I love Manchester; I lived in the City Centre for a year. I decided quite quickly – after a few months of dwelling opposite Piccadilly station – that City Living is not for me. Although wandering around the back streets in Manchester something I have noticed over the last ten or so years is the dwindling presence of Mancunian accents in the city’s ‘Northern Quarter’ and the rise of the ‘yuppie flat’ in the heart of the city.
Although I do frequent this area – there are some very lovely cafés there – I have noticed that the extreme gentrification has neutered the area somewhat. Although it’s nice to have a great arty space, I feel that there is an element of fakery, also an element of corporate interference too. This poem is kind of about that and is for Becca.
Hung, Drawn, and Northern Quartered
Sarah and Persephone are ladies who lunch
drinking chai as they munch upon cake.
They discuss tumbledown mills
and society’s ills
as they order more herbal tea.
The high heeled clack of the well heeled young
echoes through Manchester rain.
They’ve not heard of Engels,
only tubular bells
of the New Age shop down the lane.
Old men’s pubs full of twenty-somethings,
plucking guitar strings, drinking beer.
They play on bongos,
and drunkenly tango
along old Oldham Street’s sprawl.
Artists are followed by trust fund kids
who skid upon wet Metro sheets.
They avoid the pot holes
in their scuffed soles
of Converse, snug on bare feet.
Fashionistas, in vintage, dance along too
like crinoline flowers circa 1952.
They’re far too skinny,
listen to indie,
all wrapped up in ironic chintz.
Young professionals lulled by a dream:
a scheme of live, work and play.
They now whinge of the bars
and hippie sitars,
heard from flats at least three blocks away.
What does one do when the party’s over,
do you duck and run for cover?
Or do you move on,
and look for more fun,
hung, drawn and northern quartered?
