The roar of the crowd
under Goodison lights
sounds like local thunder,
as excitement grips this undervalued
part of Liverpool’s heritage,
the support of a team not remembered
in the karaoke bars of Japan,
or in the wild nights of the romantic
as they cling to a thought of red
glories past, under the beauty of
Shankly, under the watchful gaze
of Liverbird success.
The battle cry of opposition,
Blue Moon rings out, is as boisterous
as the words of sagely wisdom
Love Artuk’s stamp of approval catches the eye
in Ropewalk Square and shades into the oblivion
of graffiti of pleasant green,
down at heart blue and burnt brown
destruction on the lower level of the wall.
The uneven pavement, shrouded by the shadow
of Bold Street’s once Bohemian cool
and the grace of the Picturehouse,
thousands of films shown twice daily
extends its welcome as the steam
of coffee hiss drowns out
the fascinating talk of the Silver Screen surfers.
The five pillars of wisdom
sell their information cheaply
I dream of seeing the ice flows
of Niagara once more,
of seeing the reflection
of a youth long since departed
and the memory of a Wendy Burger,
wrapped against the cold wind
blowing down and across the chasm
of a separated land mass
and different train of thought.
I long to hear
the continuous sound
of nuclear explosive water
crashing eternally against
the rocks shaped by Time
below and the droplets of water,
rising off the pounding foam
and landing with daring precision
I chase my own whale
and watch with anxiety
as every quivering arrow
I throw to bring the behemoth down
just bounces off the barnacled skin,
not even a pierced mollusc
gets wrenched apart
from the scale of the task before me,
No Ahab, it’s not about obsession,
not like Ahab, I am no Ishmael
trapped in the belly of the beast,
I can walk away without the foul
taste upon my virginal tongue,
my fingers dry, the ink
of the leviathan
the only stain, oozing blue
The letter came from the Doctor,
stamped, addressed formally,
an oddness to the finality they were offering me,
welcoming me with open arms
to attend a special clinic
for those entering
the next demographic,
that of the adventure
of terrible middle age.
No longer to be considered a young man,
I’m now just a few years shy
of receiving a free gift
from Michael Parkinson.
I can be checked for diabetes,
having had myself tested every year,
to assess the risk of impending
I carried in the coal,
a small meagre amount
from the cold and ancient cobwebbed
behind fireplace
and with it, jumbled together
like a badly worded sentence,
some coins, mainly pennies
for that was all that was left
in a wallet bereft of Christmas joy,
a slice of half and half bread,
the wife’s choice, seeing as
bread makes me sick,
mangled to death,
not fit for the ducks
and some salt, processed and packaged
somewhere in the dusky lands
where midnight was still
Did you think that it was over,
that somehow the words had finally
stopped and left to become dormant…
to die like Ophelia, crushed by my own
sense of the dramatic?
Addiction is a friend of mine,
one that came in the form
of music, football, girls when I was a boy
then women
and the word
of flowing peace, lost
in an author’s creation,
in a poet’s lament
and the bitter
regret of a love denied me,
by a succession of people
Where would I be tonight
if not by your side?
Easy to believe that I might be drinking,
toasting the year, burning Time,
setting my life ablaze
in the White Horse,
New York, whisky threatened
records and nervous poetic disposition,
the grand finale to match the Welsh bard,
drunk on my arse and grovelling in dirty rhyme
as those around me
misunderstood English
cool, the trilby
carefree on someone else’s head.
Where would I be if not
holding your hand tonight?
The leftover Christmas card,
the mass produced greeting
of some Robin, the symbol
of endeavour in hardship,
of Gypsy fortune,
is now used as a place mat
for the unceasingly hot
cups of tea that I ferry
back and forth from the kitchen,
and the stain of the rim spreads outwards,
inwards and towards its beak.
The message inside could have been hand-written
by anyone, but the scrawl was clumsily
attached by you
and I loved it, and whilst the carefully
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those sprouts forced upon us,
as we take solace in comedies past
that actually made us laugh
and music, sweet beautiful music
we could hear in our heads,
if not actually out loud,
as Carol Singers belted out tunes
to songs that only made sense
when sang in key
and with snow nestling on the ground,
freezing the lump of dog poo solid
and Granddad pretending
that he could see Santa
on the roof
and then being flustered when