Liverpool Tales from the Mersey Mouth - A book by John Williams

"This is a wonderful collection of writings by John Williams. While it isn't specifically about the Beatles, they are clearly a part of the story, along with the very fiber and fabric of the city that influenced him and them as well. The pieces are short, well written and filled with a delicious sense of humor that shines in the titles as well as the essays." Jan Perry, Cincinnati Post
"John Williams writes in the language of Liverpool, a Scouse scribe who brings to life the people and places, inner thoughts and outer images, the vigour and vitality and essentially, the iron humour of a unique city." Bill Harry, founder of Mersey Beat

Liverpool Poems

This is a sample of my poetry that had been consigned to poetry limbo for years. As Coleridge once remarked, "Poems are never finished, they are simply abandoned." Poetry is a solitary occupation and so I have never been part of any ink crowd. My poetry is a mixture of the formal, such as Villanelles, and free verse. Some of it is an attempt at a lyric form, and I suppose is more correctly called song. Poetry is a difficult medium for people as it presents a conflict of perception because it stems from an oral tradition thousands of years old, yet we insist on reading it as if it were prose and so we encounter problems of understanding. Poetry is nothing if not a motion picture show, a flowing stream of images carrying ideas in its meandering course. I hope you enjoy mine as it contains images of my life.

John Williams

Sailing on an inland sea

Dawn, straining, tugs the grey fleet of mast-less

hulks, on hawsers vague and dew-strung, from bleak

night stations in the shadows, to moorings

concrete in the slowly softening light.

Aboard, already, daily cleaning ladies,

dawn-watch chorus, gaily turn in-trays out,

flick feathers and tickle dust, flick switches

to flood typing pools in waves of neon,

flashing, in sequence, simply coded signals

acknowledged by distant sister ship mates

who fathom out constellations of sequins

spangling the stark outlines of granite

anchored block-ships...then steam away to tea.

Troubled air trebles to shrill hoots, screeching

sirens burst pillows of seagulls, a tide

of bright small craft drifts in mottled currents

The day's ferrying is once more underway.

Double-decked trawlers groan beneath their loads,

shoals of hard smoking shock-eyed late kippers,

and disgorge them, a thrashing splash of limbs

another broad sweep and their holds swarm with

leaping teeming try, dreaming of growing up,

sea-side excursions and escapes from schools.

Black and beetling water boatmen sluggish

slide to halts, summoned by shrill Whistles,

and, grudging, trudge to rescue stranded sailors,

boring, disdainful, against the traffic's

dense yet uneven flow, these squat fendered

heavy hired cruisers, headlights blazing

aerials a quiver, scan sea lanes for

pirate craft, those unlicensed venturers

zipping up and down, causing miles of teeth

to snap together in rage. The tide now ebbs

and so the regular beat of the galley's

driving drum throbs and sets our rate of knots

My thanks to Tim Kelly and Brigitte C for the new look to my site