Manchester Poem.03.11.2010.

The sun and I are glancing off

your High-walls to heaven:

your dear glazed bricks, your

fast iron, cast-iron studs,

your gushing locks.

Monumentally

you soared in 1895

with a mind for Arts and Crafts,

Ars Laboris. Kept on soaring.

Rose from the Irwell

who still murmers black below.

We see her over the plated,

rivetted bridges,

a creature disturbed and disturbing,

glimpse the private lady

at her toilet.

Speaking of toilets

Manchester's oldest Pissotiere,

where gentlemen

publicly emptied their bladders

into Lady Irwell

is next to Joshua Brookes

and just before

The Lass O'Blairgowrie.



But it's glass and chrome,

reclaimed brick,

factories

of the mental kind

that are soaring these days.

It's monumental MMU

with its hard-faced,

glass-faced

commerce.