By Andrew Beswick
Location: The main junction in Stretford (where the tram station/canal is)
across Stretford
quarter moon
hilltop
the sign says
no poems please
in the cycle lane
danger of over emotional cyclists
don’t look for meaning
in the canal basin
don’t fall in love
with tattered old buildings
be careful where you ride
don’t get dreamy eyed or tragic
just concentrate on the traffic
Andrew Beswick is a Manchester-based writer who blogs at Moon Printed Shadows. http://www.andrewbeswick.blogspot.com/
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.
By Belinda Johnston
Location: Upper Lloyd Street
When I saw you last week in your tired flat
With the heating full on and Tom the cat
Bent over in pain at your kitchen sink:
It made me think
How much time had passed and I’d forgot to
Pick up the phone and say ”Hello Auntie”
When I saw you last week in your tired flat.
I bet you never thought I’d be like this
Trying to be brave, I gave you a kiss
We stood together at your kitchen sink
It made me think
Of how you used to be – fiery, trouble
Double the size in weight, you’d lost two stone
When I saw you last week in your tired flat
The stories you told and the books you read
I’ll have to lie down, will you help me to bed
We walked through your kitchen, what next?
Think, think.
Look Auntie, please… let me make you some tea
We watched the Somali boys playing football
From your kitchen sink, seeing you last week
Well, it made me think.
Belinda Johnston has been writing for two years, mostly poetry, and performs her poems in and around Manchester. She travelled to Japan in 2008 and returned to Manchester last November.
By Winston Plowes
Location: M62, J22 (Lancashire/Manchester border)
You could cut the air with a paper knife
And re-open the wounding word.
Restrained in a windowed envelope
still dying to be heard.
Deja vu on the M62,
as we passed we didn’t know.
That Britain’s highest motorway
could make us feel so low.
With only hard shoulders to cry on
in this day of contraflow tears.
As the two of us crossed over Yorkshire
both red and white roses appeared.
Fog lights reflected our faltering start
and the road noise was unrelenting.
Permanently more than two chevrons apart…
You were never the one for repenting.
Winston says: ‘After living for over 10 years in Manchester I am now a resident on the Rochdale Canal in Hebden Bridge. Among other things, my work is inspired by the Calder Valley, my interaction with the local landscape and by my 10-year-old daughter. I appear regularly as a compére and performer at open mic events in the North West and also work in cabaret and run workshops in schools.’
By Neil J. Donald
Location: Redmires Court, Salford
Will you swap me your wild flowers for my graffiti and tags?
Or your lowing pastured cattle for the bark of my stray dogs
Trade me your peace & quiet for the drone of my traffic
Your organic and natural, my synthetic and plastic
Give me your fresh air in return for my fumes
And I’ll swap you Morris Dancers for my bangin’ tunes
Trade your District & General for my A&E
Prefer Agricultural College or Polytechnic University?
Give up your green lanes for my gum-scarred streets
Or the sound of your birdsong for my siren’s wail
Have my sink estates not your landed gentry
My Iron Duke not your Plough & Flail
I’ll swap you my skate park for a memorial to the dead
Your Post Office or my Aleef News
My bagel for your brown-bread
Your one-stop-shop for J.S. Sainsbury
Little England in return for racial diversity
I’ll take your depression if you’ll have my stress
My Time Out & What’s On, your Order of Service
W.I. or Band-on-the-Wall
My E.N.O. for your Village Hall
24/7 or quiet isolation
Horse & Hound vs. Sleaze Nation
Urban Chic / Rustic Charm
E.U. subsidies or a car alarm
A 20-mile drive or my black cab ride
Will it be tower block or barn for our teenage suicide?
Is it Gucci & Prada or Barbour and wax?
Want your tenement farmers or my poll-tax
Would you give up your life for one that looks like mine?
Drink a pint of local bitter or sip New World fine wine
Want to trade?
Want to swap?
Want to give it a try?
No?
No,
You’re right,
Neither do I.
Neil J. Donald is Manchester born and bred – Chorlton and Salford – now exiled to Heywood. He says: ‘What defines Manchester is what gives its children strength.’
