And this is exactly what the Poetry Advent Calendar is setting out to do, with poems loosely based on the theme of Winter. Although it will go beyond the 25th of the month right up to New Year’s Eve. So far there have been funny poems, sad poems, reflective poems and happy poems. Some bounce along in a regular metre, some rhyme, and some are brilliantly free style.

Now for the cheeky plug; today’s poem is one of mine: A Snowflake’s Chance. Enjoy!

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?

50,000 words in 30 days? It’s possible. Just not sure whether it’s happening for me really: I loathe one of my characters (although am a little in love with the awkward academic); the baddies are one dimensional (except sexy evil boss lady); the pasties aren’t particularly tasty (except those from Pengenna Pasties of course) and the main character has already imbibed far too much beer (well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing, especially if it’s Spingo Special).

I’m over half-way through, slightly behind schedule, but planning the big finale: a battle in Bodmin. Maybe the second draft will be better…

So, I’m going to finally get this flippin’ story out of my head; it’s been in suspended animation for over ten years now and it’s time to finally let it go. It’s a story (well, hopefully a story, if I finish the thing that is) of truth, friendship, aliens, New Age tomfoolery and pasties. It will probably feature quoits and piskies too. If I’m not a gibbering wreck by the 10,000th word then we’re doing OK.

If you’re participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge, and would like a writing buddy, let me know.

'Nevermore', quoth the quoit

Apart from that, going through some bad personal crap at the mo, normalish sporadic blog-posting service back soon…

There’s a rubbish picture to accompany the poem on my Write Out Loud blog. Please note, I gave up art around 1992!

“Damage Limitation” in The Ritz Toilets, 1997

Red carpet, burn marks, blur of piss and Mad Dog 20:20.
Foggy bursts of floral perfume masking ciggies
slyly smoked by giggling under-aged lassies.

Who’re you to judge, who’re you to tell?

She fixes her lippy, dreaming of kissing,
lips smack against frayed toilet tissue.
Slug back warm beer to help forget who she is.

Not that you can, or you ever will.

A bracelet of smoke snakes up beside the coils of her hair.
Boudica in black PVC corset, flowery skirt, big boots stares.
Heart-shaped face framed by purple, pink, and blonde dreads.

Live action ‘Happening Hair’ Barbie.

She preens in the mirror, a youthful sage appears,
knowing-smile – a sharpness beyond her 19 years,
wisdom lines beginning to show around a sulky mouth.

Don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me.

She rifles through a small silver bag covered in badges
pulls out a stub of black eyeliner, outlines her eyes
Cleopatra eyes, bird eyes; shaded peacock.

Warrior princess, have no doubt.

She smiles at the mirror at the silent girl beside her,
“Damage limitation” she says, shifting her hair.
“Damage limitation, there’s a mob out there.”

Can’t stand the smoke; put it out.

“Why do we bother painting ourselves beautiful?
This superficial smile, these kohl rings riled.
Why are we trying not to look the same?”

Maybe it’s to hide our own shame?

After this speech, the Gothic Amazon shrugs, continues painting
her lines. Humming along to the over-loud music.
The girl understands, opens her mouth to speak.

May as well treat life like a game.

Too late, she is gone in a shake of dreadlocks,
and a squaring of shoulders, tits stuck out ready for war.
A cigarette warning with extra earrings.

For today, in lovely, leafy Didsbury, the fella and I spotted 2 pairs of harlequin ladybirds, erm, increasing their species.

Harlequin ladybirds are an invasive species to the UK; they’ve evolved to be incredibly successful as well as quickly adapting to our climate. Conservation organisations, such as Buglife, argue that they could be contributing to the decline in number of native ladybirds. The harlequin ladybirds are much bigger and are more voracious nibblers than our native species; they are thus competing with the natives’ food source.

We’ve sent all this info (plus ladybird porn picture – see below) to the harlequin ladybird survey. We didn’t kill them though; like the harlequins pictured – we’re lovers not fighters!

Harlequin ladybirds (male H. axyridis succinea & female H. axyridis conspicua) "getting it on"

There were no riots in Cornwall – a few vicious looking gulls who were reccying their chances at a Cornish pasty snatch being the only menace. Through reading the papers whilst away, I thought Manchester had been scorched to the ground! Upon my return and finding no crater to lament my once-fine city (come on, rioters, you could’ve had the decency to take out that Hilton monstrosity), I instead came back to the world of the Internet: a world of opinion, conjecture, vindictiveness and assumption. I read a myriad Facebook posts and Twitter comments on the riots. I’ve included some of the following reactions to the people involved (with apologies to some members of my family for quoting them anonymously):

“why should our boys (men) die for them.bring them home to deal with these yobs”

“Can the government not make a bit of money from this by running a safari, where decent people can be driven through the urban jungle in an armoured car to bag a chav? I couple of hooded scrote’s heads would look quite nice above my fireplace. I’d have to move the mirror though.”

“These morons are not rioting to gain any sort of freedom they are just vandals and thieves”

“God I hate racists and people who are anti-police! This is not a race or immigration issue, there’s plenty of British citizens involved! There are good cops that do a very hard job, and it would be a frightening place if we didn’t have them, there are bad cops. There are peaceful protesters that just want to get their point across and there are idiots that use protests as an excuse to cause mayhem and get free tellys, probably the same kind of hooligans you get at football matches, they’re ALL just people at the end of the day good or bad! And the BNP can fuck right off!”

“I’m a 1930′s baby and some parents aren’t fit to raise a flea…[they] shouldn’t be allowed [to have] children”

I am not naïve; I know there are people out there who get involved just for violence of it. I experienced this in environmental activism where you get a load of people turning up just to break stuff for no reason apart from hedonistic joy. Which could be argued as a wasted opportunity to make a proper statement regarding trashing capitalism!

One thing that has struck me, post-riots, is the gung-ho approach the courts have taken and the empty political rhetoric which has been playing in the background like bad lift music. The general message the government is currently portraying is that the social disorder, or “broken society” has been caused by: families, lack of discipline at home and in school, the young people themselves. Nothing to do with rising costs of living, the cessation of welfare benefits, the cuts to vital education, social and health services. “No, it’s not poverty that is to blame,” David Cameron seems to say, “but troubled families; there’s one in every neighbourhood”. These are the so-called “underclass”, the “townie”, the “scrote”, the “scally”, the “chav”.

I hate these terms, particularly “underclass”, and loathe the lable “chav”. These monikers are used to dehumanise. They are used to assist in distancing people, resulting in a “them and us” dichotomy.

Now, like many others I do not believe that everyone involved in the riots was a ‘lovely’ and ‘fluffy’ and ‘friendly’ person; I do not condone the senseless murders of Haroon Jahan, Shahzad Ali and Abdul Musavir (beautifully eulogized in Carol Ann Duffy’s Birmingham for Tariq Jahan). However, the government’s tacit support of the judiciary throwing decades of legislation and law out of the window in some overly-harsh sentencing is worrying. There has been no-one held culpable, nor is currently doing a custodial sentence for hacking into dead schoolgirls’ mobile phones, yet an attempt at applying a fake custard pie to Rupert Murdoch’s face ended in 4 weeks of doing bird. Am sure there’s a joke about being held in custard-y here somewhere…

Now the government want to address the use of social networking, which – if you believe them – is solely to blame for the organisation of riots. The Open Rights Group are facilitating a digital “free speech” campaign against the government’s proposal to cut off communications during national unrest. Have a look at the petition here for more information: Save Our Social Media.

For more intelligent comment on this, have a look at the rather erudite Merrick’s blog: bristlingbadger.blogspot.com.

Sennen Sunset

Sea. My feet await your sweet saline kiss,
salt lapping clean the sunburned skin.
Eyes skim the horizon, gulls and dolphins,
their display is “oo-ed” and “ah-ed”.
An anthropomorphic interpretation of instinct.

Later, past lobster-pots and stone drum cottages,
wooden doors splintered by decades of spume
and wind. Ascend the steps: the cliff walk,
the long, fern-framed traverse to England’s end.
Pretend the rabbits are for you only.

Ten years ago, nearly 400 miles away,
the sway of the grass in the sea breeze.
The crumbling ledge, biscuit-thin, we climbed on.
I’ve been taught not to lean, not to leap and to swim.
Scatter blue petals of photographs into the sea.

The sun melts: a bruise going backwards
yellow to gold to purple to deep maple.
The smog blue of twilight blankets the sky,
a chill; the salt fog swirls into shore.
Before the cycle is completed, I walk away.

* Title for blog post nicked from The Sea and the Skylark, Gerard Manley-Hopkins

I’ve been trying to keep up my blog: Stockport Borough of Stockport up-to-date, but I’m failing to write anything chirpy, or positive about the place. There are some lovely places, such as Reddish Vale which is beautiful and well-loved. However, I’m just struggling to find a heart. Going to keep trying though, even though the majority of wild space is tangled up in bindweed or covered in plastic bags and used condoms. Even though the streets of Edgeley, whilst not paved, are definitely speckled with dog shit.

I will return to this subject in good time…