First Impressions, 1980

By Martin Zarrop

Location: Portland Street

People talk to you here
but not in English
and the rain is cold
on the grim streets
that run for their lives
past empty Victoriana,
lost empires.

At night, the city
sheds its humanity, lies
unwashed in the glow
of fag ends, crushed
and dying among
the grey detritus of
northern mouths.

Martin Zarrop is an (almost) retired applied mathematician who started writing poetry in 2006. He is currently midway through an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester University. He attended Rainy City Stories’ recent Writing About Place workshop in Hale, with Nicholas Royle.