Waterland World; or I'm Alive

a poem from a collection entitled "Spit Mancunia" by Gary Knapton

Battle-scar fresh from war-time belligerence

Clinking the colonial toast

Faith moves mountains

They're moving Manchester!*

Carrying her over to the coast

The crazy gang populace

Here in Cottonopolis

Never trod softly on dreams

Brash-brawn autonomous

Re; the eponymous

Ripping up the land to smithereens

A back-break strive

To be lucky being alive

Liverpool took a goodbye bow

Everything just beckoned

They were here this second

They were living all of their dreams now

Many men smiled at the long-sewn promise

That their shovels, picks and barrows unfurled

In a time gone by

On a canvas of dry

They were digging out a waterland world

Having wasted many years

Paying Merseyside dockers

Dancing gaily to a prisoner’s song

Free at a canter

Hear the Ship Canal mantra

If you know the words, sing along…..

“There’s nothing I want

There’s no piece missing

There’s no race I never could run

I’ve Mancunian cotton

I’m alive

I’ve gone and gotten all of my dreams in one”

Years later I stand

On the verge of water

That genuflects out of my sight

And the seagulls twist

Over rain-cloud mist

On melodious blue canal light

Know freedom’s never treason

And it’s never out of season

Did the corners of your dreams get curled ?

Big shout going out

To the land-locked city

That dug itself a waterland world

There's nothing I want

There's no piece missing

There's no race I never could run


I'm spoilt dead rotten


I'm alive


I've gone and gotten all of my dreams in one



*to let the sea flow in, twenty thousand Irishmen moved fifty two million tonnes of land