So it's not in a shop

but in keeping with the season of IPYPIASM that's in it, today I wrote a poem involving a shop. I wrote this in a work SHOP - see all the links? it's amazing isn't it... anyway - the workshop person (who was very nice and good by the way) got us to pick a public place and write a poem about the people around and about it seconds before a bomb goes off. - taking inspiration from the poem "The One Twenty Pub" by Wislaura Szymborska, translated by Dennis O'Driscoll.

I picked a shop. A fictional newsagent place called Mc Swiggan's. It's the first thing I've written in yonks so I'm not sure if it's any good. If anyone knows of a newsagent called McSwiggan's, please let me know so I can get them to put this one up in their shop...

Blowing Up McSwiggan's

Some goths and norms

coagulate in footpath

congregations

laughing through their braces

cigarettes light up their faces

An aunt runs in to buy

a card, a certain celebration

coat pulled against the cold

winces past a young alsation

A thin man wants a paper

with the date his son was born

Should've left it off till later

Would be safer to go home

There's a toddler on a lead

with icecream dripping through his fingers

though it's nearly nine at night

still his mammy chats and lingers

with a long past maybe boyfriend

she ran into him by chance

and now they're swapping numbers baby

but they might not get to dance

Farmer stops to check the lotto

red cheeks grump at lack of winning

thick chocolate cheers him up

so there's no fear of him thinning

The world thinks it can keep on

but in McSwiggan's soon it's ending

no more nothing for the lot of them

ashes, dust, dead colours blending