Brush Strokes
A ship sails
observed from windows high,
Seagulls flying higher,
Cloud formations race above them highest yet,
Wirral Peninsula left behind.
Surf against the wall,
Turner brush strokes cross the sky,
Liverpool alive,
Pier Head prepared.
Winds against the parapet,
Warehouse, mighty,
lived in epitaph
to bygone age
of work, toil
and French prison-teams.
New wealth now its buttress,
Long millhouse treddles lie sectioned off,
Convenient attractive glass-and-rhododendron halls.
Pillars, shiny-black-tarred.
Twenty flights of cold stone steps
each half the height again of the apartment stairway.
Iron frameworks, once mighty
encased now by duplex apartments
by an architect now pension drawing;
perfect for weights, chin-ups
and bets on who can slide along and up.
Ghosts of workers,
stowage class await boarding
Eighty years a-fore them
French prisoners-of-war toiling.
The long reverberating blast of departure!
The Astor slips her moorings
People cheer
The Band plays in vain
against a louder wind
Anglican and Metropolitan
Harmonise their reply
Hope Street buttressed by City Cathedrals
as each street-end peels.
One a bishop, t’other Archbishop
betwixt denominations de-harmonising
slowly, ever so slowly,
coming to terms with reality.
What? We both worship the same God?
Holy Mary Mother of God!
Aye. By Christ Hisself
t’other replies!
And’t Holy Spirit!
mumbles the nonconformist.
In consternation, conformists
double-cross their-selves
then triple-cross
for good measure
and in the stress of the moment
one passes wind …
‘Ere now. That weren’t me!
Yuse twos bedder go to yer masses
and ask his lordship’s forgivenenss
Nonconformist wanders off
chuckling.
The conformists freeze on the spot
Each the same inward thought …
If I leave first it’ll look like it was me
who let one slip! Oh what a sin!!
To the rescue
comes the Mersey
A mighty roaring wind
Grabs her hat
Grabs his scarf
Holy Mary Mother of God!
Aye, By Christ Hisself!!
Perplexity watches hat and scarf
floating surfer-like
on the incoming tide
up stream,
heading for a sorta ‘Gretna Green’. [i]
Farewell great City
Farewell Atlantic Gateway
Farewell Port of liverpool
Farewell Three Graces
Farewell O Ship-of-State
Sail high upon open seas
Arrive safely in New York
Let your great bow
soon again
rest on Pier Head.
[i] Gretna Green, Scotland. Couples would head to Gretna Green for marriage in secret.
17 November 2021
All Rights Reserved
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© 2023 Kenneth Thomas Webb
Banner Image ~ Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Composed 7 March 2009
First appeared in Idle Thoughts An Anthology of Poetry and Prose September 2009
Waterloo Warehouse 2005-2017 and Stanley Dock and one of the Mersey ferries. These images are taken from Wallasey Town Hall on the Wirral Peninsula and are copyright © Ted Seagrave of Liverpool, taken in 2007. This is also where the RMS Lusitania had her moorings. KTW
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
