From Goyt
And Tame
The water came
Growing stronger
With every tributary
Marking pre-history
From the Peaks
To the Irish Sea
Ebb and flow tide
Fixing our memory
And separating the boundary
Of tribes and tongues
Migrant sons and daughters
Hard sinew, strong lungs
To this harsh territory
Factories and farms
Mines and mills
Dockyards, shipyards
Fool’s Gold distils
The River Mersey
Cuts through the soil
Cotton and steel
Tobacco and oil
Coal and sugar
Tate and Peel
Soil and water
Hull and keel
Slaves and serfs
Ropes and berths
Chain us to the past
Empire and colony
The flag on the mast
Sails up the estuary
This Is no place
For livestock
Though cows and sheep still graze
On the flat marshes
The birds flock
Through a chemical haze
And turbines rotate
Rocksavage spews
Clouds onto slate
The incinerator burns
Energy from waste
The poison returns
And leaves a nasty taste
And share prices equate
To respiratory diseases
And phlegmy wheezes
Holy temples
Power To The People
Eight Towers command
The lay of the land
Electric Gods
Lightning rods
Steam and soot
Cyanide underfoot
Mustard gas and phosgene
Mercury and chlorine
Weaver, Bridgewater
Top locks, Runcorn docks
Weston Point
Salt Union for industry
British Waterways
MSC
Bottom yard for the tugs
Tow the line Salford bound
Navvies ghosts, nocturnal drugs
Fight to save that sacred sound
Of flute and fiddle
The songs of their clan
Sutton colliery
McKechnies
No job for a man
Into that tidal drain it ran
No fish, no snigs
No clippers, no brigs
A bridge for trains
With heraldic shields
A bridge for cars
With rubberised wheels
A bridge for people
They hear no appeals
For land stolen
Lancastrian vowels
And time never heals
The indignant howls
Of separation
From homeland streets
Red brick plantations
Where three waters meet
Space age estates
Low cost rates
Key workers from across the water
Cast concrete and poor mortar
The Guinness boat floats
On its own barley foam
At Old Quay Bridge
Where feral boys roam
Wheelbarrows ready
To transport home
This vile effluent
Wigg Island
Spike Island
Stone Roses
Boiled bones
Granox gelatine
Leather from the tannery
Raw hides and seek
Smooth and sleek
Boots for the cavalry
All Wellington’s men
And the boys at Ypres
Never seen again
Puritan voices
Methodist groans
Protestant ethics
Bankrupt loans
Christ In The Storm
The ships lost at sea
Coal and gunpowder
For the Confederacy
Cotton shares and slavery
These noble men
These heroes of industry
Don’t tell us of their piety
The river has seen their type before
The tide will always run its course
From the sea back to its source
A Gateway To Prosperity
A puffed up regal ceremony
Work will never set you free
And there never was nobility
In backbreaking labour
Pains in the joints
The High Priest anoints
His flock of supplicants
That kneel before the altar
Fly their flags and pay their rents
The miner, the docker, the hooded salter
Each Sunday they sing their hymns
The sinner repents
For the sins of others
Fallen brothers, hidden lovers
The bees still pollinate the gorse
In quarried valleys
Silica blocks
Hewn from the bedrock
Down to the docks
For cathedral spires
Stone age fires
Shape the future
In lakes and locks
And gravity pulls
The moon tide towards
The rush of the ocean
Its own reward
We swam in the cut on summer days
It still rots the gut
That oily texture
Down on Ferry Hut
The chemical stench
Of that poisonous trench
And surfing on the waves
At Gantry Wall
When two tugs pass
And the old men call
“Get out of there
It’s dangerous”
But it’s them and us
Young men have no fear
And tugmen cry into their beer
At the Royal on double time
The Rime of the ancient mariner
Time gentlemen please
Cough up that bile
Cure that disease
You will die before your time
And join that cancerous slime
You scraped from the silo
And with your bookie’s biro
You’ll cast your vote
X marks the spot
The pools and the tote
The nags and the dogs
Quick grab your coat
Swill it down your throat
The gaffer’s in his clogs
Salt fixes the soup
Animal, mineral, vegetable
And time is a loop
We’ve been here before
When the land was sea
And the weather was hot
And on that alien shore
We were born in stone
The earth is liquid at the core
And empires turn to dust
No one needs these waters now
That triangular trade is bust
The river turns to silt
And old warehouses stand empty
As new flats and homes are built
With a picturesque view
The world is never new
The Mersey keeps up a rhythm
It will always find a way
Back to its beginning
And top soil turns to clay
This basin is older than time
The estuary has eyes
The river man is stoic and wise
He was a strong man in his prime
His wife is watching the horizon
His children have moved away
He sees a dull reflection
Where they used to shout and play
They came to keep on living
They came to earn a crust
And now the water’s empty
And bridges turn to rust
Here at the estuary
The Welsh hills frame the sky
With primeval symmetry
The carvings in the cemetery
The soil is thin and dry
And schooners leave the port
With cargoes to be sold and bought
They disappear into the mist
Never to be seen again
Added to the wreckage list
From Goyt
And Tame
The water came
Growing stronger
With every tributary
Marking pre-history
From the Peaks
To the Irish Sea
Ebb and flow tide
Fixing our memory
Stockport
Warrington
Widnes
Runcorn
Where it broadens
To the estuary
Syntax - words n stuff 