Dave Bateman's poem following is the title poem in an anthology in which some of my poems about Liverpool and other topics are included. The anthology, Living On Hope Street, edited by local poet and performer Jim Bennett, is expected out before Christmas. Next May, we will have a couple of readings in connection with the anthology at the Everyman (under the auspices of the Dead Good Poets) and at the Albert Dock for which I am looking forward to coming over from the United States to appear.
div>
Living On Hope Street
I’ve been living on Hope Street now
for more years than I can remember,
but that’s partly because I was drunk.
Let’s call it several years or so, rolling
between my end of this not-so-mean street
and the Everyman Bistro at the other,
passing always The Famous Luggage,
port out starboard home, the stacked-up
sculpted and mysterious suitcases of local heroes
with a view of the river and when you count them
they never add up to the same number twice
even though there is a numbered key
just a few drunken steps away,
and the seagulls arc overhead like ghosts of hangovers,
and whenever I try to add up all the drinks
I have drunk on Hope Street – at the Ev, the Belv,
the Casa, the Crack and even the Phil, it always
comes to more than the number I first thought of,
but dauntless and blithely I travel to and fro
along this very nearly straight road,
for say what you like about Hope Street,
it runs pleasantly from south to north
or the opposite if you prefer, and
with one cathedral at each end
it’s certainly pretty hard to get lost on.
David Bateman
Bookmarks