Catch A Tram To Manchester Poem by Charlotte Peters Rock

Catch a tram to Manchester at lunchtime
Join the flocks of people at the shops
In Piccadilly Gardens smell the flowers
See the nursery boundary near the Central Ref.

Climb the pillared steps
Collect The Big - and homeless - Issue
Take it, quietly protesting, into circularities
Homes for books and magazines
Jewish studies and Chinese
Englishness, on floors and floors of opulence

Plays which play the basement area
and a shop, encircled by the drifting literate

Walk to Castlefield
Its Roman Fort remains
jostling below the over-running rail
with arches marching into distance

See the scene of former glory for our industry
industriously renewed to show its beauty

Watch the Medlock feed the Duke's canal
sparkling, watery arms barge decorated
reaching for your pleasant picnic interlude
flowing slow to soothe your busy mind
Follow trails and signs; take in museums
Wander Deansgate, St. Anne's Square, the bookshops

Up the steps, the Royal Exchange
scene of former cotton-glory to the world
Now theatrical and arty
with a theatre in the round

"All the world's a stage.."
and Manchester's a better stage than most

Free thinkers flow through here
in and out - to tip the world on end
bringing energy, humanity, dignity.
Luring in return free-thinkers from the furthest corners

Artistry from here reflects the distance
incorporates its strangeness and excitement
takes the magic of museums
of galleries and craftsmen
Re-working in a spirit quite peculiar to Manchester
whose flourishing ideas line the world

Catch a tram to Manchester
Climb off at Albert Square

Elevated Albert guards the City hall
its Mayors and council chambers clad
in good Victorian splendour
to last the generations
and lead re-generations
Catch a tram to Manchester and see

6.8.95.bk19/2