By Biz Huthwaite
Location: Scarsdale Road
There is a man. Standing on the corner. Sipping a cup of coffee. Not a take-away cup, but one from his kitchen. His lip is rasping on the chipped rim each time he raises it to suck on the smooth, dark liquid. Next to him is a cat. A Siamese. Its blue collar matches the man’s blue cotton trousers. They are both disinterested in each other and in their surroundings.
The man is calm, seeming as if it’s completely normal for him to be standing there away from an entrance to any house, but not seeming to be waiting for anything, anyone. The Siamese sits. Raises her paw in time with the man lifting his coffee cup. They both lick. Him, his coffee; her, her paw. They are still looking for nothing. A car rolls by. The man, the Siamese, follow it with their eyes. Their heads are slowly moving from left to right as the man’s shirt flutters lightly across his turgid belly. Once the car has passed they resume their positions of staring blankly ahead of themselves.
A woman comes out of the house nearest to where the man and the Siamese are standing. She leans her twisted frame against the rusty bricks of her porch. She is now watching the man, the Siamese, who are still watching nothing. She squints as the sunlight burns harshly onto her retina, blocks it with her gnarled hands. They used to be smooth and dark like fine leather, but have now aged and resemble an old satchel, battered from years of use. Her lined face is a map although she herself has never left the city. The old woman wonders where the pair on the corner may end up going, instead of questioning why it is that she has never left.
The children kicking a yellow ball back and forth, back and forth down the street have not yet thought of where they will end up. Nor have they noticed the odd trio of observers a short distance away from them. They are too busy pretending to boot the sun around amongst the cars, pretending the apocalypse will come if their miniature sun happens to slide under one of the many vehicles that line the street. The ill-fitting shirts draped over their tiny frames billow like parachutes behind them as their feet dart around after the ball in too-big shoes. Tripping over themselves to save the earth, they let out fierce shrieks and simultaneously drop to the floor as the ball disappears underneath a cobalt Volvo and the apocalypse arrives. When a skinny arm fumbles blind under the sooty car, catches the ball, the world and the game start up again.
By John F Keane
Location: Whitworth Art Gallery, Oxford Road
Martin found himself in a strange, unhallowed hall. Vast canvases surrounded him, utterly abstract yet oddly inviting. It was like a clearing had opened in the world, a vast space beyond all conceptual limits. His mind-chatter ceased, exposing a sacred silence. He sensed this artist knew the world’s secret, knew all about the Hate Machine. This was art of an infinitely higher order than pop music or films. Its elements were bafflingly complex in their simplicity, deceptively artful in their crudity.
The paintings were hardly serene or remote – far from it; they were intimate statements deploying self-referential, mythic elements. They called out to him, somehow, demanding his attention.
‘Wonderful, aren’t they?’ said a gravelly voice behind him.
‘Yes – yes, they are.’
It was an old man who looked to be Jewish. Of course, he might not be: he might be anything.
‘Mark Rothko truly grasped the human condition,’ he opined expansively, his stick clicking on the polished floor. ‘He sensed the incessant pressure of modern life – the walls that bind us.’
Martin nodded: The Hate Machine.
‘He sensed correctly that religion offers no tenable salvation to modern man. His art seeks a secular solution to our “thrownness” – not unsuccessfully, if I may be so bold.’
‘Are you some kind of art expert?’
‘Some would say so. Rothko recommended the viewer should stand eighteen inches from his paintings, by the way, to feel their full effect.’
By Aaron Gow
Location: Ainsworth Road, Radcliffe
Outside didn’t look as appealing as inside. The view through the net curtain of a grey, heavy sky and faded light said gloaming; the view from the mantelpiece from the 40 years of continuous service carriage clock said morning.
Carole shuffled in her slippers from the front room window and into the kitchen, switching on the light in the process. The power-saving bulb started up dimly, a shadow of its former self, then quickly improved its disposition until it provided enough light for Carole to be sure there were no slugs on the lino.
Slugs appeared occasionally if it had been raining in the night. Carole was unsure how they got into the house as she was very careful to close the kitchen window. For Carole, there was nothing more bothersome than scraping squashed slug from the sole of her slipper, especially before she’d even had a sip from the first brew of the day. Happily, there were none this morning.
After opening the wooden roll top bread basket, Carole took out the last third of yesterday’s small white tin loaf. She took it into the back yard to the bird table and slowly rubbed the bread in her fingers until it was crumbed on the table. Carole had a brief thought that she should’ve swept off the last few days worth of crumb that had congealed and stuck together in the rain. ‘Tomorrow,’ she thought.
After drinking the first brew of the day, an instant coffee, Carole washed, pulled on some clothes and pottered off to Samson’s bakers, two streets along.
As usual Linda had only just rolled up the shutters and propped open the front door with an old flat iron. A warm, gentle steam seeped out the top of the door and into the murky autumn morning. A slight heat haze could be seen just below the ‘S’ and ‘A’ of the shop frontage.
By Andrew Neary
Location: Tyldesley, Greater Manchester
We walk through dead leaves and ten
thousand year mud, the brass band’s
bass drum’s startling chest thud
past the closed shops
and the pubs where the smiling
landladies stood at the door as
the procession went by.
Past a cafe and the town hall
to the chapel at the top
with him from number thirty four
and mrs oo’sit from
the mucky-up shop
with mums and kids with their
Sunday best on, a ruddy
cheeked veteran with
a stiff-upper-lipped face on
where lies a tale from every line
and crease in his complexion
the sarge screams after national
anthem “DISMISSED!”
Today kissed the memory
of the fallen, on a cold day
in November we shivered
and got wet.
We walked back
to our homes
drank tea and said
lest we forget.
Andrew says: ‘I listen, read and occasionally write, influenced by Simon Armitage and Morrissey. My inspirations are from northern working class history, customs and culture.’
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.’
