(Day 30) Final Poem

Just as you thought
The city had turned into cubes
And our lives had burnt themselves out
Into shadows dropping off the quays
You remember how things were different.

Remember Elm trees
Tied up high fences
Like prisoners of war
And limping trains passing
With open begging bowls.

Helicophers tracking your 
Movements in the skies
And gateposts rattling in the wind
With the slight stench of petals
Twisting like kisses.

Thin palls of mist
Freezing the sunset
And choking the smoke
From the nearby factory
Until it stops,

Swirling in the past

Embracing what comes next.

(Thanks to all for reading. this poem is closure in more than one way.
While i will be glad of the rest, it has been great fun. I have uploaded the collection onto lulu should you wish to buy a hard copy of it - it is here http://www.lulu.com/shop/andy-n/30-poems-in-30-days-2013/paperback/product-20998224.html)

(Day 29) Subtle Escape

Yes, I have no further documents

of my past I can draw on.

No memories left in the ruins

Of my second school

Which almost caused me

A breakdown at 15

Or anything about being at

Youth training 18 months later

Which managed that.

Nothing about working at Macess

In Trafford Park

Or Easi Trim twenty yards up the road

Both of which had me sweeping

Up the car park

During my first day.

Nothing about working in Castlefield Art Gallery

After fleeding my first scheme

After being beat up several times

And frequently getting my hours mixed up

Or Marks Menswear

Who got rid of me on my fourth day

After incorrectly measuring up a customer

And nearly choked him.

Nothing about eight and a half years

At Great Universal at 2 jobs I hated

And a year temping as a kitchen porter

Here, there and anywhere

It becomes like a Jigsaw puzzle

Where I actually worked,

Buried in a maddening kiss

So each place became as much

As a race

But a leap across high fences

A leap from page to page

Life to life

Burying myself constantly

In subtle escapes

From each place

Constantly re-inventing myself.

(Day 29 was sadly wrote before the prompt for today came through which asked us to throw in bits of other languages into the pieces. I did actually try here but the piece told me to forget it and bits of my past instead came into it)

(Day 28) Aborted Phone Call

I ring you in the usual way

But you drop the phone

When you hear my voice

Leaving me with nothing

But the droning ambience

Of an aborted call.

Perhaps you are still in bed

After a late, late night

I had forgotten you mentioning

You were going on drinking wine

And couldn’t be bothered

Staggering out of bed to

Answer the phone

Or maybe your cat

Has instead of missing

The dressing table

After jumping from your bed

Has jumped over the suite

Onto the window

And knocked the phone flying.

Perhaps it was a BT error

Or you are on the phone

To your mate, Steve

For one of your epic three hour calls

Which frequently has me thinking

What the hell you could talk about

For so long

And is meant to feel minor

When Steve says he sometimes

Talk to one of your ex’s all night long

Sometimes,

Or maybe your are rushing off

To the shop across the road

To pay your lottery ticket

Before rushing off to the doctors

Or Asda up the road before it closes

And couldn’t be bothered

Answering my call

At least then.

Either way it still hasn’t

Clouded my love for you.

(Day 28 was a true story from a day or two before
but is a nice poem for my other half, Cathy)

(Day 27) Land's End

Over the cliff I can see

The sea choking itself

Before scattering itself

Over the rocks.

The sun jumping up and down

The tip of the horizon

And it’s rays

Drawing the waves in

Like mermaids

Would tease Sailors,

Twirling with broken rakes

And folding their arms

With a naked burst of sweat

Swaying across broken flowers

And dense, un-scattered sand,

Before bleeding countsleely

On the bay

In a blood soaked sunset.

Arrow driven

At land’s end.

(Day 27 came about from a dream I had stood at Land's End near Cornwall
somewhere I had read about the previous day but alas had never been) 

(Day 26) Skywriting

Skywriting across ripples of wood

And the brow of the hill

Over the horizons of the hotel

Into a review of the waves.

Skywriting across rainbows

Pretending to have fun

Blindfolded into a barrel of

Sniggering windswept giggles.

Skywriting with a ball point pen

Through pateroral scenes

Of short breaks

Before waving goodbye.

Skywriting through Cleverleys

Onto Fleetwood

And past the pensioners

Waiting outside our hotel.

Skywriting in forgotten whispers

With the stones of experiences

And ferries which remind

Tied up in my heart,

Facing the wrong way home. 

(Day 26 is alas another Blackpool poem which came to light today

after watching the writing in this sky this morning)

(Day 25) Questions without Answers

Maybe it was something

To do with the radio

Blasting out Quo then Robbie Wiliams

And the driver’s out of tune vocals

Dancing across the rain/

The two teenagers asleep at

Just outside the graveyard with the Smiths

Chattering in the rain

Or the tramp shuffling

On the doorstep of the travel lodge.

An now ex friend running late

To pick up her daughter from the childminders

Or the Policeman stood up the road

With a kehab dripping off his jacket

As he tells off a speeding driver.

Street lights turning grey

Then flashing blue

And pub doors clattering shut

Like old western saloon doors

In and out of the wind.

Movements weaving together

In the weather

Like a jigsaw

Before changing halfway completed

To a game of cluedo,

Before hurling themselves

Into the river

Like a cult finally giving up,

 Movements stretched skyward

With umbrellas and caps

Dancing in the heavens

Painted in red blue blood,

Leaving you with more questions

Than answers.

(Day 25 is a kinda the morning after poem after

The previous night with a jigsaw feeling like

A mood that morning as I was left with

A series of questions separated from answers) 

(Day 24) Answers without Questions

Something about the hiss of the rain

And the sound of the taxi door

Stroking our umbrella

Before you empty it all over me.

Something about the moonlight

And the purple skies

Kissing like naked cousins

Drunk on raspberry cider.

Moments stitched together

Clothed in shades of emotion

And rattling shoes

Dripping in rain,

While the sound of the buzzer

Echoes down the hall

Before suddenly slamming shut

In the knife throwing breeze.

(Day 24 was wrote in the middle of still crippling back pain

after a lovely evening meal with my partner when getting out

of the taxi the weather outside looked like a series of answers

without questions ). 

(Day 23) Let's hope..

Let's hope Spring stays this year longer
Than a garbled afterthought.

Let's hope in this Spring 
We are able to wander round the meadows
Near where I was born
And this Spring we are able to walk
Past the horses which always sigh at me
With a look at me you again?

Let's hope in this Spring 
We are able to walk down past the river
Round the back of Guide Bridge station
Like we wanted to do last Summer
And got stopped at least three times
By the rain.

Let's hope in this Spring
We will be able to wear shorts 
A bit more than we did last year
And this Spring
Neither of us get hit again
With Summer Flu
And don't pass it backwards
And forwards to each other
Like a warped game of tennis.

Let's hope in this Spring
We have a nice break away
And not in a hotel which 
Looks like it should have put down
Thirty years ago
And the wind keeps trying to
Throw my hat into the ocean,

Before shifting back again
Into Winter in the middle of April.

(Day 23 as noted in Day 22 was also wrote in spiralling pain
And was originally going to be a earth poem but the reasonably
Nice weather produced this Spring like poem again instead). 

(Day 22) Divorced Memories

I know you still miss
Those old rock t shirts
Which you used to parade
All over your back
Like steel tipped arrows.

Miss bouncing off the walls
Off the fishbowls
And off Big Mac Dave
When headbanging
To Nine Inch Nails's Closer
Even thou you are glad
You have now lost touch. 

Know you still miss
Your hair down your back
And the way some of the kids
Used to call you a girl
Before smiling at you mother
When she complains
About your brother
Looking like a reject
From ZZ top.

Memories and music
Interspred in the past
Like lost countries 
Divorced and sent
Into exile.

Divorced with
A special vitality 
Scattered like leaves
Into dustbins
You see how it was,

And despite the regrets
You wouldn't change a thing.

(Day 22 sadly was wrote when ill with back problems and the pain brought backMemories of bad pain when headbanging in Rock World and 
the poem became a elegy to a former self). 

(Day 21) In Flames

As I gazed at the flames of the fire

I could see your photograph burning

Until I could hear it crackling

Like a siren’s song in reverse.

I could see your smile over and over

Until it melted like cheese

Into the ashes of the flames

And the smell of that last kiss

Screamed shut against the smoke.

And with it what was once my love.


(Was out today so missed the prompt so instead wrote this short piece
looking at a fire at my parent's house and this story which is fictional
sorta told itself) 

(Day 20) Anonymous Affair

Striped lights lay across

Purple open curtains

With fragmented train tickets

Tucked in the table

When you said you loved me.

Unlit sunrises

Blinking behind clouds

Like an anonymous affair

Gone haywire

When you said you loved me.

Lost in days adrift

Crossing concrete deserts

And words like train journeys

Instead of a steaming hot coach

When you said you loved me

Which still Echoes down the hallway.

(Day 20 happened as a kinda sequel to Day 19 which described
the leaving of a holiday. This is on the journey back home)

(Day 19) Leaving Blackpool

Leaving Blackpool

All we could remember

Was the wind

Spitting in our face

To take it with us

Like a begging child.

Rarely the high street

With the shops swinging shut

Like ghosts

And the North Pier’s gates

In the wind

Despite the effort

Of the workmen.

Rarely the trams

Slipping on the tracks

And cars constantly

Doing at least 50

In a 30 mile zone.

Rarely the hotel

Which looked like the great wall

Of China

But had cracks in

The window,

Out of date wallpaper

And a cruise singer

That would have been

Too cheesy for Phoenix nights.

All we could remember

Was the half built Sainsburys

Outside the station

Lingering sketeal

Outside the station

Like  a pack of cards

Half built into a house

But always

Always the wind

Wrestling for your attention

Reeking of dropped suncream

Over the horizon of a child’s hair

Which for a moment

Looks like seagull crap

Black on the moon’s face. 

(Day 19 I was still away on. This is reflections upon leaving Blackpool. I didn't see
the prompt that day)

(Day 18) North Pier Storms

The sea calls me constantly
with watery blue eyes
and greying lines of separation
blindfolded into a barrel of
sniggering windswept giggles.

The sea calls me over and over
in forgotten, broken languahes
almost out of earshot
away from your loving arms
with a emphasis bordering on cruelty,

across dust over tracks
leading to the ferries
and pastoral scenes
collected in stained rain
before whispering goodbye,

leaving codes in the clouds
and tears on my collar
bordering on jealously,

skywriting in slow motion
with the early morning storms.

(Was away on Day 18 of Napwimo was don't know what the prompt was.
This however was wrote after a early morning walk in the rain near blackpool
north pier)

(Day 17) The day Nicolae Ceausescu died

Everybody was stood there

And waited in silence

In a nervous excitement

As they heard them both led outside

With their hands strapped

Firmly behind their backs.

Some had marched

From villages nobody had heard off

And others had been at Timisoara Square

Watching the tanks

Crunch across the pavements

Like splinters in oceans.

Some wanted to cheer afterwards

But were hushed quiet

By their superiors

And whispered to show respect

While others simply

Spat in the snow.

Some had experienced

The food rationing

And grew up with the blackouts

Accepting the suffering

For the ultimate good.

Hundreds had volunteered

And most barely

Kept a straight face

When the shots laced round the side

Colliding almost un-noticed

In the night breeze,

Buried in small change

Blood soaked in the drops

Of a rising snow storm,

A revolution whispered in the past,

A reality still tapping on the doors

Of lessons not yet learnt. 

(This piece came inspired by Scott Walker's last album 'Bish Bosh'

which featured a song called ' the day the Conducator died. 

Interested I chose to read up on Nicolae Ceausescu, who was 

put to death in by all accounts a botched trial on Christmas Day

and this piece sort of told itself)

(Day 16) Silent

This time I chose to be silent

And look at life from inside

Instead of running into the headlights.

This time I chose to be silent

And listen to the church bells whistling

Instead of trying to pull them down.

Look at life from a different angle

And not jump to the wrong conclusions

And measure it out in a different voice.

And this time embrace the past

Instead of trying to kick it in the head

Like you would have once done.

(Day 15) The Other Side of the Gate

 

 

(First of all, on my main blogsite and write out loud, I have blogged

a poem about Hillsborough which was a football diaster which happened

in 1989 today or roundabouts. It is not a napwimo poem as it was wrote

at the end of last month but previously unpublished and wrote in

memory of the people who were killed. This can be read here and here.

 

My poem today followed the prompt by Jo Bell who asked us to

write about our favourite place. This was going to be a school poem

as I walked past a old school this morning but the poem took a life

of it's own later.

 

Enjoy

 

Andy N)

 

 

On the other side of the gate
I can see you smiling
Like a window with a polished surface
As you whisper my name twice
Causing my glasses to steam up.

 

Once upon a time
I would have stood where you were
On the other side of the gate
Tracking footsteps every lunchtime

 

Dropping my sandwiches
In the sandpit

 

And trying to dig under
The school fences.

 

Once upon a time
I would have stood there
Tied up in moth like chains

 

Head locked in inter school fights
Across the football pitches

 

Numbed in broken illusions
And bullying class mates
On the other side of the gates
Before I flew away
Like a butterfly in full motion,

 

Forever inside looking out.

 

Forever.

 

 

 

 

(Day 14) Refugee from the past

Those hills that followed behind her

Followed her like a keyhole to a door

And the waves that kissed her feet

Reminded her of long dead cat.

The breeze turned blue

Before whistling like Superman

And the shadows started laughing

Sounding like a noir film.

The stars turned into bush fires

Before declaring wars with the sunrise

And the sand stuck to her hair

Like a refugee from the past

Screaming from the boats

Which droned past her in the distance

And the slight fog which disappeared

As she walked slowly into the waves,

Washing away her demons

Like a Spider cutting away

From it’s own web. 

(Day 14 of NapoWriMo asked us to write in the voice of a superhero. I've done this before

in my first book 'Return to Kemptown' with a piece called 'Forgotten Hero' which can be seen here and while I considered writing another piece maybe in that series, this piece sort of took over

dealing with a very different kind of person)

(Day 13) Old Address Book

I still have your address book

And sometimes sit there with it

Across my knee

And can feel the scribbles out

Of those who died

Or who simply you lost contact with.

Did you cross off  Ann from Clevelands

Who you met on holiday in Southport

Back when you were a child

Or Barbara who was the daughter

Of your old teacher from school.

Michelle from across the road

From your old house before you moved

Or your cousin Flo from Cornwall

Who my mother used to go on about

All the time after I drenched her

With a water pistol

Mis-taking her for my sister.

Jude, your best friend from Woolworths

Who wouldn’t speak to you

For two weeks after her husband

Came onto you and she thought it was you

Or Mags who went off to Australia

And promised she would write every week.

Rose who you went to I.T. Classes

Back when you were 65

And kicked out the wire after 10 minutes

Or Jack your first boyfriend

Who you almost married twice

Only for it all to pieces at the last minute,

Memories I can still remember you

Shaking your head at sometimes

As you sat there with a pen

Looking every inch the writer

Instead of a random crossword scribbler

As your pen crosses out people

Like threads pulled out of a jumper,

Threads which you smile at

With a quiet satisfication

As you whisper goodbye again.

(Day 13 asked us to go out for a walk and see what came. This came from a conversation I held between two women when one of them mentioned her mother's old address book)

(Day 12) Early Love

Early love

Trees are doing a slow strip

Over a crescent moon

Fishing for an answer

Divorced from the crumpled apples,

And the leaves thrown in our face

In our old tree-house

Like gloves

And a love increasing

Before our eyes,

Turning the sky purple with envy

In the early morning sunrise. 

(I challenge you to “write a poem consisting entirely of things you’d like to say, but never would, to a parent, lover, sibling, child, teacher, roommate, best friend, mayor, president, corporate CEO, etc.” Honesty is the best policy, after all, so get it off your chest! .. I wrote a somewhat subtle poem in response but may return to this in more depth after)

(Day 11) Three Legged Race

Arms tangled round each others waists,
They take a few steps in union
Before tumbling together
To the ground in a heap
With the grace of lovers
Rather than excited friends.

Arms covered in mud
But game enough to brush the sweat
Off their collars
Even though everybody
Is treating them like
A pair of stand up comics.

Game enough to keep smiling
Even after one of them pulls
The both of them down
Before the other does it in reverse
Until it gets to the stage
When others would have snapped,

Carry on laughing
Before them stopping
And throwing a look at me
As if to say don’t worry about us
And disappeared forever
From my eyesight.

(Day 11 asked from http://www.napowrimo.net/ asked for

a tanka. As I was having a bad day at work - I didn't get chance to think about it but instead wrote the above piece about a three legged race after over hearing a conversation in work)

(Day 10) Under the Duvet

You learnt from under your duvet
for the first time
how much I loved you.

You learnt when I had to pull
your cats apart
from fighting once again
in your kitchen
how much I loved you.

How much I loved you
when I poured cold water
over the tip of your shower
and when you moved my keya
so I ended up missing
my bus
the followng morning
and was around half a hour late
for work.

Love maybe a little blind
but revenge isn't.

(NaPoWriMo Day 10 asked for a un-love poem,
the oppositee of a love poem really. This is a cheeky
version of that rather than a serious one)

(Day 9) Noir Scene

For a few seconds he is outside

Next to where she waits

In the middle of the moonlight,

Two small figures over the riverside

Each step another turning

Towards moonlight

And an uneven texture.

For a few seconds he is outside

Tangled up in his footsteps

In a mystery of bleached hair

And bright red lipstick,

Peeling back her unknown promises

And her cigarette, which she tosses

Back into the river,

And with it the last remaining evidence

Of the crime they had just committed

In black and white. 

(Day 9 of NaPoWrimo asked for a noir like poem.

One of my favourites of film so the poem was 

great fun writing about)

(Day 8) Goodbye, Maggie Thatcher

Goodbye Maggie

Causing tragedy what was she was good at.

Not making funny cups of coffee

With floaters like walls

Or making molehills

Out of mountains.

Not creating wars 
to keep themselves in power

Or lining up bottles like bullets

And missing the target every time.

Not forging letters

Containing made up offences

Or causing riots

Over the poll tax
just for the hell of it. 

Causing tragedy what was she was good at.

Tragedy was causing people to live

Hand to mouth

On a stone’s throw.

Tragedy was the creation of the miner’s strike

Through pig headed politics.

(See quotes like ‘we had to fight the enemy

Without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the

enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and

more dangerous to liberty' displaying her
attitude to the miners)

Endless queues outside the Job Centre.

Unemployment at 3 million.

Privatisation of state owned companies
and reducing the power 
and influence of trade unions.

The Moss Side Riots.

Causing tragedy what was she was good at.

An Wall Street on masses.

An flag I now leave an quarter drawn

on the edge of a darkness
that still threatens to swamp our country
even now. 

(Sadly the prompt for Napwimio today got overtook by the news of the death of
Margaret Thatcher, ex british prime ministor. This is my tribute to her if that is the right word)

(Day 7) - Sliding Doors

In another life,

We should meet on an airplane

And look at the world

From a different perspective.

We should hold hands

In a reflective circle

And kiss the clouds

Every time the sun breaks through.

We should laugh at the mistakes

We had made with our lives

And this time disappear

Into the headlights together

And this time never say goodbye.

(Day 7's prompt by NaPoWriMo hadn't arrived by this point of writing,

but the art of saying goodbye kinda made sense after seeing a poster of

the film 'Sliding Doors' and it started from there)