Will pledge protection
As it absolves the spirits from their confessions
Under its shelled cupola
A medley of phantasmagoric figures
Will appear
From their masquerade
They will join us under a reflected mirror of incandescent
Stars
Under the spotlight
The Harlequin will unmask the Harlequinade
Looking into the incarnadine ball
He will script your mind
To the phantoms of the past
He will incant the present
While spiriting you to the future
Listen
To the doppelgangers of the darkness
And enter
Into the labyrinth of light
Were your spectral spirit will explore
The spectra of life

Let the Play Begin

Act One

Of the tetra logy
Summer of the Son

Spotlights

Scene One

Under a marquee of moonlight
Stars script onto the silent stage
The white light
Unfolds to the whispers of the wind
The house curtain opens
As the tableau of time comes to life
The stage is set
And the scene takes place
On the white porch
Were a medley of characters
Will cast their timeless shadows
Under the moonlight of a midsummer’s night

Brown buttered gangly legs
Cascade
Over chalked white railings

Miasmic marionettes
Dangled
In a dance of merriment
Laughing faces
Hide
Behind cold classes of pink lemonade
Frosted to their face
Velcroed to their mouth
Gulping
Gurgling
And bubbling
Into a pink pool of crunching ice

Lost

In their laughter
She seeked refuge
With her fulvous cat
Rescued
From her tormenting twosome
She held onto her mottled friend
Nestled
Into the purring beat of her metronome heart
Reassured
She cooled off
With a tall class of ice cold lemonade
Sitting in silence
Her older sister and brother
Attempted to mollify their pestilent behavior
Towards her
In a diverting gesture
Her minatory brother cheerfully placed ice cubes into
The inside pockets of his cherubic cheeks
Like a bloated chipmunk he bantered across the white porch
Like a deranged rodent
He stopped
He surveyed
As his amiable eyes motioned towards the white wicker
A rocking chair
That rocked before the American Bandstand
And before the Comets rocked around the clock
A whimsical smile beamed across his mischevious face
A rubicund beacon
A forewarning
That he was going to lampoon someone
With his nimble-witted mischief
Flecked
With blue and green
His eyes flickered
Into a flight of fantasy
Eyes fixed
And locked
Under a visor of flaxen hair
He stood close to the white wicker chair
With a quixotic smile
He mounted his rocking Rozinante
Seated on the panel
He brandished a near by broom stick
His lance
Pointed towards his younger sister
He rocked and charged
His white steed towards her

Drooling
In the corner of the furnished shadows
A large furry mound of chestnut curled into wattles of panting flesh
Seeing
Mans best friend
He beckons him
Awakened
From his slothful sleep
He unfurled his bloodshot eyes
From the shutters of the darkness
And with a lethargic stride
He lumbered across the porch towards his woeful master
Like the loyal Sancho
He was secured into his squire’s intrepidity
The four footed
But not so sure footed
The doleful beast
Stood by his master’s side
Momentarily
Until
He falls
And folds
Into a twirling tawny ball
Of leaded wrinkles
Asleep

Again

The woeful Knight
With his lance couched
He rocked his Rozinate
Once again towards his little sister
Tired of his disturbing antics
And no longer amused
She leapt from the shadows of the stoop
Shocking her congenial cat

From the security of cushioned lap
With flagging arms extended
She whirled them about
Like the bellowing sails of a moving windmill

The young knight is caught off guard
He falls
Off his rocker
Tumbling
From his rallying
This audacious trifler
Rolls
Onto a sleeping Sancho
Unable
To get up onto his leaden legs
He was encumbered
By an awakened and startled beast
Sancho
Was now bestriding the young knights legs
Like a hugh colossal horse
The bloodhound shook his large furrowed head
While discharging missiles of dripping drool
From his slavering jowls
Side to side
East to west
North to south
Salvos of saliva
Showered
Upon his master
Drivels of drooping drool foamed onto his young masters face
Sleeping
Sancho
Was not amused by his masters knight-errantry
However
Loyalty overcame his master’s misguided misfortune
Therefore
The bloodhound rewarded his woeful knight
With a lingering languishing slobbering lick
This washed the risible smile
From the young knaves blushing face
The little sister laughed
While the oldest sister watched
His brother’s parody with fraternal amusement
And like the beautiful Dulcinea del Toboso
She smiled upon his youthful knavery
Atoning
For her younger brothers buffoonery
She walked towards her baby sister

And gave her a reassuring hug
At the same time

The French Doors Opened

Onto the white porch
From the kitchen doors entrance
Two elderly women appeared
Into the inviting shade of the cupola
Breaking away from her older sister
She bolted
Like a young spry foal
Towards her visiting grandma
She greeted
Her with arms outstretched
She held onto her tight
Like a tighting tourniquet
She twisted her gangly arms around grandma’s wide soft waist
A warm smile
A slight gasp
Came from her English grandma
Released
The longing pressure
Eased from her loving arms
Hugged
With emotion
She savored her young granddaughter’s joy
Bundled
Together
With the adage of age
Bowed
And Bonded
To the illuminant immortality of youth
Cheerfully
The other two grandchildren glowed
In the shadow of her incumbent light
Shadows shifted
Into the dappled shade of the white porch
Once again
The white wicker returns to an old rocking rocker
Cradling grandma

In Time

To see her portly sister
Escorted

To an inviting deck chair
The young knave
Sits his Grande Dame
Next to her royal highness
Grandma
Sat next to her “ Little Bugger “ of a grandson
As she laughed at his chivalric
Gesturing
And jollying
Much like the antics of her own son
Who was once his age

Settling In

Like royalty
Under the shade of the Sumac tree
The oldest daughter appeared
With two class tankers of cold frosted beer
Placing the drinks
Awkwardly onto the class table
She gestured
And with the aura
Of a celebrated actress
She gave them her celestial smile
And exited to the wings of the white porch

Aside

Striped
From its pervious white gown
It had waited
Disrobed
With the suns penetration
It had started to desiccate
Leaving
Rivulets of melting water
To carry its cargo of crystalline beads
Down
Its frigid shaft
Transient pearls
Trickling
Trembling
Drippling
Pebbling
Droplets
Meandering
Sailing
Across the sheer surface

Of its translucent membrane
Reaching
Its glacial edge
It falls
Into an amber abyss of foaming froth
Were it waits
For the parched lips
Of
A woman’s

Hand

Quickly appears
And grasps the cold beer
From the approaching lips
Of her mischievous grandson
In chastisement
She held onto him
With affection
She smiled
With disapproval
She held onto him
Together
The moment is shared
Smiles and hugs
Mark the matrix of motherhood

Moving

Into the dappled shade
She nudged her way
Into the glow of her approving
Grandchildren
Bathed
In warm shadows
Grandma held onto her amber orb
As she held court

The Storyteller

Grandma unfolds the echo of time
And like a flawless seamstress
She will spin
The yarns into tales
Stories
Will extrude from the threads

Of your fathers childhood
From the spindle of time
She will frame
And notch his life
With braids of fiber
She will twist
Weave
And draw out his winding story
Threaded filaments
Cut away
Piece by piece
Stitched and knotted
Into the open weave of his tailored fabric
Seams
Cross-stitched
Together
Embroidered
With the alb coat braid of a natural fiber
Patterned parts
Pieced
Together
We will follow the blueprint of you father’s childhood

Grandma has become a Cordero Storyteller
And like the Pueblo children
Her grandchildren will be her clinging listeners
Molded into myth
She will bond them with her tale
As she becomes the Storyteller of Cordero

Listen

To a concord of sweet sounds
Six bells
Chimed from the red sandstone church on the hill
Walton on the Hill
A township
Built on wells of water
And a bold river that borders its boundaries
With vessels of floating steel
Foghorns floated
Towards the Irish Sea
As the midwife delivered your dad
In the wake of its call

A large green Liver Bird
Watches
Under a blitz of bombs
Were he sees its deliverance
As he watches over its birth
He protects the port
Under a baptism of spray
He watches over its flock
Observing the tides of change
He watches the ships sail
Into the tireless shadows of a seamless sea
From its eyrie
He will illuminate the darkness
With a beacon of light
He will watch over the changing tides of

Time

Swaddled into spring
The midwife folded him
Into my open arms
As the dawn of the new day
Whitewashed the blackout of the night

The Liver Bird

Perked the curiosity of the young grandson
More so than the birth of his father
What a gross name for a bird
Grandma smiled
It was not a glandular organ
It was pronounced
Like
Saturday Night
Live
Err
Is human
To make a mistake
His older sister explained
Once again
Live-er
With a reassuring hug
Received
With an embarrassing smile
He continued
To ask how many Liver Birds

There were

Two

Perched like Lords
On top of the Royal Liver Building
They while their time away on top of
Great George
Who had a clock face bigger than
Big Ben
Who lived over two hundred miles from the northwest of the island
One Liver Bird looks across the port
One Liver Bird looks across the city
Each with a sword-bladed plant
In their eagle like beak
Unlike a dove
They were more like King Johns eagle
But they were very large and green

Imagine

We can fly
On those two Liver Birds
Two on one
Two on the other
With exuberance
The little sister asked
Can we name them?
Grandma captured her smile
Like the Liver Birds caught her imagination
Of course
You can name them
The grandson shouted out
With excitement
Mine shall be named Shu
And the two sisters yelled out
Ours shall be call Keylara
And our brother will fly with Grandma
With enthusiasm
Together
They all asked Grandma
Were shall we go

We will go on a reconnaissance flight
Uh

Exclaimed the young wide eyed grandson
A magical mystery tour
Sounded much better
Because they’re bright faces lit up like magic
Our flight
Will be our sojourn
We will take a journey
Into our imagination
We will fly
On the whimsical wings
Of a chimerical muse
Let’s begin
Our magical tour
Of reverie
And visit the childhood
Your father left behind

In Flight

Air rushed over them
Clouds
Parted and patterned into dreams
Eyes peeked
Beyond the white castle clouds
And into the blue windows of the world
The sun was warm
The air was calm
There were no dragons to slay
There were no goblins to fight
But there was a treasure to be found
And it was filled with the gems of childhood
Memories
Opened up
To poetic pinnacles

Dreams

Rose out of the mist
Voiding the valleys
They flew high
In the distance
On the horizon
Their dad’s childhood started to reappear
Eyes opened
Holding on tight
To their imaginary friend
They flew

Into the welcoming world of fantasy

Passing

Over Breeze Hill
Shu would fly over slates of gray quarry stone
Were terraced houses stood in rows of red
Shu would glide on yeasts of air
That rose from Taylor’s Bakery
On Rice Lane
Shu landed
And perched on Dunnies Gilded Gate
Keylara followed
Into the sweet scented smell of Schofields Lemonade factory
Landing
On a perch of steel
Watching
With nostrils of steam
She sees

A Green Wooded Barrow

Of fresh fruit and vegetables
Stacked
In pyramids of color
Embalmed in a burnish of glazed light
A touching sight
And a mummies delight
Is found in

The Green Grocers

Deft fingers
Waltzed though a meadow of green
Tapping
The cantelope
Reeling
In time for fresh cut flowers
To stalk the stalls with their scent
In readiness for a Sunday window parlor display
Elegance

Grace

Would serve and wake up
King Edward
Who slept in its turret of darkness

Tumbling
Crumbling
Rumpling
And mumbling
When awakened from his black eyed sleep
Leading
A falling disarray of spuds into an open trap
Captured
Scooped up into a scuttle of steel
Weighed in
Tipping the scale
Count down
Decision made
Roll them into the shopping bag
And carry them out

To the Fishmonger

Who lures
You to his window display
A pallet of Cod
Gawks your way
Open-mouthed
It scales the light
Hooking your eye
As you pass it by
Thinking to yourself
In a positive way
My God
Sorry to say
You will not be my catch on this holy day

Friday

Fresh Bass
Hung around with Herring
Smoked Kippers
Beached
Onto white slaps of salted ice
Stretched
To the limit
Flat out
In their bronzed tan skin scaled suits
Sunning next to silver slates of shellfish
Mussels

Mustered into tiny tubs of crystal salt
Ice
Would cool the mussels
And cockles would warm
Your heart

With Love

Sayers would bake you
Fresh oven bread
Cornish golden pasties
Hot meat pies and flaky sausage rolls
Dressed
In a corpulent front window of melting gold
Cream and chocolate
Trifled with color
Cakes decorated the window
Like an every day Christmas tree
Were your dads glowing face would lighten up
With a growling of anticipation

A Mundane Event

Becomes a social outing
As woman pop in
And out of little shops
Weighed down
With an uneven bag
Waiting to be filled
With the balance of the day

The Scales Would Tip

At the Butchers shop
Under a striped red canvas awning
Starched in white
Stained in red
Vested in crème
Striped in blue
Cherry in cheek
Pink in skin
Crisp in grin
Eyes are blue
The portly butcher
Is ready
To serve you

Fresh meat of the day
Rack of lamb
For the hot roasting pan
Black puddings
Soaked in blood
Hanging down
Looking good
Under the parsley shade
Of canvas green
Tripe with words
The portly butcher stands by his sausage machine
Minced with mutton
Weighed on scales
Wrapped with meat
Pounds exchanged
Over
A sawdust
Floor
Time to leave the roly-poly butcher
Through the brass bell ringing door

Outside

Smiling
Arm in arm
Women linked
Into a chatting walk
Headscarves
Wrapped around
The gossip of the day
Filling their shopping bags
With the dinner of the day

And in Dawns Early Light

Nostrils
Steamed with smoke
From a drudging chestnut mare
Carting
In a slow canter
It drags its dray
Filled with cold steel churns of fresh morning milk
Its large wooden steel rim wheel
Rattles on and on
Into a musk of mire
Along a windy gravel path
To a distant spire

Heseltine’s horse heaves up husks of hurling dust
Clattering
Hooves resonate
Into the misty morning fog
Passing
Through the old lodge of Walton Hall Hospital
Were it will make its final delivery
And like a gray elusive phantom
It will slowly disappear

Into a Dank Drizzle of Darkness

Bell top Bobbies
Uniformed in navy blue
Would appear
From under the alms of two bloodhounds
Were they would exit from the old Rice Lane Police Station
A holding cell
Were tears of gas
Once put little children’s pets to sleep

Aside

A kittenish friend
Tippy
Black like coal
A gift
From a little lonely old lady
Who lived in an anonymous terrace house
Dark dank and depressing
Were only a litter of kittens and a hot coal fire brightened

Her poor house

Was lit up with poverty
A face on a faceless street that led to nowhere
Greeted with a kitten
We entertained with a good-bye
Leaving
The old woman under a shawl of darkness
And Tippy under a soft talcum of white powdered snowflakes
We placed the tiny kitten under your dad’s wooly grey pullover
Palpitation
Purred with love
As your dad snuggled the little black kitten into his warm heart

At aged five
His first pet
Companion
In childhood
He held onto Tippy
With a loving rampageous smile
Childhood ended
With a lamenting tear
When a dear old companion was put to sleep
I cried for days in the alms of two stoned bloodhounds
With tears of tea

In the Grocery Shop

Were picture cards
Brewed from Brooke Bond Tea
Birds
Collected in leaves of tea
Holding onto his Robinson Golliwog
Your dad would sit on an old empty wooden tea box
Steeped in thought
He would pour over his bird collection
Of Brooke Bond Bird cards
While the purveyor of bulk food
Would take the stamps
From my mealy ration book
Tearing them out
He rationed my life
Into a canister of sugar and salt
Up
You
Would leave
Knitting your way

To the Andersons

A haberdashery of happiness
A tiny shop
Were a stumpy dumpy seamstress
Would knit the street together
With her colorful yarns of yesterday
We would weave
Down the road

To Turnpenny the Apothecary

Who measured
Life into grams of laughter

Stiff
Upper lip
Starched with pain
He dispensed gossip
With ponderable penury
He served
Blue bottles of milk and magnesia
With acidity
Yucky
Elsie the assistant
Loose
Lovely lips
Rouged with red
She dispensed love
With her pepserdent smile
She served
Puce bottles of malt and milk
With sweetness
Yummy
This scrumptious young strumpet
Sorry
I meant crumpet
Would give your dad a teasing wink
As he left the chemist shop
With a stupefied smile
He tripped

Into the Chandlers

Aunt Sally
Served you with a heady smile
Fragrance flickered
Throughout the sweet-smelling shop
Soap
Polish
Embalmed
The pungent shop
With the swathe of redolence
Potpourri
Bric-a Brac
Flotsam and jetsam
Wafted the shop into a sea of scented disarray
Bamboo canes
Bundled
Your dad with joy
Canes for crossbows
Canes for arrows

Canes for fishing
Rods
Were often bottomed off
With my old laddered nylon stockings
Often
I caught the little bugger using my precious new nylons
For his fishing

Rods

For punishment
Bamboo canes
Ruled the waves in British schools
And many a time your father felt the swish of its thrust
As he bottomed up to the teacher’s wrath

Sandstone and Brasso
Entertained the entrance to my empire

Aside

Brasso
For my big knockers
That knocks on the entrance door
Shine the brass
Like a good Lancashire lass
Scrub the steps
That lead to the door
Knees in prayer
Arse in the air
Sanding
Stoning
The steps bare
So passing neighbors won’t stare
As I wash the bloody steps
With my arse up in the air

The Sweet Shop

Windows
Iced with mint
Chocolates
Nestles with cream
Fry’s
Frost with peppermint
Black Magic
Pours from a volcanic display of magnetic sweetness
Trays of Cadburys
Erupt into an emporium of Turkish
Delight
Meets the children
As they dared to pass the sirens of sweetness
That glazed this window of tempting saccharinely

Melting

Into the Newspaper Shop

Few fags
Woodbines
Players Please
Graven
A
Daily Mirror
Tit
Bit
News of the World
For tabloid lives
And a reefer of Gold
Is a cigarette to behold

Quick

Into Sayers
For a few palm cakes for cheese and ham sarnies
And a yellow custard tart
For the old fart

11:30 a.m. on the Street

Corner

Close to Walton’s Town Hall
Across from the Old Brown Cow
Close to Church Lane
A doleful group of dour Dockers
Enter
The Rice House Pub
Bitter
Douse the scouse with a draught of beer
Daily
Downcast Dockers
Drift
Dart into the alehouse
Drinking
Darling a pint of draught
Double Diamond “works wonders works wonders so drink one today”
Doled out
With a dram of Dwyer’s
On the dole
Tracking the odds
With pint sized dreams

Screaming

To the ringing
Shouts of the Rice Lane School bell
Dinnertime
Glamorous scrambling school children
Scuff and scuffle
Out of there shuffling seats
Garnished
In a uniform of garish green
They scud out of the school
Into a shrilling scrum of stentorian shrieks
Yelps of yaks
Yapping in yowls of yells
Scuttling
And snuffling
Onto a savory street of seasoning smells
Whiffs
Wafts of fish
Float from Sumner’s chippy
Deep-fried
Fillets of Fish
Bask in a tanning gage
Of boiling bubbling batter
Chips ahoy
Shouted the salty school boy
Fish cakes
Mashed green peas
Floating
In an amber pool of vinegar
Salt
Please
Wait
I have other fish to fry
Creasy chips
Enveloped into a steamy hot Sunday Sun
Saturated
Into the News of the World
Warmed
Wrapped up
Into the bosom of Tit-Bit lives
Imprinted
Into tabloid Times
Soaking up the lard
With the Echo
Of gossipy People

Ending

A Gossipy Day
On Dunnies Gilded Gate
Shu and Keylara
Were about to leave the lodge gate
Once the grand entrance gate to a zoological garden
Now a rubber plant
Without a green tree
Now Dunlop’s tire factory

Tired of chatting and stalking the shoppers
The tireless Liver Birds
Soared
Into the sky
Looking down

Onto the Shinio Factory

Tired of working and ready for the pub
The cheerless workers
Polished off their time
Clocked out
With the blues
A collar of blackness
Circled the Delco soap factory
Washing up their time
Clocked out
Looking for their suds
Blue-collar workers headed home
Towards Queen’s Drive Public Baths
To bathe
And scrub away the pores of poverty
As their life was not levity
Because poverty was their gravity

Below

School children enter the Public Baths
Uniformed
Two by two
Columns of classes
Chat
Side by side
Holding onto their white towels and black cozies
Rolled and jammed
Into their weekly school swimming instruction

Aside

Turning to her grandchildren
And that’s were your dad learnt how to swim so well

Monday Morning

Launders the sky
With lines of linen
Starched
In sheets of white
Clouds
Rinse in a wash of blue
Sunlight filters
Into a lather of gray
Clouds
Squeeze out the light
As the Liver Birds
Roll them aside
Hanging high in a sheet of white
The Liver Birds look down
With children’s delight

What a sight

Onto a mead of green turf grass
Manicured into lawns
Squared
Edged and bordered with gullies
Dotted with white
Bolts of black
Streak across short blades of mossy grass
Bowing under a barrage of bashing bowling black balls
Big Black Balls
Bullied
The little black ball
Abandoned
Alone
In a patch of green

Aside

Once again
Grandma turned to her grandchildren
Your father
And his mates
Would often rescue that little black ball
Only to be chased away by the little old white pensioners
Little bugger

Dressed in white
Clouds
Wave across the Liver Birds
As they flew into a sun drenched sky
Heading over

Walton Hall Park

Once the residency of the gentry

Victorian houses
Once promenaded this public park
With pillars of prestige
The public now enters
Its bridle path
With its bounteous gardens of botanical blooms

Dressed

In his Sunday white short pants silk suit
Your dad would peddle his large red tricycle
Down it’s never ending pathway
With his debonair suited dad
And his fashionable beautiful mum
Me
Panting and running after him
Little bugger

Later on

When he was much older
In the Big park pond
He would pull his oar
As he rowed the wooden rowboats
In a frenzy of fun
Watching the birds
Cute little bum
Chasing white tennis balls on the run

On the smaller of the two park ponds
The Little pond
Had a convoy of flotilla
Were little model sailboats
Would sail and compete
Under the collective command of riparian landlubbers
Canvassed with sail
These portable yachts would crisscross the elfin pond
To the delighted cries of young and old
Around the pond
Like specks of sunshine gold
Bantams
Tossed and sailed on the whims and wisps of whispering winds
The Lilliputian sailboats skimmed the pond
With silken sleekness
They were ceaseless as they raced across the pond with prevailing pride


Bamboo fishing rods
Would net red breasted stickle backs
Frogs and tadpoles
Caught in a hosiery of nylon
Released into an empty Roberson jam jar
Beached into a sizable fish tank
To be harbored in your dad’s bedroom

In time

Tiny tadpoles
Would turn into mini black frogs
Overnight
Your dad’s bedroom would be plagued
With swarms of bloody black hopping little frogs
Needless to say he did not give them a nightcap
As they hopped
Jumped
Out
For freedom

That was the last time
The little bugger had live creatures in his bedroom

Grandma
Glimpsed into the direction of her eldest grandchild
A hidden smile
Reflected
To the time
When her four year old granddaughter
Took her pet
Newt
To bed with her
Wake up time
Newt
Was a shriveled prune
Mummified with the heat of her womb

Summers

Would stroll in
With concerts in the park
Stars would serenade
Under a band shell of brass
Music
Lovers
Would harmonize
Under a melody of moonlight
The baton would rise
To the music of the night
As lovers lie
Under a starry sky
Ignoring the canvas
As the audience passes them by

Concerts

Also attracted children
Summer talent shows
Were the pops of the summer
Became the songs of the day
Que Sera Sera

Quick
Over there
Grandma pointed

Walton Hospital

That’s were your dad spent the night in paris
Of plaster of course
The children laughed
At grandma’s sick joke

Bullied he was