Where new writing finds its voice
Poem

53 North 48

Danny Hardisty

No plaque to Julie Christie
          smoking in the carriage,
                    last scene of Billy Liar,

as himself goes back for milk
          and every man in Pictureville
                    gets on the train ahead of him.

I wore a black tie no wider
          than a shilling at the screening
                    and totted out past the Victoria-

memorial which once stood
          on Morley St, but is now
                    a wallflower at the Mecca disco.

Old Bradford is gone, the new
          has been to the dispensary,
                    the town hall modelled on

the Palazzo Vecchio
          is circled by starlings, a bell rings 
                    for them to change direction

every second
          second in the peopleless dusk.