Four Poems

Because of a derailment on the line
between this port and an old coal mining
town I lived in thirty years ago,
I waited an hour for you, not knowing
why it was you hadn't come
and contemplated going back home,
while a naval patrol boat and steam tug took
their turns to glide out through a lock
and into the Mersey estuary.

Playing at the Nineteeth Century
a Baptist Mission in fancy dress
with hymn singing and fine scripted speeches
was to make the dull red sandstone
of converted warehouse dockland
ring once more with confidence;
...