Liverpool Poem800 is a new creative space for anyone to enjoy and create poems inspired by Liverpool. Created by Roger Cliffe-Thompson www.poem800.com will collect 800 poems for Liverpool’s birthday. I particularly like “Liverpool… in the sixties” by Ian Hunter. Of course if you feel inspired to write a Bold Street poem, we’d love to see it here too!
Trying to get intouch with Roger Cliffe-Thompson. I know him from the everyman and would like his number so that I can pass on some poems and try them out on him. cheers Danny
Managing
The copers manage the damaged –
by hand, deftly;
coping and hoping it won’t rain,
not today anyway,
me cat’s being buried today he is:
got squashed by a car.
We pried him loose from the wheel arch
with a pointy stick. His eye fell out,
a black hole, a purpled star, like it was cauterized.
I cried when my cat died.
I did.
Walkin, thro’ a car-boot sale one early Sunday morn’
I saw a sight that tugged my heart and made me feel forlorn
A young mum with her toddlers was quietly sitting there
A Rose with tiny Rosebuds, selling meagre ware
Amid the busy bustle, among the echoed sound
this dignified Madonna laid her offerings on the ground
These humble things she’d brought to sell were not worth much yoy see
Yet to this proud young mother, represented dignity
I asked her ” How is business luv?” She answered with a smile
” Not doin’ much, but maybe things will pick up in a while”
I was overcome with tenderness but as men gone before
I looked away, then turned my back and headed for the door
I’d barely walked a few short steps when a toddler’s voice so small
echoed ” tara mister through the the dankness of the hall
I hurried to my new parked car, then sat inside and cried
I shed my tears of sadness at what I’d seen inside
I felt so shamed and humbled at what I’d witnessed there
My soul was touched with feelings that laid my concience bare
My troubled heart commanded me ‘ Don’t let them stand alone’
Counting all my blessings I took my sadness home
I gathered up all my ‘treasures’ I’d hoarded year by year
then rushed back to the car-boot, to the trio selling there
I hoped to ask the saintly mum to take my hoarded pride
But all I found was an empty place when I took my guilt inside
I asked in vain, for no one knew their whereabouts that day
- If only I had Stayed around, instead I’d turned away!
I felt a sort of dying were I’d once felt alive
Of, how we take for granted what, some need just to survive
Gathering up my ill-got gains, my soul just like a stone
I left the boot-sale one more time and took my burden home
I felt so deeply troubled by the road I’d took back then
I know I should have gave some help and not forsaken them
If only I could turn back time and ease my gulty mind
To give a hand to those poor souls that life had left behind
Maybe then the hardship that I’d witnessed there that day
Unlike my sad rememberence would finally fade away
That night I fell down on my knees and prayed there in the gloom
That those Roses in the car-boot sale
would one day ‘Rise and Bloom’