I see the faces as the bus passes
Staring blankly at the windows
Oblivious to me seeing them staring blankly
At the windows
Speeding relentlessly to the end of their lives
Rushing through time and space
To the ultimate destination unknown
Heads full of the least important things
Such as; …What, or what not to wear,
What happened last night?
What does she look like in that?
What's on tele tonight?
Void, void, void.
The bus has gone
With the blank white faces at the window
Heads full of the least important thoughts.
No room for thoughts of the sublime,
Thoughts of the heart and the imagination,
Thoughts that really matter
I shrink at the cold realisation that
When my bus comes
I'll be a blank, white face at the window...
From the everyday now, to the dark past, to the glowing eternal, the debut 78 page book of poems and short stories from Salford's Michael Skeffington is dense with emotion, dotted with humour and suffused with observations of us all.
Views From A Hidden Eye contains forty pieces of writing from the Lower Kersal creative, known more for jamming sessions, DJing and stand up story telling.
Poems range from comments on the past in Dereliction, Pit Brow Lassies and The Mill – "You swallowed our children/Then spat out our grandparents" – to the verses of Epitaph to Man, aliens reflecting on the sad, nefarious state of the planet; to a bit of Dr Seuss-ism going off in Away with Words... 'Tricky Trappist Tapdancing Tales/ Colonising Clumsy Clitoris Carefully/ Dense Delicious Dandelion Dragonflies/ Fortuitous Fermentations Forbidden Fungi...'
But mainly the poems come from somewhere beyond the rainbow of the heart. As Mike himself puts it, "personal poems and short stories inspired by loss and life experiences"...not least in the opening poem, Shirl... 'Everyone mattered to you,
but you/ You for me, me for you, in truth...'
Meanwhile, the six short stories are folk tales, from the Victorian yarn about Mr Chester and the Derbyshire villagers' Forlorn Hope pub, to heady meanderings of thought featuring a window dresser in Sixties Manchester, a surreal encounter in medieval times, and the strange case of Patience Strange, a society clairvoyant sentenced to death for murder – fact or fiction?
Whatever. There's plenty to keep the reader's psyche burning, with creative turns on every page. The compilation's title, Views From A Hidden Eye, kind of sums up the bold words and broad verse within. This is a writer truly putting his soul on a platter. Expect the poetic unexpected.
Views From A Hidden Eye: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories
By Michael D Skeffington
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