‘Restless Art’ and ‘Seagull Shaped’ are two bookends of a beautiful Manchester love affair that lasted just as long as it should have done, the latter due to be published in Best of Manchester Poets Volume 2 in December. The former - also about the indecision between two people - was originally called "Red", who provided much of the inspiration for the poem and, indeed, coined its eventual title.

 

Restless Art on Random Walls (“Red”)

 

Combinations of whisky and absinthe

mark the pages of my journey so far;

a blurry mixture of beguiling spines

and good taste, affectious company

window-dressed with all the stories

that have ever been told – conflict

between the real and the imaginary,

mistresses and devoted wives.

 

I flash back to the second

I saw her friend in that dress.

 

Restless art on random walls

questions what is real, diverts

and lingers on books

an inch of dust back on the shelf

that came home from Prague

in rucksacks, my last pennies

gambled on chance encounters,

kisses with strangers

that reached out for love;

or romance; or delusion, even;

affection that cornered us

in underground galleries

tried by trails of ghosts

who had seen and heard

all the trauma of the city,

the politics of occupation

fused redemptively with love.

 

In her time – not known to me –

Red had wandered through a House of Chalk,

paused under a pink and white umbrella

to let blue rain feather fingertips

from which sprung life;

something I had lost took my hand

led me back

to an evening of simple pleasures,

tales about our mothers and other

disparate strands which had connected us –

at least through drink – took me back to

her friend in that dress, the electricity

between us, and far from being a visitor

on the pages of my life, beguiling spines

that drew me once to crumbling bookshelves

resonated with the roar of revolution.

 

Seagull-Shaped

 

We meet at Taurus, the soft sofa cushions

dip in the middle, we are a biro-drawn

seagull shape, stretched over late September –

suspicious girlfriends, the dates we missed

 

We wonder if it’s safe to fly on one beer

brush the static-locked hairs of our arms

together as we reach for our drinks, rise

on the wind of the incoming tide, glide

 

over a city time-lapsed through taxi windows

the back of your hand brushed down my face

I didn’t notice – green moss, damp brick stains

on the back of my coat. I’d discover this later

 

Our love was a shoestring necklace, threaded

with sweet fudge screwed up in a white paper bag,

we made feasts from scraps in a rickety fridge

imprinted our bodies on the cool canvas of snow

 

a foot-deep in the meadow of the concrete forest;

friends warned us,

but we were never afraid of the wolf,  the wolf,

we were never afraid of the wolf.