The man with the chip on his shoulder,
rubs his bald head in disgust.
Caught out in one lie in which his team
put imaginary words into speeches
about how life has been changed
since they took over the running of their lives,
some may say hit with sticks, branches, dead silver
like trees and the snarling rage of a whipped up
frenzy, he now looks down the mass and suggest
with fist thumping air back and forth
in perfect tones of a pseudo
gentleman who has learned nothing,
The thunder and lightning
over Bootle at least brings rain
to fill the pot holes on the streets
and roads that criss-cross this Northern town
overshadowed by Liverpool, overshadowed by
Southport, overshadowed by its own historic self
are cleaned and the raging water greets
the Mersey as it scampers
and rushes through drains
as if hiding, running, waiting to ambush
behind closed doors as it keeps a secret
apart between the beauty and beguiling
majesty of one and the faux old and careworn
of the other.
The wall thankfully is rounded,
after all it is easier to escape the manipulation
you attempt to thrust down my throat,
rolling with the solid tide of plaster
than sitting in a pointed sharp angle
as the verbal putrefaction spoils for a fight.
Over the keys a wash comes unbalanced hatred
and like a dictator you ask that all take your side,
and to say nothing, to want the world to move on
away from such madness, the corner you push me into
becomes a rock in which to cling.
Perhaps I don’t belong anywhere.
At times I feel as though all that I do
is but a waste of someone
else’s time and that the friendship
I offer is but seen as rusting decay.
To take each heart I’ve broken
and see it corrode in the flesh of my palms,
to see it perish under the scrutiny
of insane composition and to share that
wild word with a world that doesn’t care
is to punish and pound my head
into the mud and dirt and yet my
The Sgt. Pepper band was finally broken up
sometime in an early afternoon
when no one was looking
down on Mathew Street and the sound
of the full throttle cover
rang down upon other’s ears.
To bring the cover up to date
is all we ask of the young,
to make it their own and give us the anger
and passion that is missing when friends
can no longer be found,
but our own cover of our favourite song
remains unsung and unpainted
It is a grace of Waterloo
and one that the Iron Men
and seagulls hold no dominion
as they squabble over sunlight
and the quiet rage of the ships
that cut through the Mersey sound
on their way down stream.
The other end of South Road,
the bottom stop and between
the Liver and X2 stops
of Southport and Preston
stands firm the Plaza, resplendent
since the outbreak of war
and since “Peace in our Time”
was declared over cold eggs and copious tea
Still they stand,
wedged hard and rusting in the glow of
sunrise… sunset
and the tides that cover them in between,
these men of unblinking perspective
and who show their contempt
for Humanity by turning their back
ever away from the shore line
and the gaze of seagulls,
punished for their insane chattering
and their dogged resistance to change.
Though blind from birth, they see all
and in the whispered delusions that reach
their ears from screams of children
and the agony of parenthood,
The once proud five lamps
that used to light the way
for the edge of a village
on the frayed hem
of the outskirts of Liverpool,
that trams would
sit idly by before returning
to the glamour on offer,
are now silent, forgotten
to all but the curious and the
mindful preservers of
the fabric of society with
chequered cloth waiting appeal
and the dinner time stamp of approval
as they raise their glasses
and whisper cheers in the dark.
The heaving Northern metropolis
torrential with the sound of expectant, excited feet
is but for a short while,
quiet, serene and calm on the Sunday morning
as actors and performers rest after the shows
of the week and the laughter
that has followed them to the silence
of their dressing room
and the chance encounter
with the fan captivated by the show
and to whom the acquiring of the photograph
with their
new next day idol
is something to look back upon in dusty years
Your towering beauty I wish I could see
up close and personal,
every imperfection, every slighted line,
and how I wish I could have known
you when I was younger
and with conceited youth know
I could have conquered you,
loved you and have every inch
of you mapped in my mind
forever.
You are older than I,
yet so very young,
and I find myself disgracefully suffering
from the illusion that you,
in some respects,
have a daily virginal quality to you