Andrew Taylor
GesquOi (Part II) Poem
for Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney
What lies beyond these streets? What has gone before?
top hatted traders Exchange Flags
to micro skirts Old Hall Street hotels and Littlewoods Sculpture
cast to the elements a view obscured by development
Who shares these routes? Who has climbed the steps?
Sleek in black cast aside
as a forgotten dream
pigeons clap on take off
circle above seeking
scattered crumbs
Abercromby
Square where Billy sat drunk after graduation Senate House
where I saw Les Murray read and where once a Church stood
into the Gallery small packed for a Georgian Townhouse with
Freud Aitcheson and Turner for company history surrounding
a calming influence the violet hour essence of art and pleasure
Grass amongst the cracks in old concrete city centre
parking spaces feeding grounds for city sparrows
The city is not only a form of modern life; it is the physical embodiment of a decisive modern consciousness — Raymond Williams
walk up the hill to Jordan Street through Bold Street’s bustle
onto Berry Street past the Parking Space Gallery where Jane
had her exhibition opening the night before Billy and Karl went
to Amsterdam
Bluecoat Courtyard creation whitewashed
cables feed through trees and drainpipes
Drawn together artists using same tools 70
years on temporary versus permanent
installations for Liverpool’s state of mind
Words etched onto sidewalk. Late summer's heat
unable to soften. Buddleia columns run parallel.
'So afraid dew breaks a screen dissolve'
'Established 1784 Ships Chandlers Engineers
Merchants Sailmakers and Flagmakers.'
Horizon spire of Welsh Presbyterian
40 Prince's Road corner of Upper Hill Street,
Liverpool, 1868; closed and derelict
Yorkshire stone with yellow sandstone
Audsley's design 'T' Shape 200ft spire
details carefully thought out light fittings
all part an architect's brief
Reinstated September 2002 electricity pumps
water and sound roses begin to wilt and die
a girl wrapped in white feels precinct cold crowds
drawn by radiance
a gold heart lies behind a mobile telephone screen
What lies beyond these streets? What has gone before?
The Wind is Turning Distinctly Cold
i.m. John Peel
Dead sunflowers stand solemn in a field
I think of the last post played nightly
at the Menin Gate
This year of disease and death
Everything is repairable everything is broken
I've seen the real atrocities
buried in the sand
Humour thy Father and Mother
too young to know too wild to care
Don’t disillusion me I’ve only got record shops left
this is why events unnerve me
I could kneel with my arms open
the sound sound goes around around
Likeness II
Seen through
this coast of dreams
like carnage like voices like night
Pictured as
highway journey
like mind like planes like rain
Route 1 and 101 PCH
through Half Moon Bay
like dreams like flight like night
and areas of natural outstanding beauty
like circles like heat like tides
A Poetry of Place
A solitary daffodil stands on a motorway verge in recognition of the first day of spring
Catharine Street front room painted dream spiral lunchtime after office curry phone-calls from Laura back bedroom down into the kitchen football in the corridor
Moving days boxed memories poetry an odd bedfellow to New Deal galleries set in derelict warehouses Wolstenholme Square anarchist artists squatters' rights
Poetry in members clubs how about crypt of The Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King? Art galleries on December nights steamed up windows and Off Licences
Buddleia Warehouse roof shots envisaging a penthouse view to the Cathedral cellar visiting arch low-light hard hat a licence to roam explore streets become familiar
Fox Street a friary meeting place hill walking to the tower fence climbing city a map below in the haze of daybreak
Consolation red arms gathering a soul bereft anticipation of survival journeys along coastal tracks marshland birds stagnant leaded public art leading to Oriel Mostyn
Snowdon Buffet Bar Bangor Station meeting place after trekking armed with poetry and skin cream study centre first editions and Thomas's typewriter letters and notes
Amnesiac Red Stripe beer a desk-top computer floppy discs poetry carried in pockets transposed through Revo paper and memory
A vase of daffodils on a bedside table in recognition of a birthday
A solitary redwing sits on a branch of a still bare lime tree
Woking a different air lunch-time food court madness newspaper too large for tables hotels a writing machine entertainment system photographs postcards home
Day war broke out watching Heathrow jets spring flowers baskets swinging loosely in a warmed breeze news updates satellites free newspapers in reception
Nature and integration wood where signal dies foxes run in straight lines dodging trees petrol station odd giver of life yet the way back north for midnight arrival
Breakfast alone like an early Hopper though feeling like mid-Pollock Peacocks Centre post-modern lunacy band-stand meeting place instant coffee sticks adrenaline
Knowsley a routine set aside winter of death blinds shut percolator on village walks church open Wednesday afternoons flat landscapes tower blocks from hospital wards
calls from the copse barriers rise New Year's Eve last to leave waiting for motivation
florescent guidance slatted shut last of delivery vans gone festiveness whitewashed
New Warehouse home of sorts facilitator of poetry text creator transported to International airports those mountains that pier the trees full of winter's fuel
Attic rooms cast in blue machined for duration month's worth of rest in four days three cacti adorn the window sill a young cat basks in the sunshine of newness
A flock of redwings sit on branches of a lime tree at the cusp of spring
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool based poet and co-editor and founder of erbacce and erbacce-press. He has recently completed a PhD in Poetry and Poetics. His latest publication is And the Weary Are at Rest published by Sunnyoutside.
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GesquOi (Part II) Poem
for Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney
What lies beyond these streets? What has gone before?
top hatted traders Exchange Flags
to micro skirts Old Hall Street hotels and Littlewoods Sculpture
cast to the elements a view obscured by development
Who shares these routes? Who has climbed the steps?
Sleek in black cast aside
as a forgotten dream
pigeons clap on take off
circle above seeking
scattered crumbs
Abercromby
Square where Billy sat drunk after graduation Senate House
where I saw Les Murray read and where once a Church stood
into the Gallery small packed for a Georgian Townhouse with
Freud Aitcheson and Turner for company history surrounding
a calming influence the violet hour essence of art and pleasure
Grass amongst the cracks in old concrete city centre
parking spaces feeding grounds for city sparrows
The city is not only a form of modern life; it is the physical embodiment of a decisive modern consciousness — Raymond Williams
walk up the hill to Jordan Street through Bold Street’s bustle
onto Berry Street past the Parking Space Gallery where Jane
had her exhibition opening the night before Billy and Karl went
to Amsterdam
Bluecoat Courtyard creation whitewashed
cables feed through trees and drainpipes
Drawn together artists using same tools 70
years on temporary versus permanent
installations for Liverpool’s state of mind
Words etched onto sidewalk. Late summer's heat
unable to soften. Buddleia columns run parallel.
'So afraid dew breaks a screen dissolve'
'Established 1784 Ships Chandlers Engineers
Merchants Sailmakers and Flagmakers.'
Horizon spire of Welsh Presbyterian
40 Prince's Road corner of Upper Hill Street,
Liverpool, 1868; closed and derelict
Yorkshire stone with yellow sandstone
Audsley's design 'T' Shape 200ft spire
details carefully thought out light fittings
all part an architect's brief
Reinstated September 2002 electricity pumps
water and sound roses begin to wilt and die
a girl wrapped in white feels precinct cold crowds
drawn by radiance
a gold heart lies behind a mobile telephone screen
What lies beyond these streets? What has gone before?
The Wind is Turning Distinctly Cold
i.m. John Peel
Dead sunflowers stand solemn in a field
I think of the last post played nightly
at the Menin Gate
This year of disease and death
Everything is repairable everything is broken
I've seen the real atrocities
buried in the sand
Humour thy Father and Mother
too young to know too wild to care
Don’t disillusion me I’ve only got record shops left
this is why events unnerve me
I could kneel with my arms open
the sound sound goes around around
Likeness II
Seen through
this coast of dreams
like carnage like voices like night
Pictured as
highway journey
like mind like planes like rain
Route 1 and 101 PCH
through Half Moon Bay
like dreams like flight like night
and areas of natural outstanding beauty
like circles like heat like tides
A Poetry of Place
A solitary daffodil stands on a motorway verge in recognition of the first day of spring
Catharine Street front room painted dream spiral lunchtime after office curry phone-calls from Laura back bedroom down into the kitchen football in the corridor
Moving days boxed memories poetry an odd bedfellow to New Deal galleries set in derelict warehouses Wolstenholme Square anarchist artists squatters' rights
Poetry in members clubs how about crypt of The Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King? Art galleries on December nights steamed up windows and Off Licences
Buddleia Warehouse roof shots envisaging a penthouse view to the Cathedral cellar visiting arch low-light hard hat a licence to roam explore streets become familiar
Fox Street a friary meeting place hill walking to the tower fence climbing city a map below in the haze of daybreak
Consolation red arms gathering a soul bereft anticipation of survival journeys along coastal tracks marshland birds stagnant leaded public art leading to Oriel Mostyn
Snowdon Buffet Bar Bangor Station meeting place after trekking armed with poetry and skin cream study centre first editions and Thomas's typewriter letters and notes
Amnesiac Red Stripe beer a desk-top computer floppy discs poetry carried in pockets transposed through Revo paper and memory
A vase of daffodils on a bedside table in recognition of a birthday
A solitary redwing sits on a branch of a still bare lime tree
Woking a different air lunch-time food court madness newspaper too large for tables hotels a writing machine entertainment system photographs postcards home
Day war broke out watching Heathrow jets spring flowers baskets swinging loosely in a warmed breeze news updates satellites free newspapers in reception
Nature and integration wood where signal dies foxes run in straight lines dodging trees petrol station odd giver of life yet the way back north for midnight arrival
Breakfast alone like an early Hopper though feeling like mid-Pollock Peacocks Centre post-modern lunacy band-stand meeting place instant coffee sticks adrenaline
Knowsley a routine set aside winter of death blinds shut percolator on village walks church open Wednesday afternoons flat landscapes tower blocks from hospital wards
calls from the copse barriers rise New Year's Eve last to leave waiting for motivation
florescent guidance slatted shut last of delivery vans gone festiveness whitewashed
New Warehouse home of sorts facilitator of poetry text creator transported to International airports those mountains that pier the trees full of winter's fuel
Attic rooms cast in blue machined for duration month's worth of rest in four days three cacti adorn the window sill a young cat basks in the sunshine of newness
A flock of redwings sit on branches of a lime tree at the cusp of spring
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool based poet and co-editor and founder of erbacce and erbacce-press. He has recently completed a PhD in Poetry and Poetics. His latest publication is And the Weary Are at Rest published by Sunnyoutside.
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