Tuesday 27 October 2009

re Poem

Bus 37 - Shudehill to Eccles


“Not due for her biopsy

scan ‘til next week”


-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^


“Able to go out for an hour

at a time each day...”


A dark lady with a meerkat expression

casts a dark glance at the bloated belly

of the loud-talking man on the phone


before


turning to concentrate on a photo;

the image of a baby, a wrinkled raisin

peers back -


she smiles


The bus hisses and throttles

through Industrial action bottle-

neck


of traffic jam

like the fatigue fogging

my mind


“The doctor thinks the problem with the kidneys

is nothing to do with the eyes”


-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-


“... the kidneys are down by 70%

but he reckons it’s not actually kidney failure...”


Mind wanders,

head jerks forward,

as the bus swerves round


bounds


through just-turning-red light at the roundabout

charging towards Eccles

Interchange.



Catherine Mark

Saturday 17 October 2009

re Poem

Hello everyone…

Life in the last few weeks have been pretty manic - moving from part-time to full-time hours at my work place (a private college at the heart of Manchester’s city centre, where I’m teaching Business and English courses, in addition to coordinating the ESOL dept). I am also in the throes of house hunting as Joel (hubby) and I have decided to stay in the UK for the next couple of years before thinking again about moving to Australia (where Joel is from). Anyway, I just wanted to explain why I’ve been quiet blog-wise for a while… but please bear with me and I will post stuff whenever I can (although it may not be as frequent as I used to). I do hope to get a chance to catch up with some of your blogs soon. In the meantime, I leave you with a poem I penned last week…



Northern Quarter

Burlesque bohemia
tucked in the back streets
sprawled between Shudehill
and Victoria Station

tangible white noise
gutsy
tempo

a pulse injected into bubble-
wrap pods

as if daring

a pin-prick to syringe
its skin, to release apocalyptic
whiteness

pulsating heat
beneath blurred footfall
of outsiders
and those lost
within

this quarter of Northern time


Catherine Mark