By Paul Knight
Location: Seymour Park, Old Trafford
I woke up this morning to a windy city
Thought I was in Kansas
My Toto curled below me
Early morning beehive at risk of flight
It whistled jaunty-like
it was taunting me to
leave if I dare
There’s no place like home I mumbled
as the warm water ran over my skin
From the door to the car
a twister stood between
Children hovered like helium balloons
jackets now twice the size
All Saturday’s expensive do’s
took a battering
and people walked like back slashes
Would I be blown to China or Salford?
Follow the mellow brick road I said to myself
It was time now
so as the open door held me back
I watched the world in a spiral
dancing plastic bags
performing in a random ballet
Hood up head down
spun like the last part of a washing cycle
I had my
courage, heart and brain in check
my picnic basket held tight
And I pirouetted to the car
and away to the Emerald City
Once more
Paul Knight says he’s an ‘old-school OT boy, now a part-time poet, full-time father. Love to dance, take pictures and live life to the fullest.’ He is a member of the Poetica writing group.
By Rachel Mann
Location: Ivylea Road, Burnage
This poem was a finalist in our Rainy City Love Stories competition
All September dad was full of the sly white cat
that flowed like mercury up our yard
to cry for chunks of supper at the kitchen door.
On Sundays we’d drool as he carved
moist white sides of chicken
the prize, the hope, the dream of our week
only to ease crispy skin, the glorious slivers
onto a saucer for the beast to sniff
guard and gobble as we watched
mutinous over our tough and greasy fare.
On weekdays mum scowled as dad left half his plate
(complaining of bilious gripe or a just too hefty dinner)
and slid liver and onions onto the creature’s patch with a caress.
Come October dad had moved on:
curtains wanted closing, the fire demanded a poke
and rheumatism was dribbling down his back like damp;
the calm of staring at the ripple of fur coiled on its step
stood no chance against crackling coals,
The Navy Lark and a comfy chair.
But the cat refused to let go.
After tea for days its mewing pierced mum’s ears
until she’d wince like she’d bit tin foil
wring her dish cloth like a chicken’s neck
and I’d hiss and shu and stare
the yellow eyes into retreat.
Now our yard is nothing more than its place for pissing
or launching flight onto the neighbour’s fence, the exotic beyond.
I saw it once, as still as a gunman composed for the kill,
ready to tear a vole. The prey – its gift – was presented
at someone else’s door.
Rachel Mann is the vicar of St Nicholas Church, Burnage.
By Sian Evans
Location: Armentieres Square, Stalybridge
I
Stagnant water
becomes
ice islands
becomes
frozen
afternoon stroll.
II
Green grass
where the sun shines
white grass
where the moon shines.
III
Beer can
coke can
soup can
refuse –
an exhibition of
IV
a mop,
a shopping basket,
three balls,
and a red scooter.
Is this art?
V
Abandoned pallet
a life raft for
strands of yellow grass.
Refuge.
VII
The ducks?
The geese?
Not even a robin.
First look,
frozen February.
Sian Evans relocated to the rainy north from the sunny south five years ago. It rains and it pours and it floods. She thought it was a myth! This, however, leaves plenty of time to spend indoors writing. Sian is studying English Literature and Creative Writing at Salford University.
By anyonita green
Location: Deansgate, near Croma
it is not that i am homesick
for the house of cards, mr simic.
i yearn for the proverbial flop
of the flimsy, two-toned structure,
replica of the place where origin
begins and comfort constructs walls.
* * *
last night we circled deansgate
with our hands tucked into the palms
of each other’s, those suits
in the high-class restaurant stared
through the window as he, his
breath warm against my cheek, slowly
lifted my skirt in the cold to reveal
unstockinged legs.
one woman blushed – yet could not
her eyes from us remove.
* * *
By Trevor Barnett
Location: Withington
Once upon a town there were just wythes here.
Local men would come to chop them down and up,
then picnic in the ancient shade of stray oaks,
and head home, a cartload of sticks and the sun behind them.
Next came the stir of roads and railways;
the four-in-hands still racing through like storms,
stopping awhile to refuel at the cattle trough,
the horses’ ears flicking sweat in the sun’s reflection.
The blitz. The only light was the screen at The Scala.
The crowds panicked in procession down the steps,
past the boy knocked off his bicycle by a bomb
and Toni, his ice cream tray round his neck, like a wreath.
Now here you are, the sun full on your face,
packing your whole life into a lorry.
The content of your memory I cannot give.
After all, it’s what you’re left without, and with.
Trevor Barnett is a poet who lives in Manchester.
