"merseyside" poems
They huddle in the cold damp darkness
grateful for the sheltering sandstone
shuddering at each echoing blast
a remorseless dull ache
like their meagre rations
eyelids shutting wrinkling between attacks
seeking peace and inner sleepless solace.
'Them docks is taking a pasting.'
'Me Dad works there.'
Another attack, tunnels rumble
evoking century old echoes
of rusty trundling drum-line wagons
bearing sandstone blocks to build the docks
now being blitzed blighting the night sky.
The morning brings a dusty disquiet.
Merseyside emerges curses soldiers on.
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 10:42 AM UTC
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.
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 11:19 AM UTC
When the water is warm in July
beneath the Merseyside sky
he sets down his Pimms
and goes for a swim
on his back to keep his nuts dry.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 1:56 AM UTC
Like a maestro on her rostrum
she waves her arms, conducting
a symphony of clouds and sun,
synchronizing showers with sleet and snow.
Or a white witch casting her spells
on Lakeland fells and Pendle Hill,
from Morecambe Bay to Liverpool,
where slave ghosts haunt the cotton coast,
from Merseyside to Manchester,
then chants she changes over Cheshire.
She weaves her isotherms and bars
through the warp and weft of our map,
wreathing those Western Approaches,
where siren sea nymphs shimmer.
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 11:07 AM UTC
Lost Love
25 years ago September met April and
September fell in love; she was eighteen I was 52
…I know what you think.
At the post office, she worked, and I posted letters
to pretend friends in Liverpool and return address
and if someone opens them know they will find
an ocean of words about loneliness.
One day when I came there, she held the hands
of a young man, her eyes dripped of love and
I never sent the letter to a fictitious girlfriend
at Beck Street number 12 in Liverpool.
You could not help falling in love with her she
was perfectly formed had long blond hair and
laughed like an angel.
It was the usual story she married had children,
then a messy divorce.
We are friends now I told her how much I had
loved her, but I never had the courage to say so.
She held my aged hands and said: I loved you too
but thought you didn't care about you many
girlfriends on the Merseyside
Feb 10, 2017
Feb 10, 2017 at 6:33 AM UTC