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Thia Jones  Mar 2014
Trains
Thia Jones Mar 2014
Trains at the bottom of the garden
metal dragons breathing out smoke and steam
huffing and puffing, waiting for the signal
some compact with tanks affixed
others larger, more grand
pulling colour matched tenders
sometimes bearing shields and names
beginning with 'Duchess' or 'City'
mostly black, some rusty
deep reds or greens
with contrasting lines edged in gold

Once one came in matt pink
and I wondered why it didn't gleam
like the others, perhaps pink
was a colour not to be given
it's equal due with other
less feminine shades
it had to be denied vibrancy
yet I loved the pink one best
later I learned somehow
that the colour was that
of the primer used
to inhibit the rust
and my pink engine
was just an unfinished paint job
pressed into service
prematurely to give cover
for another that was broken

I wrote down the numbers regardless
it was a ritual that one performed
though I didn't understand why
yet it was exciting
to record a new one
that hadn't passed before

Behind the business end
came carriages laden heavy
with the visitors of summer
come to fill our beaches
and our town with their loudness
their raucous laughter
with strange accents
brummie, scouse, mancunian
faces pressed against glass
expectant, excited, impatient
almost there now
anxious that this last delay
pass quickly and the half mile
remaining be completed

We would lurk beneath the bridge
like adopted troll children
it was cool there in the summer heat
darting out from behind pillars
or in my case watchfully, cautiously
edging my way forward
to place pennies on the track
or sometimes nails
then to retrieve them
flattened, thinned, squashed
once the train had passed
sometimes we'd wait hours
or so it seemed
sometimes no train would come
and we would trail home
for tea and bath and bed
leaving our offerings
to the gods of the rail
for rediscovery and inspection
the following day.

Cynthia Pauline Jones 17/10/13
Gonzalo Bartleby Nov 2017
The stars are out
and you know the way
- Piccadilly, Rusholme,
Withington, Wythenshawe.
These are names that could
freeze your soul in blue
and maybe light a candle
in the dark if you could
only find a spark.
Every building is an open door,
every street an absent flower
that unkown gods collected
long ago when it was raining.
This is England - a promise.
I tell myself - there is a plan.
Just follow through,
be yourself, smile under
this weird constellation and
expect the unexpected,
what you want will happen,
it's just probability
and probability is
always on your side
when you are in Manchester.
Thinking about this city again.
Gonzalo Bartleby Apr 2017
I live in this city alone.
It is always cloudy here.
It is cold and it rains all the time
but you could find love
if you wanted. That's what
I tell myself when I'm wet and cold
on a lonely street, walking home.
You could look through the window
of an old Victorian house and,
seeing a beautiful family
in a living room full of books,
think “this could be my family”.
Or, on another reality, “that
could be me, as a child or, maybe
one day, as a father”.
The city has no limits, take advantage,
this could be your land.
You could call this city home,
bend it it to your will
if you wanted to.
Take this city in your hands
and squeeze it.
Forge a big heart out of it
or some wings.
Just give it a chance,
it’s not too late
and you still need to get home
and it's ****** raining
                                   again.
The wish to call the place where we live home. May it be this city - Manchester, UK?
Steven J Kelly Mar 2018
We are Manchester. The City, The place, we’re hospitable people with a smile on our face. You can beat us, mistreat us, and blow us to hell. We have had it all before and we don’t dwell. We’re the northern powerhouse of the northwestern elite, Where the Geordie's, The Scousers, The Yorkshire’s retreat. The premier League, The Roses Cricket, The Heineken Cup Is a one way ticket. United and City two football teams with stadiums full, bursting at the seams.

We are Mancunians Of this fair City, The People, The Love, The old nitty gritty The worker, The Shirker, The Homeless, The immigrants, each one of these they are all itinerants. The Steel, The Cotton, long since forgotten the old smokey chimneys blew out smoke that was rotten. The Massacre at Peterloo. Local politicians just don’t have a clue. With all the sights this city has on show here’s something that people don’t really know. Manchester is where New Zealand Born Ernest Rutherford split the Atom.

We Are Manchester, The City, the Place, where Sir Humphrey Chetham has his musical grace a school of music with musical taste. And where a  man with a paintbrush painted streets on boxes. I don’t think Lowry ever painted foxes. And A comedian from Collyhurst who was absolutely awesome, a real funny guy by the name of Les Dawson, and where a man from Chorlton on Medlock became Prime Minister back in the day. David Lloyd-George had a hell of  a lot to say.

We Are Manchester and it's the place for me. And a proud Mancunian I’m glad to be. I’ll sit in a cafe watching people pass by. They are all in a hurry and I wonder why. I see a business man in a three piece suit, and the homeless guy that is counting his loot. There's the ******* the street giving out free papers she is smoking those ciggies that give off those vapours. It's pouring with rain and she’s getting wet she’s worried about money to pay off her debt.

We Are Manchester and this is our City don’t waste your time we don’t want no pity. We are Manchester we are steeped in tradition we leave other cities standing. There’s no competition. Where A man from Moss Side a Vicar not a Dean called Rev George Garrett invented the submarine. And where the great Anthony Wilson was a journalist & impresario and a man named John  Nichols invented the great drink called Vimto. and so When he wrote “This Is the Place” I’m sure he did so with a smile on his face. We Are Manchester and I’ll state our case because we are Manchester and we are ace.
© Copyright Steven Kelly 1989-2018 Kellywood Productions 2018 All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
for however much i'd like to glorify the glorious wintry
months...
   and i must: glorify the winter:
for those splendours of the almost eternal nights...
as if i were living on the Faroe Islands or elsewhere
in that sort of dynamic of light...
   the biting cold: like the pinching of ***** on your skin...
or the frost, ice... one pavement at night...
tilting your head from left to right...
exposing a "red carpet" of paparazzi flashing of
the camera with ice particles lodged in the cracks...
but...
there's nothing quiet like waking up naturally
in May with the sunrise...
   even though you've set your alarm clock for 7am...
you wake up naturally with the light rising
at around 6am... almost like someone who is about
to go into the field and use a scythe to cut down
shafts of wheat...
    i find no compromise in that feeling...
i don't even mind the insects busying themselves
with a daily activity of "business": esp. if they're not bees...
even flies don't bother me ******* out their
maggot juices into steaming crops of garbage...
not when i wake up naturally with the sunrise...
i abhor alarm clocks: it's so unnatural to wake up
to their dictates: well... the dictates you yourself have set
up... besides the point...
alarm clocks should only be used during the winter
months... in the spring and summer months...
you shouldn't be sleeping with your blinds closed...
the light should wake you up:
calmly: gradually... no one want to be woken up
with a cold shower... in shock: subsequently looking
for a caffeine fix... to equilibrate... his bewildered
circumstance... best to fall asleep with the blinds open:
allowing the sunshine to creep in...
slowly ungluing your eyes...

        - and i don't mean this as some sort of
"neo-****" joke... the maxim above Auschwitz:
arbeit mach frei...
    that work sets you free...
        you must first spend your 20s locked up in
an ivory tower of creativity...
you must truly become isolated from people...
learn and relearn to have two legs to stand on:
two hands to wave and point with...
two eyes and a least one tongue to waggle...
    Bukowski famously wrote about the drudgery of work...
am i going to be the first person who will
write about work with pleasure?

even today: i don't understand why the stereotype of
northerners is so harsh by "us" southerners...
today? Sunderland vs. Wycombe Wanderers...
i was working the vomitory on the Sunderland side
of the affair...
well... there is one stereotype that rings true
about northerners... the Mancunians...
i actually don't like people from Manchester...
that demonym: borrowed from demographic...
is already unappealing...
i like the words Scouser... Geordie...
  but a Mancunian is a lying **** of a coo-nigh-ain...
i don't know why...
it's this pride-vibe relating to Mancunians
feeling themselves superior to anyone from Liverpool
or Newcastle of Sunderland...

fair enough, i was chewing my gum...
three Sunderland lads came into my vicinity...
one asked: what politeness... aye aye... you couldn't
try to get a YES... but? no chance...
aye aye...
                  great conversations...
but then one sneezed and his snot-phlegm landed
on my trousers...
i opened my mouth and started to chew
the chewing gum by also exposing my teeth...
i was sort of trying to hide the fact that...
hey! mate! why not as well ******* your *****
onto my tie while you're at it!

Bukowski wrote about the drudgery of work...
as a postman... delivering letters...
i don't expect he had to deal with old men
filing complaints about people ahead of them
in the stands standing up...
i had two neurotic old men today...
why are they standing up! blah blah, blah blah...

but these northerners... thank **** i lived among
the Scots for 3 years... i sort of know what to expect...
the loveliest sorts...
and the women? unlike southern girls...
so approachable... likeable.. curvy...
if it isn't a girl from Liverpool kissing your cheek...
then it's probably a girl from Sunderland
coming up to you: grabbing your beard...
stroking it...
      like i'm going to turn into a ******* leprechaun
and have my hear patted...
or turn into a hunchback of Notre Dame
and have my hunch stroked for good luck...
all: in good humour...

a goal is scored and the fans don't start hugging
other fans... just these "*******": traffic-cones
in high-viz. vests...
  
        i don't think this is work: to begin with...
maybe that's why i like writing about it...
maybe that's why this isn't drudgery...
    then again: the peace and quiet of delivering
letters... spam... with the email around...
                   maybe i just love people too much...
but i kept it hidden...
but why is it... that the further north you go:
the girls become prettier...
sure... they might be slightly on the chubby side...
what's that saying from high-school?
ah ha ha... ahem... ahem...
more-cushion'-for-the-pushin'...
        
after all... what was the trend back in post-medieval times?
the more blub on a girl the more attractive
she became...
    i could work around that...
ask long as her fat *** matches up to...
her fat *******...

eye-contact... hugs... getting my beard stroked...
i think that if my... "i think":
when my parents finally kick the bucket
i'll be thinking about moving up north...
Liverpool... Newcastle... i don't think i'll be able
to stomach London on my own...
i just love the people from up north...
so far: so good...

and it's almost funny... living in London for so long...
England really is a...
racial homogeneity...
                     maybe that's why i'm so relate-able...
pacifier...
             fair-enough: it's "not fair"...
                         not by the colour of the skin
but by the judgement of the character...
   honestly?
                   i find this statement morphed a little:
since it predicates that somehow white people
have a bad character...
but even the copper necks know this is a farce...
at least the ones that appreciate that
that narrative spewed by the masochistic whites
of a liberal persuasion is off the ******* planet!

like today: one Egyptian? Persian...
oh no... no a copper neck... more Aryan looking...
in the original sense of the word
asked the supervisor: can i work with him?
obviously i was assigned a chubby girl...
i still would... if she just slapped some make-up
on and did her hair in a style that didn't resemble
Shiva's head-knot... i still would...

i become tired: i become *****...
    i was walking home today... bought some lunch
for tomorrow... drank a cider... smoke a cigarette...
finally! life!
         work is not work but a hobby!
interacting with people after my dreaded hiatus!
anger management... of some truly neurotic people...
goose-fra-b'ah...
    go to bed quarter to 12am... wake up with the sunrise
come 6am... take a shower... fiddle with shoelaces...
shine those same shoes...
drink a coffee... attire myself with at least
7 different chemical substances...
turning impatient about Monday and painting
the fence... a glorious burn of auburn brown...

when my parents will pass-off... hmm...
i think i'll move up north...
the houses are cheaper up there...
    not that London bores me...
         but... there's too much of London
to even begin getting bored of it...
i feel the north of England calling me...
with each kiss on the cheek by a gal from Liverpool
by every stroke of the beard
by a gal from Sunderland...

     almost like a dog: doesn't anyone and everyone
require a feeling of being loved?
i think these northern gals are really
"conservative" in that they're not this global /
cosmic circus of poly-ethnicities coming together...
i think that's where the true England
is at... i want to explore it...

   i kind of like being showed these little showcasing
of a stranger's love for a stranger...
i didn't have to be kissed... on the cheek...
i didn't have to have m beard being adored...
with strokes... of a woman's hand...
my god... her hand felt s hot on my biceps...
by now i don't care whether or not she was
a ******* the BIG side...
        of "things": details...
            
         if i could salvage the life of a beached whale:
i would... like my grandfather taught me:
there are not ugly women in this world:
there are only abandoned women...
by abandoned women?
what did he imply?
   women who... have been underappreciated
by men...
                  even if she's a tease of chubby...
but she has milk skin...
  it's a walk-through...

i'm working but i'm not working...
   not at this rate... hugs, kisses... etc.
             half of me is watching the match... half is so disinterested
in it: since half of me has seen so much of that coliseum
*******: i want more! faces! circus! bread!

i think i'm going to relax...
sleep with my cat... i think i'll just do that...
go to bed come 12am... wake up at 6am...
sure... it would be great to have ****** prior...
i'm free throughout the rest of the week...
the brothel calls...

and here was me worried:
£1700+ savings on one account...
£900+ savings on another account...
    and do i have to worry about paying off a mortage?
last time: i heard the resounding echo of: NO...
so...
             investments in books...
in banknotes... stamps...
                              
             i'm sort of cured of caring for money...
i like earning money...
for: what i find to be: **** all...
because the money i earn goes into art galleries
or prostitutes...
while i pay off my life debts for food by doing
household DIY chores...

the basics that life allows:
hardly going fishing... hardly any fish in the matter...
all the better.

— The End —