Miss My Mersey Mermaid

The sun has set on my incoming tides

the rush to claim the fairground rides

to throw my afghan across the puddles

the very thought leaves me in muddles.

Yet it seems just yesterday I ran

through the market past the van

unloading fruit and veg, fish and meat

to our lunchtime bevvy, our special treat.

A pint of Higsons and a couple of straws

the blue one mine and the pink one yours

gazing into your mascara’d eyes

I wove a net of conniving lies

I’ve really only me to blame

with promises of stardom, dreams of fame

no wonder you saw through my schemes

to try and fool you with my dreams.

My Biba model, my Mary Quant

what I thought every girl would want

to pose before a gleaming lens

but that ideal is surely mens.

No dolly bird would want to strip

for a party seven and a greasy chip

so although I thought I had you made

you had no intention to parade

Around my dingy terraced flat

with me as Warhol thinking that

I had conned you into my bed

but you were clearly streets ahead

And ready with a sharp retort

when I stupidly voiced the thought

like any wholesome Liver bird

you shut me up with just one word

And turning on a platform heel

you quickly left me to feel

that I had clearly underestimated

the fairer sex and felt berated.

Now many years have passed

those heady times could never last

and I wonder now in modern days

why I did not expect to find your ways

To be so different from mine

but I was a chauvinistic swine

and lost the chance to love the one

true soulmate now forever gone

Instead I’m left upon the shelf

and constantly chastise myself

the rivers strength flows in your veins

its timeless beauty still remains

Haunting my reveries and regrets

for those brief moments ill not forget  

the Mersey beat of your proud heart

singing so loudly from the start

you wowed me in those early days

your easy laugh, your hippy ways

made sure that I would never lose

the image of your departing shoes.

For although I thought I could win

your heart and smile, that dimpled chin

I was already lost without a doubt

And my clumsy plans would get thrown out.

That summer of Love was truly real

but I confused the way I feel

with simple lust and manly greed

for concrete love and honest need

Now I’m condemned to depths infernal

After losing love eternal

had I just heard the song

you’d been singing all along

your mystic sirens fluid grace

Sun dappled skin and freckled face

was showing me the one true way

to learn to love another way

had I heard and not been distracted.

Made sure my pass was then retracted

Looked beyond your kinky boots

Explored the options to their roots

Softly softly i’d tread the stair

To your pad and find you there

Your flat was tiny, of this I’m certain

window drawn with paisley curtains.

a battered sofa and formica table

a case of books on myth and fable

covered with candles and draped in beads

Just for show as no one reads

instead I had to push my luck

dragging your innocence through the muck

and rightly so you cut me free

Told me to go and let you be

now I am old, alone and sad

wondering what we could have had

I wish I’d never made you go

cos now I’m ebb and you’re the flow.