Quayside in Chiswick
Where the sun makes a rare appearance
Her warm presence invigorating happiness
Britain-wide

She mirrors herself in a pool of algae, green liquid
Otherwise known as the Thames.
Her reflection?
A glint of the nation’s happiness, carpeting the foot of a passing cruiser-
Now water lapping against the quayside

And as the boat glided under the rough steel bridge
A reminder of industries past,
Of our nation’s heritage.

Now the sun tucks herself away among the skyline of West London
And the snug trendiness of Barnes fades away.
Yet the memory stays

Of nothing much else better than being quayside

All manner of people can be found in train stations, there character betrayed by attire to the more observational at least. The hard pressed city worker, walking ever walking, phone at hand, ever scanning emails and ensuring accessibility always, to control is too maintain is too succeed. Those who's steps seemingly shorter and more though out, are either here on some grand tour or some exotic soire as if silently noting surroundings, as the pass beneath the ornate decorations of their location. There care free folly the main indicator of intentions.From time to time a transport police officer shall pass, stern faced, seemingly compelled by some unknown mission others stand stationary a deterrent to would be criminals. From time to time the most beautiful facet of humanity is likely to appear, in the adoring stares of young lovers. It's this or the hold and don't let go grip, young lovers and train stations have long associated (In my mind at least) the point of departure is a grey area. Where displays of public affection normally reserved for movies and poems, reach the realm of social acceptability. Long deep kisses and well thought out speeches describing the grievances of an ever bleeding heart. There is one group I have failed to mention, who in there own way are entirely distinct from any of groups fore mentioned. They are the watchers, found normally at some quite looking coffee shop across the street, however this is not to imply they can not be any of the above. All of the above mix intermittently with interesting results, I shall for as long as I live never forget the passionate embrace of an on duty police officer and his wife. His eyes bright with surprise, at ease staring upon the one he so adores. I leave the station and head toward the embankment,
All manner of people pass me on their way to unknown offices, some holding hands and staring deeply. The rumble of unseen locomotive reassures me now of course I'm drawing closer, the winter winds once faint now felt as the once green leaves now all manner of colour are pulled by unseen gusts. This city must surely be the greatest in the world, from the industrial chimneys distant to the rolling ocean. Dockers smoke cigarettes and exchange raucous  tales whilst foreign sailors stare intently. I always try my hardest to listen to as much as I could manage of these half spoken speeches.  Im rewarded instantly with an image far more detailed and planned than anything the most creative minds could conceive. The wild waves create orators, there thoughts distilled be evenings spent alone. I've always found myself drawn to transient people, I feel like I've spend forever dreaming of someplace else Greenland Egypt Canada, you name the place and I've seen it in my dreams at least. It took me a while longer than I care to admit to truly get a feel for the place, at first like some timid child I avoided it. From the age of thirteen I've been locked in a battle with wanderlust, my urge to leave it all is simply overwhelming. In all my darkest fantasies, I leave this place at some point on some old ocean liner to arrive at unknown port. Too share a meal with mountain air as my ashtray overflows. I warm myself with images of ancient explorers sailing distant oceans, guided by starlight. Some people just elude me. I'd call myself stubborn but certain people melt me, I the eternal romantic a victim of my own high hopes. I'd often find myself alone, staring across the river and wondering. I always sit upon the same old bench carved with all manner of messages declarations of undying love, names, dates all carved into immortality. The steady movement of approaching footsteps is eternal, beyond the customs house  solitary North Star shines, as if admiring its provincial estate. An unknown entity now serving as a subtle voice of reason in the darkness, occasionally couples pass, as if to cement my my longing. The starlight illuminates breaking waves, as boats sway easy ******* to subtle quayside. Ever reminded of my obligations I should really leave and go to sleep. However the pull of the darkness is tangible, that was something! oh something! Suddenly a gentle calm smothers all thought, as lights glimmer distant. Light! Oh  brother light, I the eternal castaway home bound at last. My expectations were entwined with food and wine, and the comfort of my own bed.

I

I learnt this week
that time and distance
can be friends to memory
their respective lengths
only wet and sharpen
the edge of love

but for us dear friend
we hold hard to hope
that we may
one day soon
share the present
and live each moment
in each other's heart.

II

Hearing you on Holkham beach
- whose soul is greater than the ocean
whose spirit stronger than the sea -
did I doubt for a moment
that you, though buffeted
by a cold east wind
would never age for me,
nor fade, nor die.
Nor you for me (she said)
Goodbye, my love,
a thousand times goodbye.
Write me well (she said)
and turned and ran.

III

The Reedham ferry was but a river's width
and yet I stood at the water's brink
and watched the reeds quiver in the wind,
watched the rain splatter on the puddled path.

All around to the human eye
this valley, a plain of grassland
broken only by reed-fringed pools,
was a gentle, unpeopled, easy place.

The absence of relief left
no fixed frame of reference.
Places apart from one another
would concertina and merge.

Tempted to cross I waved a no
to the ferryman in his quayside hut
then turned and walked quickly
back down the long, low road.

I walk down to the quayside,
past the Pure Gym fitness centre's
plate glass window.
There is a phalanx of treadmills
facing the glass,
populated by women
running nowhere,
an image of futility,
trapped like flies at a window,
determined and doomed.

The fitness centre looks out
at the huge boats
that work North Sea
between the oil fields and the fishing grounds:

The Olympic Commander,
Normand Aurora,
Skandi Caledonia,
Helliar.

On the high decks,
men in yellow oilskins
lean over the ship rail
and watch the women run.

For a moment I stand
between them, the earnest women,
the wistful men,
feeling for both but belonging with neither.

The sun is low in the sky,
and there's an Arctic bite
to the wind.
I pull up my collar,
and hurry into veins
of the granite city.

I have laid claim to the Tyne Bridge - it is my home.
You can keep the streets, the shops, the bars
Share them between you
But please
Let me have the bridge for myself.

The bottle green arch of Newcastle,
And the stew of water that runs beneath
The sheer drop of air between them,
Lightly salted by the sea.

It is but the only childish affectation
To follow me and hold true
Through the contaminant of temporality.
Just please, let me keep it.

I shed the skin of adolescence
And left my school tie at home
When I made the journey North.

I arrived expecting transcendence
But instead I received the unwanted gift of the present.
From the clamour of Manhattan,
To the desolation of New Mexico and Peru,
The present will forever be the most effective ammunition
In shattering the stained glass of the world’s wonders.

I know this from the beauty of memories.
Those wonderful fragmented images of childhood
That so efficiently cut out the hours of exceeding boredom,
And the tedium inflicted by the men in suits.

And the future,
The future of flying ships,
The mining of the moon
And downloadable pizza.
But we know in truth, when we arrive
There will still be lawyers
And adverts,
Beggars on the street
And apostrophe’s used incorrectly.

I digress.

Let me return to the Tyne Bridge
My bridge on the Quayside.
For despite the bird ****
And the playboys that trundle over it day after day,
It stands defiant over deep waters,
Daring to cheat death
Or vice versa.

Dalmatia and Other Localities before the War
When we ate grilled fish on the floating restaurant
lording it on the Dalmatian coast

...mistaken for Party children- daddy must be an
official for them to have a motor bike like that...

how cool

when we stood on the quayside at Budva then later
stranded on that hotel island watching the causeway
slowly disappear beneath an unhurried sea

when detouring to Kotor to see the earthquake damage
imagining the earth move a dust shrouded town
staring through chained gates as if at a movie set

when I drove the Honda too fast skidding around
potholes and you giggled later drinking rocket fuel
local liqueurs in a bar with currency for wall paper

then when we strolled the leaning streets of
Mostar where soon there would be tanks
Then what of our own smouldering conflict

our own trajectory of spite filled ordnance
could you sense that it was coming?
a nurtured, carefully concealed attack

time worn sophistry
what of that when gun smoke
smarts your eyes.

As it happens I did not buy this book
of collected poems in St. John, New Brunswick or
Charlottetown, P.E.I.  I didn’t pick it up
in Yorkville on a long weekend in Toronto,
nor was I delighted to spot it in a window display
on a stop I didn’t make for coffee in Kamloops, B.C.  
No doubt Halifax has its share of bookstores,
none of which I’ve visited on the road
to North Sydney to catch the ferry to Newfoundland,
where one imagines happening upon a salt cured,
weather beaten mom and pop clinging to life
quayside in St. Johns.  
The border with sleep lies just up ahead
where soon I’ll be borne across
on thoughts of the boats of these poems
lifted on the rising tide of the U.S. dollar,  
Billy Collins buttoned up for the night
inside a tent pitched upon the calm seas
of my chest.

Welcome to Southampton.
My home.

From the bowels of the ground.
Roman history found.
Bones of legions of soldiers, interred.
Trinkets, medieval of iron and brass.
Safely locked away undiscovered.
The city underground, now found.
An excavation of city life from ancient days.
Museums forgiven for  Victorian remnants withheld.
Now set free for all to see.


Delivered Titanic in majesty unto evil seas.
Where devils of ice took a chew from her bow.
Reflect on what became of her now.
Where folks sang in harmony, as anchors raised.
Her magnificent  glory, all beauty praised.
And children played on the quayside.
The future was locked and lost at first berth.
Monsters of seas snatched her from Earth.

My city my home.
Steeped in histories mysteries.
Kept safe in the diaries of time!
(C) Livvi

As it happens I did not buy this book
of collected poems in St. John, New Brunswick or
Charlottetown, P.E.I.  I didn’t pick it up in Yorkville
on a weekend spree in Toronto, nor was I delighted
to spot it in a window display when I stopped
for lunch in Kamloops, B.C.  
No doubt Halifax has its share of bookstores,
none of which I’ve visited on the road to North Sydney
to catch the ferry to Newfoundland,
where one could imagine happening upon
a salt cured, weather beaten mom and pop
clinging to life quayside in St. Johns.  
The border with sleep lies just up ahead
where soon I’ll be borne across
on thoughts of the boats of these poems
rising on the tide of the U.S. dollar,  
The Rain In Portugal a tent
rising and falling on my chest.

Omissions we make take us somewhere
but where that could be
I've no
clue,
I lose all momentum when friends come to stay
and the talk turns to
what shall we do
tomorrow.

Like
decaying uranium we linger, the fingers of time are our fate,
the half-lives of sinners are longer and get longer the longer they play on my nerves,
inner sanctums are no more a sanctuary
the walls I concreted broke down,
the lions may roar a denial, but something's
going on in the town,
ships sailing at dawn for the Islands
on missions to take them away,
only here for a day gone in sorrow,
in tears on the quayside
I see my
tomorrow.

The future is closer this evening
the day drifts off into the past,
uncertainty is the new reason
I'm glad that's
decided, at
last when the bell starts its long climb
before it falls back down
and chimes
I climbed that tall mountain
so often
and fallen back down
many times.

We first laid eyes on you over drinks
and a late dinner in the Latin Quarter,
a short stroll from the Spanish Arch,  
its historical significance gone
in a heartbeat along with expectation
of ambush by austere beauty
on those wind swept stepping stones
Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer.

The River Corrib rushes
beneath Wolfe Tone Bridge,
grainy and black as your liquid
image on the screen,
countless heartbeats of moonlight
mingling quayside with the sea
in a salty embrace that stings
my eyes and seizes my throat.

The windows of St. Martin’s
frame the timeless river.
Chamois cloth of morning
lifts the stubborn tarnish of dawn
from its braided embellishments.  
We tuck into our full Irish and drink
the watery coffee while you float
outside of time in your brackish sea.

and let me walk in the shadow of you,
strut in the way that you do and
sway in the sun,
be the gun and you the holster
bolstering me.

If I die when we try then we'll try once again.

I live for the living of it
be for the reason it is.

Aye,
it's a long road to travel
if you travel alone.

On the quayside beside me
we wait for our ship to come in
she,
so slim, demure,
me, outrageously sinful,
but mindful the cure for it
is in the living it for
the reason it is

It is on a Friday she sits and
watches from the quayside the
ships coming in.
She's waiting for Jim,
he signed on at the 'pool' in '59
sailed for a time in the
South China seas, sent her
bone china and teas.

One tour took him around the 'cape'
a one hundred foot wave gave the crew
no avenue of escape
they went down to the deep and the deep
always keeps
her boys close to her chest.

She still waits and she watches the ships slipping in,
shipping out and
there is no doubt in her mind that,
God being kind,
Jim will arrive
home one day.

We first laid eyes on you over drinks
and dinner in the Latin Quarter,
a short stroll from the Spanish Arch,  
its historical significance gone
in a heartbeat along with all
expectation of ambush
by austere beauty
on those wind swept stepping stones
Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer.

The River Corrib gleams
like vintage vinyl beneath
Wolfe Tone Bridge,  
grainy and black as your liquid
image glowing serene on screen,
countless heartbeats of moonlight
mingling quayside with the sea
in a salty embrace that stings
my eyes and seizes me
by the throat.

The windows of St. Martin’s
frame the timeless river.
Soft chamois of morning lifts
the stubborn tarnish of dawn
from its braided embellished tales.  
We tuck into our full Irish and drink
watery coffee while you float outside
time to the rhythm of the tides
in your small brackish sea.

I walk past windows to restaurants. I watch as people talk over small portions of seaweed and shrimp, sipping white wine like a false prophet. There's this place towards the Quayside with a grand piano in the entrance. I have come to think in my novelty wisdom, that I shall never make an entrance so grand.

Lovers draw cash out of fat wallets. They're white and healthy with smiles that almost reach up to the corners of their eyes. They stare across silk flowers, drunk on the positive affirmation spewing from the weak-kneed waiter, bursting dullness like the fat around his waistcoat. In routine exchange of his verbatim stand-up act, both parties part without sentiment, but in comfort.

Straws sit in cocktails. Even they're paired up and bathed in elusive spirits, far beyond anything my bank account or inner eye could afford to indulge. Passing joys are ripe, donated amongst the thick-skinned royalty to passers-by like myself, who cannot experience happiness, but can at least know that is exists. Each joy temporal in the promise of another, they don't cling to their memories and instead lay anew, anew – all the time.

I am a ****** of pastoral care. I know that now, after looking in. I have noticed that windows are there for observation. Each window a chance to witness creation, found in science, in art, in conversation. For too long I have stood here, thrown dizzy in the wind. For too long I have been waiting for nobody, hoping that somebody will pick up the pieces. I am in pieces. It's plain to see as I walk away.

North of Watford Gap is grim
and even the reaper needs a minder
to go about his business.

Can't say that I agree,
its been tough but fair
to me.

We'll soon be docking,
disembarking at
the quayside of 'new year'
which was named the year that it was new,
it's not new anymore,

seems like everything's like that
South of Watford Gap.

Offshore breeze of more bluster than steady.
Drawing white tips to waves of an emerald tinge.
White crested green seas surrounding.
Hands clenched to rail covered by misty spray.
Rolling and pitching immunized by the visions before young eyes.
Sky of pristine blue with radiant white wisps of cloud.
Horizons unending even where blue and green meet.
Two seals at play in the tossing waves.
Glistening grey bodies ducking and diving beneath breaker.
The prow through frothing ocean, pushing aside waves with ease.
Carving on steadily through liquid green and white anger of sea.
To the starboard horizon a darkening shape.
Bands of cotton stitched atop.
Drawing now noticeably ever nearer.
Almost by magic the horizons shape appears,
wind gives way to breeze.
Waters now at ease taking on more familiar and everyday hues.
White shapes astride the shore with tones that hint and suggest.
Now ever nearer becoming buildings and the buildings a city.
All the while the stitched cotton band reshaped to form clouds.
Blanketing perfectly the mountain called Table-Top.
Young eyes still locked in wonder, hands still holding rail.
Now docked along quayside, vast cityscape beyond.
Table-Top with cloth as backdrop.

Solid city walls
Rising above golden sands
Magic everywhere

Old men playing boules
Silver ***** shining brightly
Pleasure everywhere

Sails and masts abound
A thriving busy quayside
People everywhere

Gardens rich with scent
Flowers alive with beauty
Colour everywhere

Spinning carousels
Ringing with happy laughter
Children everywhere

Azure sky and sea
In blazing summer sunshine
Lovers everywhere

Pretty mademoiselles
Joining their lips in loving
Passion everywhere

These are my sweet thoughts
When I think once more of you
Pretty Saint-Malo.

Down on the quayside
stood beside
the willow baskets,
(caskets for fish)
we
made a wish.
I promised you this
with a kiss on your
lips that the ships
would come safely
back home.

In Whitby I noticed the teenage girls
who lined the long, Bank Holiday quayside.
Amongst the noise, their young faces serene,
they stood with siblings, step dads, always mam.
The sun shone from their hair - some dark, some blonde,
they wore makeup they did not need.
For the eye is always drawn towards youth.
I noticed too a kind of uniform,
skinny jeans, leggings, flesh revealing tops.
Though it was the lines they held that caught me.

The orange lines that ran from their young hands.
Bright, twisted twine that vanished in the depths
of the inky harbour waters that lay
before them like a still, unlived future.
Crabbing at Whitby, their faces were set
in concentration and female patience.
The patience their grandmothers had needed
when the glass fell and the wind rose at night.
Today though they tended their baited lines,
silent, awaiting the unseen quarry.

Quarry they'd keep in water-filled buckets
of brightly coloured, cheap, cheerful plastic.
To me the whole thing seemed somewhat pointless
competing to see who could catch the most,
catch the biggest of these vicious creatures.
Who'd attack them at every given chance
drawing the blood from their innocent hearts.
Until the metaphor revealed itself.
The girls' lives were now turning like the tide,
the boys like ***** were circling the bait.

My beautiful mother so warm so soft
my mother is off
I'm only a baby
I cry too much:
she's gone

We're on the quayside
I'm going away with my daddy and brother
she's tall I'm small
my baby brother is in her arms
she smiles at me
the baby cries
I'm a big girl now
I cry on the inside only

We're at the airport
she's tall, I'm taller
I'm off to study another life
we smile and wave:
Goodbye

I'm leaving again
now I'm holding the baby
she tries to smile but she misses my baby
she's crying inside
I smile and wave:
Goodbye

I'm leaving once more
she's frail and small
her bent and beautiful frame still bearing it all
she smiles
I cry though I still try
not to

An age-long leaving of those you love
where does it leave you?
It leaves you bereft
what meaning is left
for the tall or the small
what meaning is left
at all

Out of the fog she chugs

Wheezing asthmatically into the surrounding haze through soot caked nostrils

Vapor condenses on cold steel skin

Iron plates slammed shut and joined with thick ribbons of weld

Rust pustules erupt through salt yellowed emulsion

Figures peer through brine scoured panes

At the dock now, she is lashed to the pier, her gaping maw offered up to the quayside

She disgorges a clattering stream of mechanical effluvium

It spills onto the cement in roiling metallic rivulets

Until, she wretches her last mouthful and sighs, exhausted

Then with no respite, she is force fed, held fast and stuffed

Gulping and swallowing the seemingly endless flow

She groans under the burden and sinks lower in the water

Until finally, fit to burst, she is released from her *******

She bobs languidly away from the dock

And slips back into the fog from whence she first emerged.

The light sparkled on the water, as if the flashes were white flames
And the jealous sea took back its place, with tide its place reclaims
The salt tasted of adventure, and the sea spray felt like need
As the women on the quayside, prayed their men came back with speed.
And the ship, with all its rigging creaked a fond farewell,
Rolling gently on the comfort of the ever flowing swell.
That’s when I saw her standing, in the sunlight on the shoreline
More beloved then any goddess, more revered than any shrine
She stood with eyes that sparkled, like the seas own dancing lights
And she breathed with all the passion that calls and me invites
So I stood there watching still and calm, and I knew full well that day
That I’d come back to her forevermore as there was no other way
She is the one that holds my heart, she is the one for me
And so I traveled fast and hard, till the two of us were we.
And now I’m old and haggard and the lady she is to
Soon both of us will pass this life, so this I tell to you.
If I could see her stand again, on the beach down by the sea
I’d leave the ship and stay with her, she’d have more time with me.
For adventure is exciting, and the world is full of wonder
But the love you have for someone else, could pull the globe asunder.

Otto rode filthy down the slumpline onto Cowpers - past Bleaker's Brick, Mole Rat Slim's and Dave’s Sour Onion , on down to quayside all hooked and hungry. Flyer said Gracey Mae Beam was hoarding the stage at eleven, hitting the planks of Varlot’s Velvet Rope with no back-up - no thunder drum brass or strung out string section to stifle the hoots and howls of them mongrel boys scrapping over leavin’s. He knew the drill. Gracey would lead with “Heaven” then lilt dissonant into “Hell and Lula”, spin down into “Luna”, swing out riffs of “Hypnosis” and barrel into “Gun Metal Blue” and run “A Lass To Mara.” Yes, he knew the drill cuz the set was theirs, arranged in a one bedroom walk-up shotgun with a Wurlitzer and bad plumbing. ****, has it been that long? But Otto knew, felt it in a rib, it was coded on the leaflet - Gracey was playing Varlot’s - the first haunt - going it alone this time, no Wurlitzer, no Otto, just a dim lit backdoor black-smudged around the ****. He’d wait for her there, three smokes left and rationing. Three smokes left and hoping for a glint-eye nod.

Flocks of seagulls by the quayside
A longing to know the poem's answer
Some 73 words to fix them
In  chaos choices are made