Massive fire in old building in-between Oxford Road and Deansgate Train Station / Was it Arson?

Built in 1801 but abandoned since the mid-1990s / Structure built almost completely of wood / Was it Arson?

In 2018, a joint venture between Blue Dog Property and MCR Property Group secured permission to redevelop the site into a 28-storey apartment building, but it didn’t happen / Was it Arson?

...

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Feeding only kindness

Your love fills a silent threshold

Without which I would be

Just another face in the crowd.

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My personal project for #NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) is a tiny little project "resonant whispers" where I will write, short intimate pieces, reflections you could say, capturing the quiet moments and lingering feelings that shape our lives. Ghosts, personal experiences, raw emotions and the subtle beauty of the everyday.

For all of these poems, I will be stripping down my poetry t...

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A cloud of thick fog surrounds me.

I cannot see beyond it.

I cannot move.

My eyes are open
but they see nothing. 

I do nothing
yet I do everything.

My mind sees beyond
opening up the world
inside my head
riding eastward
in the breeze
to a new start. 

I can see life.

I can see everything.

I understand now.

Now I can die. 

 

(A slightly rewrote poem originally...

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This is who I was

Facing different challenges

Not who I am now

 

(Lots more writing on https://andynartist.substack.com/ - free to subscribe)

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just because you see
hate means you should copy it,
try peace and kindness.

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An early Autumn breeze
Thickens under your cap
Past nine on the coast
Ripping across the square
Near your home
Pushing you slightly around
The edge of the beach
In between the twin hotels
Back up the lanes,

Collecting snapshots
Rattling on Marios
With silhouettes on the horizon
Mirroring the events beyond
Dreaming impossible words
Over barrels of leaves
Swirling around the water
...

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Cutting out across the music

that last scene cut into the black

with the music carrying on

for a few seconds more

before then cutting out suddenly

and starting off again

with a breath of air

carrying across the forest

as the light replaces the darkness

framing the sky

unto a red-rimmed sunset,

 

 

totemic in silence

turning the end into a new beginning

...

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Tired beyond words at the end of another day
ruminating on a glass half empty, 
counting memories in faulted silence,
over exhausted waiting for dreams 
between memories of different lifetimes
of different jobs and roles 
before being starved of work
and having to fight for a new role
over and over and over
before finally finding something
after nothing but struggles, 
waiting for the s...

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My brother says he knows a tiger named Spike,
Who rides around town on a small, shiny bike.
Speeding past McDonald's with grace,
Spinning through the library's space,
With a smile that astonishes all creatures alike.

(For International Tigers Day yesterday)

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I still dream of their tiny, starved faces in Rio
huddled together in a frightened procession 
underneath white plastic sheets in dirt fled streets
and kicked wildly into the back of piss stained vans.

Bus journeys and hiding underneath seats
when bullets laced the bus whenever
it stopped for a few seconds longer
than it should have in the wrong neighbourhood.

Parties across the coas...

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(I can be like this sometimes minus Amanda, my wife with timekeeping)

***

Always late, but always arrives with a huge apology.

Not once or twice, he’s just made it a bad habit.

Dreams of being prompt, but always get delayed

Yet insists when he arrives, he will be better next time.

 

 

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Andy continues to fight with diabetes
while I wish he could stand in forests,
watching the tangerine glow from trees
carry across the sunset,
and throw sticks across the river,
watching the wind bounce them off the stones,
casting memories further back
then old age allows.

Andy continues to struggle with dyspraxia
while searching for a new day job,
while I wish he could laugh at life a...

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This poem should have not been written in the first place. 

This poem should being have something else.

This poem is different from its original meaning.

This poem is on fire when it should have been a spark. 

This poem should have been deleted or worded differently.

This poem should have been not collected or mistranslated. 

This poem should have been left as a sentence.

This...

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Unsure briefly whether it was Winter or Spring,
the rain comes down unexpectedly like a rhythmic song,
leaving Chorlton Bookshop, footsteps sing
running past Lloyds, across the road I rush along.

Glass on the Bus stop broke, no haven from the rain,
Other shops shut early, an blurry scene unfolds
No other places to hide what once did reign,
waiting for the bus, memories stir.

Ghostly qu...

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Face down in the water, she was found, unknown,

a mystery shrouded in the middle of Chorlton's grace,

No name breathed out, no story to call her own,

her life lost in a fleeting, haunted trace,

Lime-green top, drifting in endless sleep,

jeans covered in watery hue lay tragically still,

A tragic tale over the banks, sorrows deep

her mystery longers, pushing against our will.

...

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I'm on the Poetry Podcast 'Poetry Non-Stop' today, thanks to Patrick for featuring me which I of course do sneak in a reference to my novel 'Birth'

https://soundcloud.com/user-821268013/andy-n-poetry-in-all-places

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Last night you appeared in my dreams.

Back when we still spoke before you died.

And you were sat there at Cathy’s crying.

“Nobody cares, nobody cares.

If I dropped drop dead tomorrow”,

 

Blindfold at the edge of the water

Over and over absently to yourself

Carrying your washing to your ex’s

And a peddle in your tongue.

When I told you I thought you had Diabetes.

...

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Three years after we last spoke, 
Lost in Christmas gossip 
Whether your Nephew 
Would get into what you had got him
On the way home from the cinema,
You walked past us on the bus
Fumbling in the darkness 
For the change in your pockets.

Three years after we last spoke, 
Buried in the shadows of your coat,
You stared down unable to look up,
Until you got off at your ex-girlfriend's
A...

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Blowing all over the exposed garden
On Christmas Day
Before yielding to the gusts 
The leaves blow words
Over the frozen ground
Buried in the spotlight,

Pushing our lifetimes
In front of our faces
Tearing us away from our presents 
Like coins in sunken vases
A miracle into a wonderful life
A family drama into a celebration.

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I fear not Death.
I see the mists of the dead, not.
I see nothing.
I fear not nothing.
I hear them call.
They are whispering my name
They whisper ‘Come’.
Lord, why do I now fear?
Lord, what is wrong?
Only the dead know.
The answers await me there.
Only I am too scared to understand
Only I am too scared to discover
For I am just a man. 

 

(This was wrote when I was actually 17 a ...

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In an eccentric town, Jasper believed he could behead people with flying plates. One day, he threw a plate at Gertrude, but it missed, leaving her unharmed. The town found his attempts amusing and gathered to watch. Although he never succeeded, Jasper's peculiar hobby brought laughter and unity to the town, turning it into a unique community. In the end, it was not the beheading that mattered, but...

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Mourning the passing of life slowly each day, I move nearer towards death each day like cracked glass which grows larger each day, ticking in silent echoes haunted by an ever-haunted spectre and stone-written realities.

Reflecting on my mortality every Saturday, I drink wine from two glasses like a persistent inquiry and read Paul Celan as Death draws us nearer in a binding brightness trusting ...

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The older I get, the more I ponder what lies next beyond the enigma of demise. Could it be a rebirth dangling like a mantra, a garment woven from yesterday’s dream threads? Could this shell be like a butterfly, a transitory attire, destined to shed when we finally stretch back our shoulders?

Moments assemble around my awareness like mourners paying their respects, each bearing witness to life's...

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The process of developing ‘Changing Carriages at Birmingham New Street’, my final poetry book proved a tricky process in contrast to all the poetry books I wrote where sometimes I would write poems about places I barely knew, or in some cases didn’t know atall.

In this case, the next poem I am sharing from the book, I had been to twice but the first involved sitting down in an airport very bore...

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The latest piece on my substack account is a second piece from my new10th and final full-length poetry book ‘Changing Carriages at Birmingham New Street’.

As discussed before, Changing Carriages at Birmingham New Street’ was began in 2017 during the creation of my third book “The Birth of Autumn” which then took a life on its own afterwards.

The story itself talks through a series of memorie...

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Changing carriages at Birmingham New Street unless plans change over the next few months will be my final full-length book of poetry which will be out over autumn or winter 2023.

Began in 2017 during the creation of my third book “The Birth of Autumn” which then life on its own afterwards, its contents will tell you the story through a series of memories told by an unnamed narrator of firstly o...

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"They laid tracks for a ghost train," said the engineer. "But who's going to ride it? Ghosts don't buy tickets!"

The rest of the crew laughed, but that night, the train arrived. The ghosts got on, and the engineer was forced to work overtime.

"I thought you said they don't buy tickets!" he grumbled.

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Snow in Spring

The buds on trees, once ready to bloom,
Are now weighed down in icy despair.
Deserted nests, birds are silenced in doom
Awaiting the spring sun's fair share.

Snow in Spring is a paradox of sorts,
A clash of seasons to nature's surprise.
leaving the path frozen the news reports
As winter's remnants refuse to demise.

The chill in the air, a bitter reminder,
That even i...

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Leaving you behind
your words fall between the lines
distant memories.

*

The past is a dream
rolling backwards before then
pushing us forward. 

*

Dreams of the past flow,
Backward rolling streams of thought,
Driving us ahead.

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Faded migration 
The deserted church is closed
Disappeared slowly

*

Made up friendships
faded now, their story told
leaving your childhood

*

The passing of time 
the world moves on every day
losing memories

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(I)

Found in my drawer
A reminder of lost love,
Worn and full of holes.

(II)

Forgotten and worn,
A sock without its pair mourns,
Like love that is gone.

(III)

Drawer now empty 
that once held both of our socks,
Now holds only dust.

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The end of Winter's grasp now fades away,
As Spring awakens with its vibrant bloom,
The earth renews blowing softly across the bay
dispelling the coldness in the winter's gloom,

the Spring carries secrets of life renewed,
a promise of the growth that's to come,
the hazy sunrise, dancing on the leaves like dew
in a symphony silencing the hum.

My emotions swell with gratitude and cheer
...

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(III)

 

From a nearby field.

A stranger waves at you both

welcoming the spring.

*

(IV)

 

Tracing your footpaths

you walk on the riverbank

bathing in the sun. 

*

(V)

Mist at edge of woods;

horses running in the fields

embracing the spring.

*

(VI)

Below the footpath
sunrise starts winking at you
yes, winter has gone.

*

(VII)

Retur...

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(I)

Spaced in the silence
birds land on top of the trees
welcoming spring back

(II)

Opening the gate; 
The grass is already moist.
Spring is here early.

 

*

(For #NaPoWriMo - National Poetry Writing Month 2023 - I am writing at least a haiku day set in Nature as many as I can in Shepley Woods near where we live with photographs to go alongside them.

The complete archive ...

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For the first few days
after they let me out
it was backwards 
and forwards
in-between the hospital and home,

then expanding to include 
the doctors at my local practice 
then back to the hospital
and the doctors 
the day after that

saying the same thing
to me over and over 
without even looking
at their computer screens
‘It’s still too high
we want you to introduce
the strengt...

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The 10-year-old version of me would have found it confusing and constantly would have asked over and over to the Doctor what most of their big words meant? The 17-year-old me would  have spat on the floor in disgust  and argued with them over everything they said when they told me I was Diabetic.  The 30-year-old version of me in-between constant bursts of depression and anxiety ...

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In the city's crowded streets,
The rhythm of life never sleeps,
A symphony of sound and light,
That fills the city day and night.

In alleys dim and alleys bright,
A thousand tales take flight,
Of love, of loss, of hope, of fear,
Of dreams that never disappear.

The city is a labyrinthine maze,
A puzzle that we cannot quite erase,
And yet we navigate its winding ways,
Hoping to find a...

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Walking past you

he looks at you like a stranger.

Friendship dissolved.

 

*

Changing accents

you can see she is unimpressed

no matter how he speaks.

 

(Two examples of two pieces that came close but refused to be haikus. Neither are true stories) 

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re-reading a book

for a Podcast later on.

making lots of notes.

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smiling through the smoke

Those last moments descended

On our window pane.

 

*

 

Falling through the night

your teardrops fall through the sky

watching the moonlight.

 

*

 

Voicing truths inside

the world's coffin gets tighter

closer to the end.

 

 

(Noel Scott Engel (January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019) better known by his stage name Scott ...

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new year illnesses;
coughing into the darkness
hope it passes soon.

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old piano keys;
crumbling in our fingers. 
coastline vanishes.

 

(From a currently untitled forthcoming book which may also have a cowriter too)

 

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Facing the new year
you look at the old year
mourning it's passing. 

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Over the stillness
a silence greets our walk
alongside the snow
to your family,

the wind curiously absent
and no children
eager to build snowmen
or men walking their dogs,

a stillness greeting footsteps
that one sound
carrying us forward
binding us together in excitement,

that one continuous emotion
a love spreading us onward
across the snow
forwards never backwards

forward...

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Freezing village pond
ducks dance on the frozen water
skating over death.

 

 

 

(Picture from Alamy)

#Winterhaiku #haiku #haikupoetry

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5 days until Christmas Haiku

 

Emptying the food shelves

five days until Christmas falls

panic rises high.

 

 

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NEARLY CHRISTMAS HAIKU

 

almost from nowhere;

Christmas sinks upon you all

counting down from 7 to 1.

 

 

(Image borrowed from beautyflash)

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is that chocolate?

Your wife is shocked that your fruit

is not chocolate.

 

(From a haiku poetry book 'Fruit Haiku' in development - likely to be finished in 2023 or 2024.  A Black Sapote is a species of persimmon. Common names include chocolate pudding fruit, black soapapple and zapote prieto. The tropical fruit tree is native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. The common name...

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On behalf of the wonderful Amanda Nicholson who is after a submissions on the following theme (UK Only)

"Several years ago, we published Words to Remember, an anthology which raised money for various cancer charities. In light of the cost-of-living crisis, we have decided to produce an anthology to raise money for charities in the UK who support people experiencing poverty (food banks, etc).

...

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