winter meal deal - Now Then

Time Out.
The sea’s out. Far fishies grubbing in green,
whopper whales flushing their planktonic
baleen. Cruel gulls dipping the sloppy doggy
bag. Barques of steel plying the board between
roro ports. Silicon valley deep under green. Cod
pieces grabbed by radar unseen; blips of the
ocean clock,offshore. The sea’s left, leaving us
the half-land. dimple wet suck-sand, yearning
for the drench mother.
Paul Mitchell.
Meadowhell.
we were once ejected from the temple for
inciting workers to join unions redundantly as
most were too scared to even take a leaflet and
in the centre two bronze steel workers stand
witness to their own demise; beaten into shape;
at once both colossal and petrified
The Cooling Towers’ Farewell
two big dirty chef’s hats,
risen from the Don, looking over the river,
lost behind poplars, lego-towers,
Junction 34 look-out posts,
bell-bottoms of silent power,
the colour of chinos, sand-castles,
like Cleethorpes beach risen into the sky
(and smudged with oil, smeared with toil)
looking down over Meadowhall,
we’ve nothing to say, nothing to say
wearing the tides, silted,
the last two pawns in a game of historical chess,
or are we King and Queen,
taller than Sheffield Town Hall,
as high as the Hallamshire,
looking down on short fat eat-your-heart-out gas
towers,
twin exclamation marks,
saying nothing, knowing everything,
Mum and Dad of the steam-filled city,
knowing steam rises, and air is everything,
Bill and Ben, the Towers of Zen….
James Oliver.
The meeting.
Your hands lay open on the wooden table,
your eyes clouded; a film of understanding.
An urge to stab a knife between each finger
at rapid speed is quickly suppressed by the
third or forth drink, which goes down with
greater ease than the conversation, that seems
to linger like fog; hang like smoked meat.
And as the dust settles through the early sun
beams,
my desert mouth tries to hold court alone, with
bovine
statements best left for stronger states.
and on one of us, black flames, pilot lights,
round the corner the faces of monkeys,
and a black rabbit looking straight over,
on the other ghosts of old castle doors,
Aztec runes of smoke and smirch, streaks,
criss-cross paths like lost civilisations,
Stonehenge for the carbon age,
we’ve nothing to say, nothing to say
two big birds’ nests in the poetics of space,
empty cathedrals as quiet witness to the soundtrack
of the endless drone-roar of the internal
combustion engine,
cloud-gatherers, cardboard cut-outs,
bit-parts in the Meadowhall movie-set,
and now they can never make
King Kong And The Tinsley Cooling Towers.
Matt Black.
This hair of the dog now shaved, and platted
left to be worn by others, down that rickety path
forged by three foot steps.
Jonathan Butcher .
WORDLIFE.
poetics.
PAGe thirty-five.