It began like any other, trying to draw attention to itself.
Jumping up and down, ‘Look at me, look at me.’
But once the smoke had cleared, bells fallen silent
and auld acquaintances forgot, what do I remember
of sixty-four? Race riots, the jailing of Mandela,
Vietnam, Harold Wilson, the last hanging in Britain,
the Beatles, and of course, finding you.

Evenings we’d spend together in the cellar bar below
Venture upstairs occasionally to watch a theatre show
Events and Happenings, poems on Monday nights
Read by wistful beatniks fed on City Lights
Young, we talked of freedom, pop art, CND,
Miniskirts and football, and we danced to R&B,
At midnight we’d wander home with dreams enough
to spare
Now I wander still down Hope Street but you’re no
longer there.
Liverpool 8

While we sleep, heads in the clouds, who drops kicking
into history?
A quarrel over money, murder, a medallion left at the
scene.
Local girl Norma points the finger at Peter and Gwynne.
Sorry lads.
Two trapdoors open for the last time with macabre syn-
chronicity.
On the other side of the East Lancs, a mirror image.
Strangeways.
No dreams to spare. Nightmare, a tumbril’s ride from
Hope Street.
Liverpool 9