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FluxMobile Launch

Community Poet Tony Hillier celebrated the FluxMobile launch with his own special blend of poetry...

Saturday 19 May 2007, outside Asda WalMart, at North Swindon Orbital Shopping Park, saw the launch of the multi-media customised creative Youth Bus named “FluxMobile.” This event was too good to miss. Too exciting not to record in some way. One way was poetry.

These poems have been collaboratively created by either jotting down what people said on the day or stimulated by  people’s reactions to this unusual, extended mini-bus. Perhaps some of these words could indeed be called extended metaphors!

All change

Got any change mate
‘ave you got the price of a cup of tea?
Got any change mate

Sorry mate I’m broke
No change around ‘ere
Sorry mate I’m broke

What the !  What the ‘ell is that?
Creative Change Flux Bus mate
Creative Change Flux Bus mate
What the !  What the ‘ell is that?

yoof waits for ages

Yoof blatantly bin waiting ages
for this bus to come along
yoof not sure
if they need to raise their hands to stop it
to hop on it
not sure if it’s going in their direction
or if they’re being taken for a ride

blate be brave
step inside
bite the apple Mac

from bovver to hover

hovering like SWAT helicopter crews
new staff not securely knowing what to do
but like all creatives…making it up as they go along
along the user friendly keyboards and MacScreens
nudging into confidence, and that’s just the Team
Youth ?  Youth ? Sometimes nowhere to be seen
At other times on this launch
It was “Move on down the Bus.  Youth coming thru”
And then it was down to brass ……
Letting the state of art progs strut their stuff
For Swindon’s youth who now with this bus
Have it all at their fingertips

Moving Moments

She did it
She jus dun it
Moving image on screen
The like of which I’ve never seen
Save professionally on Worldwide Web
But this is a Swindon teenager created this
This North Swindon Orbital Shopping Centre Saturday
This moving image on the screen
The like of which I’ve never seen
Then I’m too old

“It’s us young that’s bold
I’m Christina, leading the way at twenty
Come on in – there’s Apples a-plenty”

Flash Ar(t)r’ee

It’s flash, flash it is
Blue balloons and blue mgt something
Yes, something’s going down

Streeetch limo ?  forget it
This is streeeeetched youth
Stretched the Council starburst
A David Essex moment
Er’ bit bare…
‘er ju want sum graffiti on that ?

‘er no you’re alright thanx

Smell that

The smell of newness hits you first
New nearly-leather smell
Closely followed by the pukka décor
Red and cream glory benches to chill on
With tasty little laptops to linger by
To try

Encouraging words assult your ears
Come in. Welcome. Perch and have a go.
If you don’t know, I’ll show
Says the newly installed , freshly smelling tutor
Tutor, youth worker, or whatever he is
This is all new. We don’t know what to call you.

Call us. Trying very hard to get it right if you like
Call us.  Hope we can merge the nerd with the street word
Call us.  If you need us.  We’ll come running.
Well, pace across the galley to lend and ear and an idea.
We are the Mega Byte Team supporting your creative dream
In this youths’ Fluxmobile multi-media Dream Machine.

Van-Dull

Moved our family up here
But, be honest, not much for kids to do
No wonder some go off the Swindon Rails
We pay our Poll Tax
Time for Council to give us something back

Our son’s on the creative side
You should see him play Battle Bands – live
If they shot some film, could they edit it here
You see…he’ll be famous, I’m sure, some year

mint

What, that bus over there ?

Mint, safe
Not pikey

That bus

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A star is born

OK.  It’s got potential
Would I go there on an ordinary night?
Probs
Depends… if I’ve got homework… she mused
Then after twenty minutes,
thirteen year old Emma popped the question :
“What is this actually for?”
Her pointed shoes finally got the point.
We wait to see if she uses it for A* homework

with Emma and Laura

Fluxtastic

This lo-o-o-o-o-o-ong caravan Man
Into which me an’ my mates we glide

Is as fun, is as fun

Is as fun as a water slide

Might do

Yes I might do
If I had nothing better to do
I might do
I might
I might just do
Pop in to see you
See you
Staff in Fluxmobile
Chewing your apples
We’ll see, we’ll see what happens

Diss it

Diss it, no I won’t diss it
Yet
It has to prove itself
If we get bossed for no reason
If it fills with herds of nerds
If chavs or pikeys take it over
Then no
We won’t roll in your clover

Looks cool today
If it stays that way
We may come back to see you another day

When I was young….

When I was young
We’d throw some sticks and the odd stone
But today’s kids are feril – there’s nobody at home
Parent’s all out slaving for a wage
So little guidance for the teenage

One computer Bus you’ve parked here for kids
Open it everyday or our kids’ll be on the skids
More clubs, more sport, more trips, more fun
Needed for our children – it’ll help everyone

Another day

It’s another Saturday Shopping Day at Orbital
Let’s face it, there’s nothing else to do at all

Over there what’s that, some trendy parked their bus
Trying to sell something no doubt, s’nuffin’ to do with us

Oohh ! looks like a few trying to tempt people in
Don’t think I’ll bovver, callin’ in

Comin’ out now I see someone who looks like me
They’re smiling and laughin’ – I might pop in and see

So I went there din I, it wasn’t too bad
Something when I was a child, I never had

Must tell my children bring their grandchildren here
Looks safer than glue sniffin, or drinkin Arkell’s beer

State of Flux

In a state of flux
Static not mobile
Caught in the Corporate Council Curricula Lights
Stare the Officer Classes

@ people who passes
Their caesarean deadline sweated bus-baby
Hoping, just hoping that maybe
That especially after its tried and tested
Young people will realise
They’ve not been taken for a ride
So the Officer Classes feel 
more 

High Hopes

Hop on the high hope bus
No there ain’t a top deck front seat
We’re single decker, new, tidy and neat
Nobody yet put their feet on the seat
No chewing gum chum stuck to your bum
Graffiti free this bus for thee
For thee who want to try graphics
Make your own film – save money on the flicks
It’s the High Hopes Bus stopped at your door
Once you’ve tried it once you’ll be asking for more
Oh yes.  High Hopes, for some of us, on the bus
But who’s stopping off
To create for the rest of us?

tempted

if
Well,
I’ve not got one at home
So probably on a Tuesday Nite like
If parents let me

my moves
I’m visiting dad and step-mum
Live with me mum
Am pretty good a’ put’ers
Might pop along and show you my mov(i)es

risktaking
“That man is crazy”
Gotton a reaction
Time only tell
negative or positive

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Billy Can

“too stuffy in that microwave”
I’m a youth not a ready-made meal
Prepare correct temp to cook my creativity
then you’ll feel my electricity*

* ref Billy musical song ‘Electricity’

rite wot u fink

“da bad ass poet is mad”

“a loop of faces ever moving, ever changing”

“I fink it’s wicked !”

“Fink tools and everything
Is amazing and cool
Making animations is fun
I can’t do at hum”
“da bad ass poet is mad”

Crazy Man

That man is crazy, he’s crazy man
So feisty he talks to us
Like he finks he’s one of uz
He tries to make a joke
He tries to make us laugh
We try not to smile or ask for his autograph

But yatter on he does
Not like most adults jus’ walking on by
He say I muss, muss bus
So what’s all the fuss?  Some Mega painted bus!

MegaBus Flexible Fluxmobile
C’est n’est pas difficile
Just for a laugh, try something new
There’s hardly anything else to do
Humour the crazy man
Step in da house an’ wiggle that mouse
Might first be a bit hazy, even crazy
But, well, it’s new, it’s for you
Give it try, do

Made by Me

Sally in our class is all tooled up
She’s a tv in her room, so have I
But she’s got this laptop thingy Internet as well
All I got is a typewriter from hell!
Only joking.  Got n’ old computer only Word pro on that

I want to do my Art and Films - Sally does all that

I heard of this vanny thing
All state of the art and they let youth in
I’m gonna give it a shout
Find out what it’s all about
If I can fnd out where it’s at
Then Sally and the World will see
Some minting films

Made by Me

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Timetable Turns Table

Will I be able to read its timetable
Will it stop where I want it, too
Will it cater for single trips
And can I get a Day Rider Weekly Pass
Who wrote the timetable anyway
I might be good at that timetable writing
See, I know, where the Youthies Bee

See I know, leave it to me, Trust me
OK we need a Clever Driver
But I can be Conductor
I’m fifteen you see – I’m geek free
But know my computer stuff
Local kids, local kids, they ain’t had enough
Sure they’ve had enough people them dissin
But there’s a main point people are missin’
Even in this Computa Age PC World Scan’it
Many of us, even, here Up North, live on another Planet
It’s too expensive to keep up the kit @home
So we may be prepared to roam, as far as the Bus Stop
Even Grand Dad moved from Anderson Shelter to Bus Shelter
We can move from limits of isolated msn
To expand into sociable, timetabled, young women and men

Boom, Boom !

What’s the difference
between Boombox and Fluxmobile
boombox is sounds-in-a-box
Fluxmobile is images out-of-the-box
Boom, boom !

De-tox Boombox

Boombox does it already
Boombox driven down this road
So listen, listen up
Bin cool
Our first few months
Teethin problems don’t ache no more
Still got fleas with DJ scratchin’
Richly mixing it
With beat box rappin’

Listen out to our underground hip hop
OK we deal in stereo (and quad)
But we go beyond those stereo-types
O’ guns drugs money
and nasty side bitches
We ain’t innit for the riches
Our messages are our medium
Our medium our message
But listen, listen up
We ain’t medium, we’re massive
Big up our massif message
From Boombox ya never need de-tox !

Convergence of the Twain*

Creative change
Change gear
Swapping Octobus for Megabus
or does Swindon need the twain
wonder what happens when twain meet
Creative change of gear
here, North Swindon, this year

* The Convergence of the Twain (on loss of Titanic) Thomas Hardy 1912

Birthday Bus Epiphany

Poet in the driving seat
No change there then
Dashboard sony tele,
s’ppose to save reversing crashes
Phew ! – wipe the sweat from thick eyelashes
Huh ! – no cassette tape or radio
It seems yesterday’s logic had to go

Long, Oh long in wing mirror view
Many will get in a parking stew
but soon will spin on the old sixpence
as practice makes near-perfect
Which is what young people will find
when, guided by Flux
they enter this bus
and open their minds

to commemorate the launch of Fluxmobile but also the Birthday of one member of the team – multi-modern-media staff are humans too !

Fluxmobile into North Orbital

and in the end
it was the beginning
Fluxmobile Winnebago in starting blocks
to win the youngsters over
and then, and then
it was all over
the Asda Walmart Orbital Launch
had left its Cape Canaveral
no whisper of
“Swindon, we have a problem” *
more like
“Swindon, Fluxmobile?  We have no problem.”

Later that same year
was heard from somewhere
in the Warming North
“The Fluxmobile Eagle has landed”
And, overegging it,
“One small step for Swindon
One giant step for Creative Youth”

* "Houston, we have a problem" from Apollo 13.

Pride of Place

No longer in a state of flux
It sits guarded at night in Waterside Park
Alongside
Averies Plant Hire Danger of Death*
Our creative change wonderbus
Alongside cylindrical diesel storage tanks
Reuse collection vehicles by the baker’s dozen
Discarded fridges and freezers, abandoned cars
Staff cars, cranes and craftsmen by day
Heavy haulage, garden waste
Our Wonderbus takes its place
as just another Council Service
takes its place amongst re-cycled bottles cans and rags
redundant batteries and sell-by-date Polaroid cameras
and other car boot sale detritus
this shiny silver bullet sits, this Artsmad Arts Services rests amongst Swindon Council Services, taking pride of place
uncovering talent, recycling life

* actual words painted on vehicle

Fluxmobile needs to sleep somewhere, sometimes!