Doors

 

Break with vowels the locks from iron mill gates,

Unblock the doors long shut.

And cut with words the tape in gold and black,

wake the hive Bring the bees back,

display your lines to keep the thoughts alive

In bars and bistros, parks, cafés, in rhymes…

May we meet, greet and fling wide

Our doors as on the silenced street

We stop outside, shoot the breeze, the ice now thaws,

Fling open wide our once blocked doors.

With fingers crossed, shake hands of liberty.

Come meet me, share our verbal key, our poetry.

 

As tram doors slide, we cram our lines

Aboard and catch an eye, a smile inside,

No longer fearful, but united with our city pride.

We stand together, hope in unity,

This we is verbal irony, as stanzas

Crush, we touch, holding hands as

this our rush hour now means so much more in dark

Mancunian gloom than just screech of brakes and swishing doors,

This cause we hold in common, so much more

Together than divides us, hopes soar as our lines

And stories make up our bones, our blood, our spines.

 

It was curtains for theatre, silence fell and we will tell

Our children of the months when we were shocked.

In Albert Hall, no songs did ring, Galleries, days out with kids,

Even roundabouts and swings… all were locked.

The malls fell quiet, no sound of cheering from the football ground

But all departing, imaginations then were drowned

As holding breath, back indoors alone and lonely,

On screen only, our words muted, our sight polluted, friends so little seen.

 

With words or music now we push, we pull, unsnib the locks,

Slide cold glass with freeing words aside

And open up our lives, the shock of sunlight hits

Our blinkered eyes.

As now each outing, meeting, reading, listening,

No longer taken as a given, becomes a new sunrise.

The doors open, as do our hearts,

As pulsing breath gives life to our new start…

And doors of our perception beyond infection

Open, in celebration of this world of new direction.

Now our spirit soars, and we with wedges, chains and

Verbal hooks prop open now, forever,

And shouting, cheering, laughing pours from our long shut doors.