The following poem by M.L. Liebler is from a collection tentatively titled Underneath My American Face from Made in Michigan Series of Wayne State University Press. Liebler says the poems in the collection were all written in Liverpool.
Upon Christ’s Entry into Liverpool
After Adrian Henri & The Liverpool Scene
“BUT ALL WILL BE WELL, AND EVERY KIND OF THING WILL BE WELL.”
Julian of Norwich
The banging drums—
The marching bands up Lime Street
All signal and hail the holy
Holiday of music and dream.
O ghost of youthful past,
Bombs smashing over
Docks in blackness and fire
And Vatican smoke rises
Upward off the backs
Of the lonely and indigent,
Yet all say “Liverpool is
Alive even in its demise.”
Sickness reflects in the stagnant
Puddles from standing water
Dark in the alleys off Hope
Street—all testament to
The baptismal flow
From the blackened cathedral
Fonts that stand alone
At each end of a long block.
Bookends of faith
In a city burdened by time.
Rise O Liverpool again
From your tortured sleep
Of the sea, and your slave
Weary neighborhoods,
Unexplained and invisible,
In post industrial Toxteth
Collapsed now by empty
Ports and poets of long ago.
Arise O sweet music
That will become your
Witness to all that is good
And lasting about Liverpool:
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
Secret chants from the deep
Dark caves of Lazarus’ cavern.
“Come forth from the cave
Of yourself where death has filled
The stones with the brutal
Loss of black salty sea and lime.
The time has come to leave
Behind what can you can least
Forget. Leave behind
Stuart Sutcliffe’s pain and angst.
Leave behind John Lennon’s
Bleeding mother lying on Menlove Avenue.
Leave behind Brian Epstein’s
Penny Lane homosexual shame.
Leave behind sweet betrayed Casbah
And Mendips anger, Fortlin Road death.
Leave behind Matthew Street raising,
Italian sewn Beatle Boots lament.
Leave behind rocking Mojo’s,
Undertakers and the broken spirits
Of The Big Three & Jimmy Campbell,
Poet Laureate of Liverpool streets.
Leave behind Melville’s laudatory praises.
Leave behind the sweet notes of
Liverpool Oratorio. Leave behind
Butcher Cover madness,
Ed Sullivan,
London Palladium screams,
And rusted Yellow Submarine
Of Ringo’s Dingle.
Open your soul to yesterday
And let all the pain
Pour over and down from your
Ironsides and wooden docks.
Celebrate, call out now
To all the happiness that you have
Freely delivered to the world
In the sight and sound of God
And nature and healed the broken
Hearted dreamers—now as alive
As when they first heard “Love of the Loved”
Gently floating out from a church
Yard near the graves of Father McKenzie,
George “Too Good” Smith and Eleanor
Rigby. Over the pines of St. Peter’s Woolton,
Let us again hear the goodness of mankind
And heal the human loss and suffering
Of dead presidents, foreign wars, race riot
Madness and the general lack of faith and prayer.
O Come O Sweet Emanuel to this
City by a northern river
And open each street in Liverpool to empire
Beauty and sweet promises of its
Former self to be redeemed of what we were
And what we can now become—ourselves
Again
Again
Again
And again.
O I know its true
This is the blood
For me.
by M.L. Liebler
M. L. Liebler is a internationally known and widely published Detroit poet, university professor, literary arts activist and arts organizer, and he is the author of 13 books including the Award winning “Wide Awake in Someone Else’s Dream” (Wayne State University Press 2008) featuring poems written in and about Russia, Israel, Germany, Alaska and Detroit. He has taught writing, American Studies and Labor Studies at Wayne State University since 1980. He is a life-log fan of the Beatles and teaches a study-abroad course on the Beatles.
Thanks for sharing I love Liverpool I am a Liverpool fan