In 1996 when the IRA blew up the Arndale
I was barely able to leave my house
After getting mugged the night before
Which left me with a major limp
For the next 18 months or so
And forced me to ring around friends
That I knew would normally be there
Praying they would be at home.

In 2007 I got led out of my works
Viva an underground tunnel
I hadn’t known about previously
After it was deemed unsafe outside
To walk around the corner as normal
When a hurricane dragged a bollard
Through the Chief Exectuive’s car
And other cars onto the next street.

In 2010 I ended up leading three women
I worked alongside at the Co-operative
To Manchester Piccadilly Train Station
Like James Bond mixed with the Pier Piper
Avoiding all of the bars laced with drunk fans
Just before Ranger’s Europa Cup final
At Manchester City’s Ethiad Stadium
Just before it exploded into chaos.

In 2011, I was getting drove back home
By a kindly Ambulance Crew
Hours after getting registered with Diabetes
When we drove into a gang of youths
And barely reversed out alive
Looting a shop I used to go in for
A sandwich nearly every morning
On the way into my work.

In 2017, I walked past
Manchester Victoria Train Station
About a half a hour before
A terrorist took the lives off
22 people including children
And left me barely able
To sleep for two days afterwards
Laid in complete shock.

Each tragedy or event
Staining emotions
No matter how close
I was to the action

Cherry-picking memories
Into frozen images
Across feelings
Stuck in time

Reprinting each day
Over and over
Into a compressed version
Of Groundhog Day

Shooting grief from my heart
No matter how close to the front I was
Or whispered in braille rain
Tapping in shadow like tears

Brining my eyes
Pushing my grief aside
And carrying on
Like so so many others.


(also blogged at http://onewriterandhispc.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/from-1996-to-2017-emotional-history-off.html)

Lost in gutter talk,
The history books
Suggest it was his two brothers
Who took him to the fair
At Longford Park
Boasting of dead fireflies
Instead of fish in little bags,

And follicles of lights
In the ghost house
Almost invisible from
The roller coasters
Descending from the sky
Like space rockets
Replacing sledges.  

Crossing the meadows
Blanked in snow
With echoing laughter
The reports stated
Then missing *****
At coconuts stall
Then footballs

Before proclaiming
It was fixed
And gave up wandering
Over to the roller coaster
Leaving Billy stood there
Protesting it wasn’t

******* cheap gobsuckers
Hiding his tears
Turning a perfect illustration
Into a pastoral scene
Of fireworks
Kissing the moon

Tying themselves up
In his mouth
As a attendant said
‘Six shots for two quid, son’
Accompanying over each shot
‘Lower, lower, lower’

Crossing shots over the tins
Like pennies in keyholes
Wrestling with uneven prayers
Chiselling his nerves
Over sweatshop erected fingertips
‘Lower, lower, lower’

Knifing through
His childhood
One shot after
The other
With each target
He shot through.

Catching her tears in the breeze
From one row of headstones to the next
Some days you would see her ghost
Walking up and down
Like a private on patrol.

Entwined with the sun
Just before sunrise
Creeps over the hill
Cascading into a silent film
As the shadows sank away

Repeating his name over
Like a broken tape machine
Caught up in a tangle
Of half forgotten prayers
In at least two different languages

Echoing in the wind
Butterfly shaped with regrets
In a tidal mystery of anger
If things had been
So very different

Over skeletons of feelings
Before they turned
Into scraps of meanings
After the burnt out end of summer
Into a willow shaped autumn

Following him
To the grave
Within weeks
Filled with nothing
But regret.

Sometimes I dream
of the foghorn near the docks
whistling like a forgotten friend
in your letterbox
walking home from work
after I had left for the last time,
  
Remember the ringing of the last tram
freezing  in the air
like a photograph
before breathing too quickly
ain’t you glad you walked away?
  
Sometimes I dream of
the chime of the clock
which freezes at mid-day someday
weeping under spires
and underneath dock boats,
  
Dreaming of my heart
******* in chains
instead of knots  
before I unpicked the lock
and walked away without regret
  
stealing inspiration from the sunset.  


(From the End of Summer - https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Summer-N-Andy-ebook/dp/B01LY7YR9K/ref=sr12?s=books&ie;=UTF8&qid;=1475915722&sr;=1-2)

18 Herding screams like crocheted baubles
He plucked each target from the rooftops
With the grace of a fishermen

Slicing hairs off heads
And coke cans from hands
With a skill most of his ex army mates
Would have been proud off,

Piercing dreams with hard earned sweat
Flicking art with each bullet

Ripping policemen in half
And people running to his rescue
Into splots of paint,

Slowly drowning in his own happiness
With each ****
Unaware you can’t **** ghosts
With bullets

Until it was too late.

*

19

Swollen with nerves
Scaled around the outskirts
Of what he had just reported
The police inspector
Spent the next 10 minutes
After his interview with the press
Panting with breath,

Fathomless in his guilt
Covered in a paused sweat
Lighting cigarette after cigarette
Like a stale perfume

Fragile in increasing nerves
Out wearied across the stars
Until a colleague joined him saying
‘Did they buy it, sir?

To which he answered
'I know I wouldn't.'

Drumming across windows
In both of the toilets
Banging could frequently be heard
Dragging chairs under the stairs
In the entrance hall

Thawed in the cheesy music
Leading to the main bar
Twitching across your back
Like a whistle blower
Drowned out by the noise

Over the sticky floors
And watered down lager
Curving into a maze of bodies
Aglow in a series of frantic lights
Sweeping diamonds in their dreams

Caged with the TV Screen
Dangling half drunk from the ceiling
Scrunched with a frightening rage
Held back by invisible hands
Wishing for the carnage to end

Over the top of a sign that always said
Drinking, dancing, cavorting
While the revernd sits there unseen
Constantly spitting feathers
Throwing toilet paper in the air

And attempting to push staff
Down the stairs as if to say
They weren’t getting out of there
Anywhere near quick enough
For his liking.


(Brannigans  is a now closed Bar in the centre of Manchester which was reportingly haunted by Reverend Collier, a fierce anti alcohol revernald at the start of the 20th Century of which his church, Albert Halls became Brannigans at one point).

Shrink wrapped in a breath-riled panic,
The violence was over
Before a word could be splattered

Blood covered like a trail of chalk
Unbranded up and down the waiting area
With broken glass slumped on seats

Drenched in split skin and broken nails
All the way down the escalators
And back onto the main concourse

Lining the ceiling in screams
As the rifle opened fire over and over

Concealed in warnings

You had warned me about
Half an hour before

Which I had stupidly ignored
Dismissing it as a gust of wind
Instead of a warning that
History was going to repeat itself.



(A Short Prologue of a epic Poem to start as part of NapWrimo in April.
There will be a second Prologue in March. Get in touch if interested in getting involved)