Tag Archives: Manchester

TED

TED

…as if the stone’s mind came feeling
A fantasy of directions
                  
                            “Pibroch”)
       
                   
it is a Winter truth:
every
    library is
a mausoleum

every poem
a tomb

I think it must have been,
if memory serves, in
an old revamped cotton
trade building
that I sat amidst a throng
of hopelessly
eager Mancunians

devouring your every
brooding, grizzled,
Yorkshire syllable

seemingly homespun, yet
distinctly Oxbridge academic,
web of
   sturdy twine

each thick, visceral, seed-
spilling phrase
     falling like iron
parables
on every kind of ground

Mozart, shark,
  hawk from a handsaw,
you were
obviously speaking
of yourself

as we all do
                 (be do)

metal scraping white ceramic

outside
   I am released into the gravel air

pause
  for a moment to think of Sylvia

****

old stone
older even than
the cathedrals of conquest
my ancestors
                  built everywhere

petrified
    as to what I might find

I too fish for archetypes
rustic rivers, industrial canals

stuff down there for sure
with more
    skewed history than
sets of pram wheels

dull green-gray these waters
of artifice
        nothing gurgling yet
we
    were no doubt told
means to
our emancipation

***

my grandfather buried here
think he
      might have cultivated
a bit of interest
in the craft you
were here espousing

my boys
were the poets of his war

the ones
who died writing, or
returned
     to ditch their medals
at the river bottom

common trade
common seam

                  painful
                  perpetual

clear as the first sharp
thought in the mind of a stone.

MIKE

MIKE

great a Tae Kwon Do
(gang of young heavies
round at our little house
to claim money
owed them)
me smiling like Mr Niceguy
carving knife hidden
behind the couch cushion
behind me)

not so good at popping
ligjtbulbs with a airgun
in our kitchen
firing range
     my sniper’s instinct
something we did
not share
   (hope you do not feel
that I
am sniping at
you now

       catching you for all
and suddenly in terrible
cross-hairs)

and you
    always so ultra mod and style
and fashion and look conscious
didn”t ever
imagine members of
your sacred tribe could be
as narcissistic
as that

and that beautiful Tess of
the D’Urbervilles girl you
took into
your bedroom
        moaning with
vociferous pleasure at
whatever you
were
    doing to me

and me as per usual
univolved, unsatisfied
and she
exactly my type

and our little terraced house
in the collapsing inner city area
just a stone’s throw
from City’s
       great storied ground (before
greener pastures
called
    courtesy of Arab money

and the job you hooked up
for both of us guarding
the then
Polytechnic
   lecture roomz downstairs,
unisexual residences
upper floors

place where
       I had my David Bowman
2001 out
of the body experience

place where we
played football with
the cleaning
crew in
    a basement corridor

place where you insisted
I read every page of
this book you
swore
    I would swear was
“even better than
Ulysses”

never heard of Thomas Pynchon then
or his 1973 masterpiece
of apocalyptic
         postmodernism

and the crazy way
that year’s cup final
followed
   the track of the channel
we were watching

Arsenal
      better (who would have
guessed!) on BBC
on ITV
    United suddenly, magically,
with all the mastery

2-0 down at halftime least we
United fans could do
(with the muscle of
the biggest United in
the room
   who just so
happened to
   be younger brother)

was cool
all that Gunner ardour
and rampant triumphalism
down
    a cold cold bath
up the stairs
strategically waiting

one night
at the Poly workplace
(Manchester Central
University now) they
left the
     door to the upstairs rooms
completely unlocked

and there I wandered
taking in everything

finding myself on a balcony
looking out
    into the night lights of
this
   sleeping, dreaming
city of
my birth and
place of study

wondering where
this world was at and
where
    I was heading

what
    other
      strange definitive friendships
would carry further
along
   whatever track

and which
    friendships, to my shame,
I would
let disappear

OVERLOOKED

OVERLOOKED

I awake
fresh from nightmare

lost my way in a city
of memory spiralling upwards
into the mountains
totally transformed beyomd
all that I
can remember
wanting
    to get home
needing to get home

but no sense of direction
as with every step
I climb higher
and higher
passing a giant cathedral
like structure, itself
like a mountain with
a trio of spires as
its peaks, its pinnacles

all the wonder
    I should feel submerged
by the fear

and no way of phoning you
because I am
out of reception, do
not have
your number
so far for you
to drive
      in the night to
collect me

your death three years ealier
somehow dream- forgotten
crucially overlooked