Musing at my bedroom window
proscenium to the street scene
parents in the back room snoring
St. Michael's sandstones frowning
at poor sally shambling shuffling
from secret shadow to moonshine
bottles clanking - guilty glancing
bulging stout bag - liquor dancing.

Standing at our poet's corner
spectators pilgrims commentators.
Ectoplasmis streams rise and flare
hot heaving lungs to cold dry air.
They stare - prepare explanations
poltergeist premeditations.

The roughness of unshaven sandstone,
dark from the morning's early growth,
jutting its chin estuarywards,
cold until lathered in the midday sun.

A platform for he who would rule
all Merseyside for an instant,
taking in deep breaths of fantasy
for his private meditation.

There's a drawing on my wall
a pen and ink impression
of the old transporter bridge
- a Meccano masterpiece.

It's my Tardis, my time machine,
portal to a vast interior
of vivid early images,
sounds of a rumbling grumbling bogie
pulling me back through time.

The clatter as our boarding gate swings shut,
an alert pause in the varnished cabin.
We listen for the next familiar step,
the creaking **** towards Runcorn Gap,
passing over Aethelfleda's Castle,
the mid-crossing windblown waltzing,
the bustling landing in the other county.

A few miles inland,

Told to lock all windows and doors,

There is Chlorine in the air,

As England remembers Soviet Russia,

Chemical spills tickling the throat of the century,

Stinging the eyes of the children

Bored in the beer garden of Britain,

The roads are all blocked and the whiskey is watered down.

People leave slower than ever,

Swimming in pools of exhaust fumes,

CO2, Radio 2, M52 bound,

Vehicular nightmare wound,

Lost in the A-Z of our Father’s arteries

Reversing through his varicose veins,

Stopping short of starry futures,

Air pollution spoiling meteor showers.

An end, an end,

Over and Over again.

Poor little chameleon
Sitting there so blue
He's played so many colors
He's forgotten his own true hue