The Batcave poems: “1983”

I’ve been doing a poetry experiment where I’m excavating the language from interviews and accounts of 1980s goth club the Batcave and related scenes and communities. At the moment I’m only working from a few sources of text. I may expand on this project further with other goth clubs or scenes.

These poems are not meant to be historically accurate accounts of any specific place, but instead to work from the essence and atmosphere of the way certain times and places are described.

Right now the sources I’m working with are giving me a lot to go on. I’m plucking words and phrases from these texts to create found poems. Here is the first I will share, “1983.”

1983

I made a cassette tape
from a jukebox that
only had songs to do with
death.

I didn’t find goth in a
graveyard but
in a basement
and a taxi
and a diner.
VHS videotapes of
X-Ray Spex and a
sniff of
slow black rain.

Something else was happening
on the dancefloor a
filthy souvenir,
moody tongue of the London night.

Running down Regent Street
I implanted mascara and
black lace in the
folk memory.

All scenes must start somewhere.

—

Source texts:

“The Rise of the Batcave,” Lisa der Weduwe, Museum of Youth Culture, https://www.museumofyouthculture.com/the-rise-of-the-batcave/

“To The Batcave: The 1980s London Club Where Outsiders Could Be Themselves,” https://flashback.com/to-the-batcave-the1980s-london-club-where-outsiders-could-be-themselves-381235

“69 Dean Street and the Making of UK Club Culture,” https://shapersofthe80s.com/clubbing/69-dean-street-and-the-making-of-uk-club-culture/

“In The Batcave With Mr & Mrs Fiend: Alien Sex Fiend On Goth & Marriage,” Nix Lowrey, https://thequietus.com/interviews/alien-sex-fiend-interview