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Poems tagged ‘Liverpool’

Macca and Liverpool

joe morris

Sunday, June 26th, 2022

Now Yesterday Macca
Rolled back the years
To misty decades
Of 1960s decadence
When excess and
Beatlemania ruled
The world and
Sir Paul McCartney
Was a young and fertile mind
With designs on greatness
But for a while
Did he pause for a while?
And consider the titanic
Legend of Bill Shankly
At animated Anfield
Where the seeds of the
The Liverpool revolution
Were planted like
The red roses of yesteryear
And now
Ron Yeats was just impassable
Defensively impenetrable
A rock, hard and flinty
And Peter Thompson was
The sorcerer, the conjuror
Flights of fancy, an elusive
Butterfly in the midst of
Thorns and bushes
A capricious soul
Who loved to tease,
Challenge and question
The accepted laws and practices
Of the winger’s art
So did Macca consider
Last night at magical Glastonbury
The wiles and styles of Ian St John,
Ian Callaghan, floating and flitting
Never a chameleon as such
Because Callaghan just obeyed
His masterful instincts
And read the landscape of
The 90 minute hoi polloi
With the studious eye of a
Merseyside student
Swotting for an end of
Term architectural exam
Building original projects
Where the Kop sighed with
Pleasure, just simplicity
On his mind
So maybe Macca
Intoned about getting things
Into his life or was simply
Content to get back to
Where he belonged
Or maybe he was just amazed
About Shanks, drinking in
The delightful beers and lagers
Of joyous adolescence
The heady fragrances of one
First Division League title
After another
A never ending conveyor belt
Of stunning prosperity
On the pitch of green
Or maybe Macca thought
Of Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan
Waving arms, whistling through
Their teeth, pleading, imploring
More hat-tricks please, goals
From all distances
Perhaps Lady Madonna
Was Paul McCartney’s
Dream signing where
Madonna suddenly
Began to sound like
The flawed genius
Of Argentine stock
Full of beefy, lissom
Movements like a gazelle
Flying across the pampas
Once ripping open Sir Bobby’s
England defence
With all the surgical ease
Of the obstetrician
Delicately moving
The first operation
Or perhaps Sir Paul
McCartney may
Have harboured
The glorious ambition
Of just running over
To the Kop
And assuring them
That indeed
Things were getting
Better all the time

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Liverpool – FA Cup winners 2022!

Emdad Rahman

Saturday, May 14th, 2022

Chelsea 0-0 Liverpool
Liverpool win 6-5 on pens

Dogged Trent, Hendo, Mane
Salah hands Jota the wheel
Virgil off, but there’s Matip and Konate
Mentality monsters are real

Both sides do all but score
Relentless Diaz with the tricks
Time runs out on the dance floor
It’s all down to penalty kicks

Is there a more end to end nil nil?
Glory for which German Schnauzer?
Klopp’s pesky Reds so know the drill
It’s Tsimikas the Greek Scouser

Liverpool ain’t finished yet
Could still be four, or three
A season never to forget
And there’s still that trip to Paris

14 05 22

number7
© emdad rahman

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“See you down the road…”

Sharon Jones

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022

John Lennon
He wore a red and white scarf
But did not play much football
And when he raced across Strawberry Fields
He ghosted between the spaces of childhood
Slipped unnoticed behind the gaps
Where nothing is real
Except the Eccho of the past
He didn’t stand in the Kop
Or jostle with the Annie Road aggro
He was too busy mastering the chords
To Twenty-Flight Rock
Working out the angles to Johnny B Goode
Rather than the 30-yard pass
But he gave the people their songs to sing
Carried our accents to the corners of the world
Where those sardonic sculptured sounds mingled
With a rebellious sense of rhythm scribbled down in Ye Cracke
Between the Rock and Roll of snide arrogance
And the cold concrete pavements of sarcastic despair
Like Plato in his cave Lennon had his cavern
Sweating screaming seething
A volley of verbs
A net full of narks
A curling cross of Christ-like cacophonies
De do dat dialectic Scouseland
Our John full of grace and mirth
Never went to the match but
Like that other proud socialist Shankly
He made the people happy.

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Liverpool beat Inter Milan

joe morris

Thursday, February 17th, 2022

Ah another special night for the Merseyside choirs
The liver birds in full song
Liverpool hit the highest notes again in keys of their liking
Last night Inter Milan toppled from their mighty perch.

Former European giants revered as the Italians
Who once spoilt an English summer
Last year in Euro 2020  final signatures
A perfect storm and  calligraphy
Writing on yet another page
Of Liverpool’s highly esteemed document
Of the highest  quality
When Roberto Mancini wore those fashion Designer clothes
And England wept uncontrollably, sobbing into a million glasses
Of indescribable misery, ales of ailing misfortune
Then penalty fiasco, the cold Shoulder of shuddering defeat

But last night Inter Milan
Once under the legendary ownership of Helenio Herrera
Fell helplessly at the feet of those star-spangled,five star
Five times triumphant European Cup winners Champions League  whatever  your choice

Last night it was Bobby Firmino and the Egyptian wonder of Liverpool’s global impact
Mohammad Salah who signed, underlined gave their ringing endorsement
To the gladiators of old when Kevin Keegan,
David Fairclough, Ian Callaghan, John Toshack
Terry Mac, Kenny Dalglish, Steve Heighway
And memorably Tommy Smith
Whose delicious meeting with his head set Liverpool

Forward to Roman roads and the Amphitheatre of victory against
Borussia Munchengladbach in 1977
When Liverpool and the European Cup
Became enduring allies the one and only
Harmonious Mersey Beat where Gerry Marsden
Once sailed in pristine waters
And never walked alone more like the vast congregation
who once gathered in idolatrous mood
In Liverpool’s glorious historic churches preaching the virtues
Of pass and move and still do in the homely pews
Of Anfield’s Sunday Best, dearly beloved

Liverpool, serial conquerors on colossal nights in Europe
When Fairclough leapt like the proverbial salmon
From the subs bench and lit up Merseyside
Like a thousand torches while anthems hummed rhapsodically
From the adoring Kop, tumbling, swaying, surging
At kick off, half time, full time a mellifluous majesty of sound
Liverpool football club United always
But not to be mistaken for Manchester,
Now that would be sacrilege

So Liverpool back to their finest strings and woodwind
Inter blown away by Jurgen Klopp’s most perfectly tuned
Band of men, immaculately hewn, sensing
The Champions League in their breaths,
Wintry vapours left in their trail
Blustery winds of fortune here in dear old England
Storms of Dudley and Eunice, no certainly not last night
Since Liverpool were sweeping their own inimitable brand
Football of pure and white as the driven snow so beautifully
And ready to show

You can almost hear the emperors of Shanks and Paisley
Bill and Bob composing their sweet ballads again and again
Pleased as Punch , thrilled as the first dawn chorus
When everything seemed possible, was achieved
And still is over and over again.

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Anfield Valentine

Sharon Jones

Sunday, February 13th, 2022

Your eyes shine
Like Mané through
Your lips as red
As Gerrard’s boots
This Ring of Fire Allez Les Rouges
My Kenny Dalglish my Ian Rush
You trap my dreams
Nutmeg my soul
You’re Shankly’s words
You’re Salah’s Goals
You’re my Champions League title won in May
My Joey Jones my Steve Heighway
Your beauty sparkles
My guiding light
And warms me
Like an Anfield night
You’re my poet banners on the Kop
My gegenpressing Jurgen Klopp
With you my FA Cup is full
My Miracle of Istanbul.

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‘Sir’ Roger Hunt

Crispin Thomas

Tuesday, September 28th, 2021

Anfield to Wembley

dubbed Sir Roger by the Kop

Hunt would score for fun

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My Mersey

John Paul Kirkham

Thursday, September 2nd, 2021

Merchant ship cranes
unloading their grain
Confederate ships built at Cammell Lairds
opposite sits the Liver Birds

Ferries glide across the Mersey
supporters wear their red or blue jerseys
high above the Albert dock
cathedral bells peal over their flocks

The world’s greatest seafaring city
land of the Beatles and birth of the sixties
today’s excitement is its calm reflection
designer walks and regeneration

New Brighton to Seacombe a fair old stride
a pint at Egremont by the tide
Fort Perch Rock out to Liverpool Bay
to the west, West Kirby and old Hoylake

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The Gentleman With Class (RIP Gérard Houllier )

Crispin Thomas

Tuesday, December 15th, 2020

the gentleman with class
managing with calm and care
France to Liverpool ~

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Le Boss

Sharon Jones

Monday, December 14th, 2020

You stand quietly just away from the shadows
The red of your scarf catches the light
And draws it down
And those football eyes shine
Unscramble the mysticism of tactics
Each lunge measured
Each trailing leg counted
Each goal scored and stored
Replayed Replayed Replayed
And now with Shankly
To be just a boy again
With your mates on The Kop
Singing your name.

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Season 20/21 – Champions are off with a thriller

Emdad Rahman

Saturday, September 12th, 2020

Liverpool 4-3 Leeds

Mo Salah with a hat trick
This game needed a killer
Liverpool finally sink Leeds
In an opening day Anfield thriller

Salah on the opening day
For the fourth season in a row
Leeds levelled three times
They’ve been sixteen years below

“Leeds are special,” said Klopp.
“The way they play is uncomfortable.
“If you don’t respect the opponent
“They will kill you!”

12 09 20

number7
© emdad rahman

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/news/poem-tags/liverpool/