know better).


a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass


now hearing colours now tasting flashing lights


now

feeling hot

now feeling cold as ice meaning

lost

and found

in the dungeon of the night.


I coyly request a Paradise Garage mix the flowers of Ophelia -

DJ Violet says she’ll play that later


Mick Hucknall dances on the Frantic Elevator


old Holden Caulfield

dithers over

a dagger


(I’ll always love that dude)


a sweet prince and a symbol wait for fate

under a Killing Moon


Hunter S Thompson drops another quaalude

some post-punk band trash In the Mood indie beats as fast as pumping iron

throw another rhythm in the cauldron

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern suck cocktails in The Gay Traitor**


a drum a drum

and bass and bass and bass


out of the body experiences transcending race and gender

just another night down the Haçienda


dancing to the Mondays and the Roses

popping pills and powdering our noses


a mindfulness of mushrooms coming up


(we quit before we got serious neuroses)

we thought we could do anything leap mountains part the seas

we thought we were as bad as Holy Moses where


bad means good


fair is foul and foul is fair

something is rotten there


so somehow still smells sweet

my memories dance as fast as funky feet.


if this decadent reign must be o’erthrown


I can’t help thinking

it’s still better

than what came after -



sly normalisation of gent rification / austerity / corruption


a rising tide of lies hath made of us

a sad

and small-

er, nation


preferring dis dis disco discombobulation


I feel more at home in Haçienda dislocation.



a drum a drum and bass and bass and bass.



Exeunt




Notes


* do re mi fa so la ti do.

** The Gay Traitor - a bar in the basement of the Haçienda nightclub..




A word from the author: This long poem imagines a night at the Haçienda nightclub (Manchester, UK), where the poet and various characters from literature and the 1980's music scene are partying hard.

Kommentare


bottom of page