WAITING BY THE WATER.

The well known hotel,
Now an egested shell,
Sits by the bridge
With its name,

Which swings to prevent us
From leaving its mentor
Until we have filled
It again.

But its windows and doors
Are encrusted with boards
And its walls are appalled
At the thought,

That in order to enter
We may have to vent
Our fire outside them
Once more.

For it was many a year
When decent folk feared
To meet on its street
After dark,

As they were aware
That insanity flared,
And fighting was nightly
Its spark;

Taking hold of the young,
And those coveting them,
In a flurry of hurried
Imbibing,

And denuding the doubts
Of the bar inside out
Where the rain and their stains
Were colliding.

And come the next morning
Policemen stood warning
The landlord of laws
Being breached,

And old Don did his best
To assuage the unrest,
But the times and their crimes
Went unbleached.

And the shame of the scene
Was because it had been
Once a haven for brave
Northern souls;

With Les G. and his crew,
And my sister, who knew,
Not a thing about slings
And arrows.

But the eighties were eager
To marshal the meager,
Whose thinking the drinking
Enhanced

To a state where their day
Was a class war away,
And their reason an evening
Trance.

And the nineties came creeping
With a house crisis reaping,
And money was funny
To find,

And bitterness whispered
To locals who pissed up
The last of their cash
On cheap wine.

But dear Fred held the reigns
And was able to tame
The listless and lost less
By far,

And shipping clerks crept
For a swift one as debt
And it demons were screened
At the bar.

And the trade from the Docks
Slowly grew as the clock
Was increased, and a peace
Was declared,

Though as the years sped
A drug culture spread
And the punters where shunted
Elsewhere.

While the Royal and the Mac
Were well placed to attack,
And entice all the nice
People left,

Until all that remained
Were refurbishment games
And the zoo was turned into
A vet’s.

Anesthesia held
As the decade expelled
The remains of the aimless
And burned,

But millenniums seldom
Occur when you tell them
And quickly the sickly
Returned.

So the insides were scraped
Of their tables and drapes
And changed to a strange
Kind of dance hall;

With queues round the block
And tall doormen to stop
The boisterous from foisting
A brawl.

But discos are risky,
And this one fell briskly,
Becoming a slum
Once alighted,

And there by the water
Our sons and our daughters
Walked by when the sky
Was benighted.

And here we all are
In our over sized cars,
All sated and too fat
For fit,

Awaiting a builder
Prepared to re-gild her
And grant us a chance
To remit.