He looks beyond the Mersey estuary,
His boots are worn, but his feet are unscathed,
Leisurely he  walks along the empty Liverpudlian docks.

A flock of seagulls disperses in the dismal sky.
Birkenhead lays hidden in the drizzle.
There is rust in the air and decadence in the water.
Dogs revolve the trash of a power that no longer is.

Dreams of glory and domination are long gone.
Only the phantoms of the great clippers remain.
The empire no longer arrives in containers, the empire lives here.
In the back streets Asians and Africans have a Scouser accent.

Decay and violence rule where Victorian order once prevailed.
Bands of Japanese tourists soak cut-price nostalgia.
The city dwellers offer no inspiration to the lone rambler.
Still, sounds of bagpipes recall his native Lusitania.
His Celtic id would feel at home just across the Irish Sea
 

M.Daedalus