Reflections on the puddle of life

Hmm, I hesitated to post this due to the events of today in New York, but it's something I've been thinking about for a couple of weeks now, so I'm posting it anyway.

Aunt Shecky posted an interesting theme for the subject poetry contest this month which is as follows (the contest is still open if anyone would like to submit an entry):

change (either temporary or permanent) upon a specific placeand its effect upon a particular individual. (The change should not be merely seasonal.)

Length: 4 lines minimum, 36 lines max.
Any form, meter or free, rhymed or unrhymed.
Use contemporary language; colloquial diction okay, though not required.

Now it's a while since I've written any poetry; I've found it a struggle this year, I think because I haven't given it much attention. I haven't written or read much poetry. Writing poetry, in fact writing in general, is like a muscle, you have to exercise it or it gets weak and sloppy. I'm weak and sloppy at the moment. So I decided to use Aunt Shecky's contest to start re-exercising that muscle. It's as good a place as any to start.

The theme is an interesting one, to me. For some reason whenever I think about a particular place, and how a particular place has changed a person or people, my mind is always sent back to this day: 15th June 1996. On 15th June 1996, at 11:17am, I was sitting in a car in the B&Q carpark waiting for my then fiance who was buying some DIY stuff and was taking his time about it. I can't remember what he was buying. I was sitting there waiting and I heard a noise which sounded like someone throwing something in a skip, a kind of thuddy, echoey sound. I looked around but couldn't see a skip. I thought it was strange but didn't think anything more about it. My fiance came back to the car and we left B&Q and went to a few more places and then we went home.

When I got home I got a call from my Mum almost as soon as I got in the house. The conversation went something like this:

Mum: Oh thank goodness. I've been trying to get hold of you all day. I thought you were in work.

Me: No, why?

Mum: Haven't you heard? A massive bomb's gone off in Manchester.

Me: No! We've been out shopping. Flipping heck! Whereabouts.

Mum: Corporation Street they said. Corporation Street or Cross Street, do you know where that is?

Me: (racking my brains) Corporation Street, hmm, sounds familiar. Oh my God, that's where I work!

And that's how I found out that my workplace had been blown up. I mentioned it to my fiance and he said that when he'd been coming back to the car from B&Q he'd seen a plume of smoke over towards Manchester, but hadn't thought anything of it. I told him about the sound I'd heard. Of course it was the bomb, the timing and everything was right.

Luckily I wasn't in work that day. It was a Saturday, and it was rare that we ever got overtime. For once that was something to be thankful for. Some of my colleagues, however, were not so lucky. A number of people were in work that day. They knew something was going on, but to be honest people were kind of used to bomb threats in those days, we'd all had the training: what to do if you received a bomb threat, where and how to evacuate in case of a bomb warning, and so on. People just got on with the job. The reception staff liaised with the police when it was clear that the city centre was being evacuated. The police told them to stay put and that they'd be given evacuation instructions later on. This never happened, they were basically forgotten.

Here you can see the white van, which contained the bomb, parked on the street. The building on the right of the picture is Longridge House, my old workplace.



At 11:17am the bomb disposal unit attempted to disarm the bomb. People inside the building could see something was going on and went to the windows. The bomb disposal unit arrived too late and the bomb detonated.

Everyone who was in the building was seriously injured, but luckily no one was killed. One person who, for some reason, always comes to mind for me was one of the concierges on the reception desk. Les. He was a lovely guy. He always had a smile and a kind word, he was always neat and efficient in his job. He always made me feel welcome in the morning and he always said cheerio when I left at night. Les was in the building that day and suffered the most serious injuries of all the victims of the bombing that day. His skull was fractured. He never came back to work and that makes me sad, it makes me sad to think that the last time I saw him was on the Friday before the bomb and that all I'd done is said goodnight as always. What else could I have done? There are many times I wished I knew what he was doing, how he is doing, what happened to him. I guess I'll never know.

Here are some pictures of the aftermath of the bomb.

Here's the crater left in the road. Behind it is what used to be the customer services department.


This is the frontage of Marks & Spencer, notice the post box is undamaged. It's still there, and stands as a memorial to the events of that day.


and a slightly different view. The 'sky bridge' as it was grandly named has now gone. I used to cross that every day. Chilling.


That day changed a lot of people in lots of different ways. I still have mixed feelings. I am angry that my colleagues were injured, but it made me believe more strongly that reconciliation in the Irish conflict was the only way to stop more people being killed or injured. If we continued this cat and mouse game of 'we'll bomb you' and 'well we'll shoot you back' then all you end up with is a trail of bodies, many of which will be innocent bystanders. In the bombing of Manchester it is widely believed that the IRA did not intend for there to be any victims. But whenever you place a bomb in the middle of a crowded city centre then you've got to expect that people will be hurt and you have to take responsibility for that. I don't think such actions are ever justifiable. And in a democratic system there are, and should be, better ways to resolve issues, injustices and conflict without resorting to violence. Or so I'd like to hope, anyway.

So you see, mixed feelings

And after all that I wrote a poem. It's a bit iffy, I'm rusty. Forgive me

Longridge House, 15th June 1996

For Les

It is the day before Father's day. Everyone’s shopping.
The overspill spreads from the shops to the streets
where balloon toting children drip ice cream
and shriek for a doll, or a ball or some similar treat
while their parents feign deafness and strangers retreat
to the bunkered recesses of the lesser known streets.

Sunshine strobes out between alley and cloud searing
stripes on the pavements, buildings, and the crowd,
scattering like shrapnel from the centre of town.

Megaphone, exclusion zone, cordon tape, police
explode into action on these Manchester streets.

But not here, in this office block next to the shops
where he waits, ever patient, watching
the clock as it booms its slow way past eleven o’ clock.

He wipes over the counter, sweeps dust from the stairs,
scrubs grease marks from marble, smoothes down his hair,
straightens the guestbook, papers and pen,
empties the bin, wipes the counter again,
and when everything’s right, and everything’s neat
he stands by the window looking out on the street.

Shielded by silence of steel, stone and glass
his thoughts linger on something he saw
the night before last about consciousness,
awareness, the mind, memory. About neurons
connecting, what it means to be me;
how our existence relies on a subtle chemistry.

Through red, white, blue loops electricity seeps,
in the bomb in the van parked outside on the street

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3…