Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Paul Gilhooley May 2016
Widnes aint much, but to me she’s sweet home,
Safe refuge from wherever I roam,
Many may claim that she’s ugly and ******,
But open your eyes, and she’s really quite pretty.

From down by the snig, to up to the Crown,
There’s pubs a plenty where sorrows can drown,
The Globe, The Coterie, now Pesto of course,
But to all us old locals, it’s still the Black Horse.

Town centre drunks, laugh while they rant,
Old ICI and their Paraquat plant,
An industrial past, its dirt and its grime,
A ***** old river, her sludge and her slime.

Of nature reserves, we have quite a few,
From out of our wastelands, something wonderful grew,
Wildlife thriving where once we dumped *******,
Now even the Mersey lives once more with fish.

The factory smells that insulted our noses,
Spike Island, proud host once to the Stone Roses,
Paul Simon himself, when loneliness found,
On one of our stations,  wrote Homeward Bound.

The Beatles once played our dear Queens Hall,
Derelict now, no more curtains to call,
We love our music live and loud,
We truly are a passionate crowd.

A sporty town, but leagues our game,
Tho’ recent years have been quite a shame,
Myler, Karalius, Davies, Offiah,
Crowned World champs, our status climbed higher.

Proud we cheered in old Naughton Park,
The cowsheds, cold, smelly and dark,
The glory days, they came and went,
Old fans speak in sad lament.

The whole town’s roads, my how they’ve changed,
Drivers sit there now, all deranged,
Confusing sets of roundabouts,
That lead us there, or thereabouts.

Morrisons, Aldi and now a Tesco,
Asda Halebank, well that had to go,
A curious accent, not manc or scouse,
Just hear us speak with Woolyback nouse.

W’s in words, like one, two, three, foewer,
And entering homes, through a front doewer,
It’s hard to explain in a few lines here,
But a few minutes in town, and all becomes clear.

Bowling, cinema and now an ice rink,
The town is recovering, back from the brink,
There’s Costa, Next, Boots and Wilkos,
Who else is coming, no one quite knows.

Widnes has changed in my 40 years,
But filled with hopes now instead of fears,
Change for the better? Let’s wait and see,
But no matter what, she’s still home to me.

© Cinco Espiritus Creation
2012
Poem written about my beloved home town.  She aint much, but she's home to me.
BG Hermitt Oct 2011
dying to dance
under rays of bright lights
singing new songs that we could
sing to all our tomorrows
we took to a field with the moon,
and stayed there until the field was built upon
with bricks containing our freedom songs in buildings
that were beautiful but roofed
with alcohol sweat
****** stained floors
we named this place
The Field in memory of the pastures
underneath it
soon we queued forever to get in
and even though our feet
were being pulled forwards
and backwards
forwards then sideways
by songs
that had become familiar
with a thunderous bass leaking from towering speakers,
inside our bodies we stood there, still
looking up for the moon
but like moths
in a whirlwind of awe
settled for artificial lights
because they flashed to red
from green and from red
to nothing
and in the end
we stood like dead sunflowers
in this noisy place
in police cells and offices
marital courts and churches
on doorsteps, stairways
Asdas and Tescos, Walmarts and Wilkos
at funerals on microphones
with children in our arms
singing songs about The Field we shall
get back too.  The field where we
belonged
roots shifting
routes shifting
until all roads are lost
in dirt and filth, no soil
until they charge us to sing
and we pay
to truly be in the club

— The End —