Henry Normal, co-writer of award-winning TV and film shows such as The Royle Family, The Mrs Merton Show, The Parole Officer, Coogan’s Run, Paul Calf, and producer of Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, Uncle and Alan Partridge, among many others, has shared some more of his brilliant poems exclusively with Northern Soul.
SOUTHERN CEMETERY
Like comic timing
old graves
bedded well in hard ground
sit easy in glib abstract
With assurance of place
haircuts grown out
beside mourners long since rejoined
our great grandfathers
surrender their individuality
In the grandeur of their anonymity
we grieve more for humanity
than our own mortality
Then we come upon God’s latest crop
Fresh mounds of loose earth
soft like a hand on your brow
A scar still pink before the skin hardens
There’s something disturbing
about the grouping of these
well tended plots at the edge of the gate
The unweathered granite
the unworn epitaphs
like first year kids in their new uniforms
The soil as rich and brown as a new satchel
Anxious like their mother
we hesitate at the railings
On the far side of the high street
there’s a choice of undertakers
and a discreet distance down the road
you can buy flowers
KING STREET
I once set myself adrift at a jumble sale
watching pregnant craving in frenzy
And I have no wish to pretend I am in London
I have no desire to be at the centre of things
When I couldn’t afford to buy
these windows intimidated
Today they are like Christmas trimmings
left up too long
Once I turn the corner onto Cross Street
I am back in Manchester
The ratio of stone to glass
suggesting a reflection of substance
CORNERHOUSE
Permanently at a crossroads
I glory in my window seat
The goldfish outside
don’t realise the irony of the screenplay for
today I am Richard Baseheart
Schools of buses
migrate towards Piccadilly Gardens
as I chart a course for the rest of my life
People with bigger fish to fry
circle the glass
their faces mouthing in silence
Yesterday I was mistaken for Bergman
in Panoramic Cinemascope
austere against a backdrop of grey and white
but no….I was on top of a bus
front seat
bound for Skegness
Then 2000 years later that afternoon
on the bridge of the Enterprise
I was left in control of the console
the red alert button
resembling a buttered scone
screen on
Spock dead
my ship infested with aliens
my finger poised over a protruding sultana
But today
my body feels as heavy as a shipwreck
I am safe in the deep of my third cuppa
periscope down
listening for sonar
avoiding the sharks and the mermaids
