By Linda Cosgriff
Location: Laburnum Way, Cheadle Heath
Mother shrieks at daughter,
‘Be ladylike!’
Old lady on daily Bingo trek
stumbles over
delinquent pavement;
no-one heeds her screams.
Teenagers screech
past on stolen motorbikes:
no helmets. If brains
strike pavement,
will it matter?
I see my world and
weep at the
stench of
hope gone
awry.
Linda Cosgriff is a wife, mother and Open University graduate. She hopes to start an MA in creative writing in 2010. She wrote this poem during the Rainy City Stories writing workshop at Stockport Art Gallery
By Cathy Bolton
Location: Broom Lane, Levenshulme
The back yard after rain: a blackbird singing in the overgrown
forsythia and a Tibetan prayer flag of women’s underwear.
Beyond the thigh-high fence, identical white shirts pegged
shoulder to shoulder: table footballers shooting the breeze.
A man on Broom Lane wants to know if you’ve seen his fiancée;
a diamond fat as a knuckle. You don’t trust his tattooed hands.
Tramping through snow in Highfield Country Park, rusting
suspensions bleached from sight – sudden stink of fox.
6.30am at the bus stop, conversation thin, the moon huge
and silver, helium filled, drifting over Burnage.
Two Asian men in white hairnets sharing a cigarette
outside McVities, the rain sweet as a biscuit.
Foggy morning, a one woman police cordon
at the end of the street, no blood, no front page news.
Cathy Bolton is a founding member of the A6 Poets. She lives in Levenshulme – a surprisingly fertile source of inspiration. Her poetry and short stories have been published in a wide range of literary journals and anthologies. She has just completed an MA in writing and been awarded the Ictus Prize from Sheffield Hallam University.
By Alex Keelan
Location: Weaste Metro stop, Salford
Weaste not blessed with colour
Industry fills its heart.
With often a funny odour
Yeastie industrial fart.
I took a photo of my sister by the met stop on our way into town
I used my new four-lens camera and snapped as she turned around.
Action shot with light streaming through the newly planted tree
The four images made Weaste look beautiful to me.
It revealed nothing of the grey industrialness
Nothing of regeneration, old meets new broken community mess.
It looks beautiful and bright
No flat-pack new development flats in sight
No gated communities to keep out the masses
No shopping trolleys in the street and broken glasses.
Just a colourful image for your eyes to feast
No waste and yeast equal Weaste.
Alex Keelan works for Manchester City Council and writes in her spare time.
By Lydia Unsworth
Location: Moss Lane East, Rusholme
time and tide wait for no man
although there were times i was tied to it
tied to rough faces
and mice running out of clothes
we had outgrown
or ground down into silence
thread-bare
-ing our souls to anyone who would listen
or at least anyone willing to raise the stakes
through our hearts
HGVs shake through kitchens
and mugs rattle in unsteady hands
the walls came down
but it brought us closer together
six in a bed on christmas day
it makes life easier
to only need one bucket
one mop
for all the tears
in bedsheets, lining
faces
itching into unknown pillows
with suspense or suspenders
because that’s what waiting feels like
or it feels like another can of beer
a floor made of recesses and
beached bodies
wailing
without the elegance
required of catalogue poses
which pile up by the door
bearing the names of ex-tenants
and a new kind of evolution
for £238pppm
all inclusive
Lydia Unsworth says: ‘Biog: 27. Girl. Born in Salford. 1982. June in the evening. Studied art. Study maths. Moving to Poland for a while.’ http://gettingoverthemoon.blogspot.com
By Sean Gibson
Location: Bus Stop, Stretford Road, Old Trafford
A disturbance in the distance,
The traffic lights twinkle – late
As usual, so casual,
In tell-tale attire,
The tired white coat
And dash of pink.
Lazy, she loiters,
Lumbers towards me,
With a clunk,
And a…
Clink.
She’s a noisy beggar.
This is Yesterday,
Today
…
And Tomorrow
Sean Gibson is a 17 year-old A-level student at Xaverian College, studying ancient history, maths and Spanish. He enjoys singing, reading, playing the guitar and playing and watching football. He enjoys writing creatively in any form but his preference is poetry. He hopes to go to university next year, to study ancient history. After that, who knows?
