Best Birkenhead Poems
The cigarette Smoking
When I lived in Britain that place where refugees in Calais
try to hide in a lorry for the crossing to the promised land.
And haven where pubs are full and pints of lager is a dream
a longing for the unobtainable.
I liked to visits pubs more often than my wife liked not so
much for the ale, one can buy beer and drink it in the park,
(I remember Birkenhead Park before I got a job and a room)
it was the cosiness of drinking and smoking.
Then we were invaded by the health brigade and that was ok,
and we had to go outside for a ***.
This was no good for my health leaving a warm pub to go to
the winter outside I got a cold so bad I left the country.
Since smoking was no longer sociable I stopped. No doubt some
scientist will tell us a bit of nicotine is good for you.
For me it will be too late, I like nothing more than having a meal
at a restaurant free of stale tobacco smoke.
Let me tell you a little story, of a boy called Ned
He was they say from a far away place called, Birkenhead
He had some good friends called: Fred, Red and also Ted
And they were so poor, they didn't even own a bed!
Ned loved his small town even when he was so bored
Who can blame him,the town was so creepy,it was almost dead
There wasn't a single park where after school to have fled
Not even a library where a single book was to be had and read.
Sure it wasn't much joy or fun at all, for him to spread
Not even toasted peanut-butter and jellied bread
Most of the time he had to sleep in a barn or the shed
With all the fleas,horses,cows and the sheep in the stead.
Every morning poor Ned woke up with a stiff and sorehead
He just wanted to be well-read and well-bred
But he didn't know a book how to read
So he went around stutter...rrr..ring and feeling like a total Pinhead.
So one day Ned decided some for himself and made a pled
To leave right away his much beloved and well known homestead
And take also with him his dear friends,Fred,Red and Ted
To a much better and happier place so they went instead to West Quoddy Head!
Dorian Petersen Potter
aka ladydp2000
copyright@2014
September,28,2014
Born in 1915 at Birkenhead by the Port River Inlet
A son of Port Adelaide as one of the best youd get
In the days before bridges he would row
Across the river to training and games hed go
He debuted for the Magpies in 1936 at Alberton
And was the best player in that game then
Winning the 1938 Magarey Medal as the best in the league
He was one who epitomises the best of the Creed
Then in 1939 he captain coached the Magpies
To the third premiership after the ones in 1936 and 1937 as Football wise
But war clouds were gathering and he heard the bugle call then
Enlisting in second 43 Battalion in June 1940 as a warrant officer second class his country to defend
Off to North Africa he sailed with his mates
To Libya and Tobruk battlefields his life risked to fate
Then on the 3 August 1941 who took command of the 10 platoon
At the siege of Tobruk to blow a barbed wire machine gun soon
He told his men that death was near
As the Germans poured on fire across the battlefield clear
And he would lay the last Bangalore explosive torpedo
The most dangerous one to place near the machine gun hed go
Only three of the seven survived in the heavy fire
With Quinns turn the next the danger so dire
And he was hit by shrapnel in the top of the thigh
Being hit in the head again the bullets flying by
On top of this a wounded mate called out
And he took him up on his back to the trench after the shout
The machine gun was silenced in the mission success
A Military Medal was awarded to Quinn as one of the best
When his wounds healed he was promoted to lieutenant
And to the Pacific War defending Australia he was sent
And in September 1943 in New Guinea he was injured severely
In his knee arm and face which could have cost his football dearly
But he made it through those broken years
Returning to Adelaide and more football cheers
To win a second Magarey Medal in 1945 an accolade
As captain coach of Port Adelaide
So we remember this brave man
Of the battlefield and Aussie Rules oval grand
Two Magarey Medals three premierships four best and fairest medals 15 times played for South Australia and All Australian player
With a Military Medal on the battlefield a brave ANZAC soldier.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Memory still walks
along the river
on a summer's evening
when a soft wind
lingers over the mangroves
and lifts the smell of mud
rimmed along the river's edge
into the warm air.
I imagine mulloway
prowling the deep channels
dug out by the tides,
the shiny backs of dolphins
arching through the dark,
sewing together
the torn dreams
of old men.
I can feel the thick flow
of its history and cough
the accumulations
of a century's waste.
From Birkenhead Bridge
I look out over the river's
wide reach, its distances
and into the vanishing point
of a waiting silence.