Pier Head meets Manhattan:  very strange.

It's not my student sphere,  this Liverpool.

Only The Swan in Wood Street stays unchanged:

a haven for the chronically uncool.

A quarter century dies inside the door.

My nostrils drink a familiar Dettol whiff.

Same bikes outside,  same sticky plank floor,

long hair,  strong ale,  thundering Metal riffs.

My crowd didn't do opera with the toffs.

If we knew of Klimt we didn't show it.

Never heard of Patten nor McGough

but nonetheless I lurched from here a poet.

So knock it if you want,  but for my part

I reckon we had culture of a sort.