Max in Halifax (Revised Edition)
The Halcyon Years of Liverpool Days
An infrequent, irregular but always enjoyable meeting up with a good friend; and chatting about it with another friend across the Channel.
Very occasionally, and, oh so seldom, a closed book falls from the shelf, the draught from underneath the closed door, flutters the pages and the book, resting nonchalantly upon its spine ever so briefly opens … …
Our Fingers Linger on Brazen Flesh …
The image is that sent by my other friend from across the Channel, using his imagination and awareness upon reading this, one of my all-time favourites and then somehow now a permanent part, his indelible pen working finely into the lines of my very delible pen, finding lines in which I find that perfect deliberation of unspoken thought, that peculiar commodity that fuses… and the two become one flesh.
Image specifically selected by Драган Ражнатовић for this poem and from his Private Collection and to whom all rights thereto are reserved and to the Artist and to the Photographer
I've not seen you in ages!
I know. Sorry.
I've been caught up in things.
I’m working up in Halifax now.
Bar work but I also
Manage a nightclub.
So you see I listened to you
Ha-ha. Yep!
Always a good listener …
And the rest
Talking of which…
Mmmmm I like this room.
Always do.
But that wall was never there
Was it?
The banister?
Yeah
Sure was.
Well, I was obviously preoccupied.
You okay with us getting on again?
Of course.
Why shouldn’t I be Max?
Well, I thought you might be .. you know…
Think bad of me … …
Hey, I don’t think bad of anyone.
And I like your no-nonsense approach.
Your military background
At one point we both held the same rank,
Kinda intimate, that.
Yeah, I feel the same.
I mean I really do.
Like I've connected with you.
And you’ve connected with me.
I love this bed!
Totally different from the last.
And I like that this whole place
has such an ambiance about it.
Yeah – ambiance – that’s the word!
You gave me that word the last time …
I tell you what …
God. You and your words!
God help them on the receiving end
of your tongue on the parade square, hey!
Ha! Too true blue!
If they but knew.
And I use it too in the nightclubs
I don’t stand no shit.
You know me.
Yep, I do Max.
Say I’m really touched
That after all this time,
You’ve still kept my watch and rosary.
Is that right?
You even put a new battery in it?
Yep.
And you kept it on the deck of the ship Belem …
I love that ship.
Always focuses the eye as you walk in.
Your whole apartment seems to move around it.
Yep, true.
Pity the deck’s being cleared.
God, you feel as good as ever
Why oh why are you fucking alone?
I ask it every time I know
But it just beats me.
You shouldn’t be.
Ha-ha – it beats me too Max!
Drives me mad at times.
But I guess in this life
I'm not meant for anything else.
You’re as beautiful,
Warm and tender as ever, aren’t you?
Thanks. Sex is to be enjoyed
And heralded
I've always told you that!
And that’s something
I’ve taught you!!!
…giggles …
And I like that notion …
What notion?
What your friend said.
‘Sexuality is the spirit
Sensuality is the soul’.
Oh yep. I like that too.
He’s very perceptive.
Definitely going places.
Opened up a whole new vista.
A whole new thought process more like
…
As always…awesome!
Nah. That’s a naff word.
Yeah, I’ve got it … stunning!
Look I've gotta dash.
I’m staying over at Birkenhead tonight,
Then back up to Halifax tomorrow.
But I want us not to leave it so long this time.
Sure.
You know me.
I never chase.
Yes I do
That’s your problem!
Get out there!!
No!
Only joking Ken hehe!
That look!
But look.
It’s like now we share the same DNA
God, we must be … it’s 3 years
So I'd like you to have this watch.
No.
Yes.
And this rosary.
No Max!
Yes, YOU!!!!!
I know you detest religion
But I know you have your faith too.
You know what?
You’re the only Christian bod I know
who can separate faith from religion.
That’s why I want you to have my rosary.
It binds us both.
No! Don’t bloody argue.
You’re the only guy who’s enabled me
To step outside the box.
Who’s stepped outside religion,
All of em,
And yet still maintained my faith.
So, please. I say again,
Don’t say no.
Okay, Max.
They are special, I don’t mind admitting.
Always have been.
Now they are priceless …
Good, man.
God, I love you!
Here! Give us a hug.
Right stay strong,
Don’t let the fuckers get you down.
Keep writing.
And I’ll be back soon …
21 May 2014, 11.30 pm
New Era of Enlightenment
From Across the Channel later that week when I decided unusually to break cover and let my friend in on something that no one will snatch from me,
even in those countries where my people are once again facing great danger from dark minds,
blinded by their religious hocus pocus, fanaticism, or totalitarian regimes
daring to masquerade as freedom and democracy.
His swift response within the hour.
All I can say is I need to digest, Ken.
It was as if I was there in the room,
heard the words,
in the bed during the sex,
took part,
smoked a fag after,
and sat in a chair as you 2 said goodbye.
I was floored.
Best work I have seen by you so far!
Did I just say that?
Oh, wait I did.
Bloody hell I WAS THERE!!!!!
Now, I am straight on to get an image for you.
I’m crying......
Драган
22 May 2014
Paris
France
Epilogue
I publish this because I am who I am, I am what I am, and it applies to every part of the worldwide LGBTQI+ Community.
I’ve not asked you to read this. You’ve found your way here. If it offends, that is no problem. If you decide that I am a friend who does not deserve friendship, and I’m talking about face-to-face friendship, not social media or Facebook friendship, then that too is fine.
Just weigh anchor, set course, and find another safe haven, because I’m not going anywhere. Left hidden under a stone, I peered at this on 27 September 2022. I tentatively aired it on 1 June 2023. I admit that Max in Halifax took me aback. Why? Because it is me. It is what happened. And I have very fond memories of Maximilian. What is more, our military background, though a generation apart, is the same.
I read it, re-read it, and read it again. I asked myself. Why am I applying self-censorship? Why am I conforming to everyone else’s idea of normal living? When, mine too, is normal. I am tired of dealing with the religious self-righteous, including one or two atheists, and those who insist that I am an abomination. I speak of all religions. Why am I putting myself through so much hassle?
Yes, I live very happily in Gloucestershire. It is right to be back in the Shires. BUT! Spiritually, I am in Liverpool. Liverpool made me who I am and what I am. Liverpool gave me the key to the door that had eluded me for forty years. I’d known who and what I am even as a teenager. Yet only Liverpool was able to guide me to that point in the wall… go on, step forward one pace. Now look left. Yep. The stone. From Liverpool Crosby Beach. It’s millions of years old and it got washed up on the coastal path. Look underneath. Ah! A key. No, no ordinary key, Ken. It’s THE key.
It was written as part of many pieces on this website that embraced the new era of enlightenment. We live in a world that is now so at variance on every level, and with humankind being the root cause of all the horror that is flung into our dining rooms 24/7 whether we want it or not, that it seems no longer correct to speak of an era of enlightenment. But I guess that phrase sums up my own personal life in Liverpool. It was indeed an Era of Enlightenment the like of which I’d never before known.
That is what Liverpool has given me, an era of enlightenment. So, I nail my colours to the mast.
What a privilege, to live for so long just five minutes along the Front from the Royal Liver Building. L3 and L1 are my home. Goodness, the address of my bank is still in Liverpool. I love that!
I took a photograph of the Royal Liver Building when I lived on the Waterfront. I then commissioned an artist in Salisbury to give me a representation of the Liver. It is right to place it here, for here is where I always am, and often, physically, too. It is unique to me, as I timed it to capture the hands of the clock to show that the time was four minutes past the eleventh hour in the forenoon. Why so? My collar number as a Police Constable had been 1104 when I joined the Gloucestershire Constabulary on 15 September 1970.
A year has drifted by, and a great deal has happened. From City Boy to Shire Lad. I could say it like this, too. A city Laa’ who has returned to his place of birth, a Liverpudlian who happens to live in Gloucestershire.
Now that is the mindset!
6 September 2023
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© 2023 Ian Bradley Marshall
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.
