Report from the Mersey & the Tyne

Poems written in pubs - (the Philharmonic & the Cluny , respectively) - whilst traveling. I have trouble writing straight-forward prose stating what I've done, so these should aid my nostalgia in forty years.

Report from the Mersey

Brahms & Liszt, sober rooms at the smokeless Philharmonic,
And other truisms, there was no honeymoon,
And the rain & the radiation will get better soon,
This bread is my bread, this wine is my gin & tonic.

Forsooth, the graduates will flow thru the doors now,
Zounds! & we know the reason for the cathedral.
If you can stand to filibuster until past nightfall,
Then I'll only sing four more verses before the floorshow.

Please turn it up several notches higher, & explain,
Bold Street & Penny Lane were both named after slave traders.
Finish drinking your bitterness while I wave the waitress,
Like only a dangerous professor of denistry can complain.

Forsooth, it's been scrubbed down past its Catholic Colours to an angsty whiteness.
Zounds! this planet is inhabited by a velvery silence,
Itinerant & bloody, but what is rock & roll music with the violins?
And powdered drinks like Tang have been replaced by watercress.

While she was sleeping, I slipped my hand into her stomach.
Oh! Brittany, your white hair breaks like the ocean,
I could live forever only within your expectoration.
You were a cardinal figure before my phoney heartless attack.

Forsooth, a blistering day, the saloon totally empty,
A creeky, swinging door & I hear flip-flops approaching.
Don't loath me for my centuries of cockroaching.
It's a far cry from Coventry, goodby city of expediency.

Report from the Tyne

Somewhere something suddenly happened,
There's always a pub within running distance when it rains,
Derelict pavilions from my halcyon flapper remains,
Over the top, keep walking, there's no bookend.

Nancy, I bequeath you this old tape recorder,
I only used it for twentieth century music.
Swim to Ireland until you learn the trick,
And we will re-order until we've passed the border.

Older than the waves today is,
Fair is the air where the cows have stopped farting.
We ruminate out infinite hours, now I am departing.
Crossing the seventh bridge a the Quayside, the way is the dais.

Nancy, I want it all, what we never had,
Mack the Knife slives a chunk of my spinal chord.
One million dollars will be my just reward,
But first I will sit here & be forever sad.

Knee-pads shield the sailor's sore knees.
The limosene should come at Six A.M.
Amen, the service is finished, we've sung the tedium.
There are no more songs in my head, if you please.

Where were we, bonny Nancy, the year of the pig?
One last round sould make the sky alright.
If you insist, I will spend the night.
I'll wear the fig leaf, but I will not eat the fig.