NaPoWriMo 2016
CONCLUSION
First of all, congratulations to everybody who completed
the challenge of writing thirty poems in thirty days. I enjoyed doing it for
the most part, but I am, as always, a little disappointed that there are so few
pieces that I think are any good. There are one or two that I feel I can do
some more work on, and there is actually one that I have already performed, so
perhaps, things aren’t as bad as I’m painting them.
Finally, I am going to post a poem today that I wrote last
November, the working title is Manchester
Tarts:
MANCHESTER TARTS
Up in flames like the chippy on China
Lane
This car park on a vacant lot
Was once the site of the burnt out shell
Of the only shop that didn’t get bombed in the war
Shoulder to shoulder shoehorned to attention
All ages and colours and creeds
From Piccadilly to the Daily Express
With their photographic memories
Those beautiful buildings mesmerising me
Drawing us all - including you - into
The bestest little city in the world
And how we miss our china plates
Woolworth's and The Queen's Hotel
New Brown Street and Swan
Lane
And whatever happened to Tommy Ducks
For forty-five years I’ve wanted to paint you
Map you - photograph you half to death
Your shop fronts change - logos come and go
But the beauty of your facades remain
It’s funny how so many young thin
Fashionista’s like such old fashioned things
All those gold and diamond rings
That they buy from the pawn shop
Where the sex shop used to be
Some people never get sick and old
They tell the same jokes that they were told
Sell the brown brogues that they sold
In eighteen-sixty-nine and the years unfold
Like the Tib Street Parrot and the price of gold
Fashion is the passion for all ages
The vintage clothes stores are the New Oasis
The inking parlours and the piercing places
For the café cavemen and The Millstone Elvis
We all fall down in the middle Yates’s
Glitterista and her sister are out on the razz
If looks could kill in mum’s ball gown
Up to the nines in The Castle and all that jazz
The wholesale markets are well out of bounds
Advertising boards now clutter the pavements
The hairdressers and the bargain basements
From Diet Deli to the gutter - screaming
All Day Breakfast’s - Bacon and Sausage Barm’s
Non Stop Breakfasts’s - Free Coffee Refills
Hot Custard - Bakewell puddings - Manchester Tarts
But this is an empty car park on a vacant lot
That was once the site of the burnt out shell
Of the only shop that didn’t get bombed in the war
131115
