STEPHEN REGAN
The measuring bar
Pitiless sodium
lights his way
to the pub of self-rebuke
at Wirral’s northern tip
where he nods slightly,
smiles sadly,
to the men there.
He thinks about
failed friendship,
lost love,
what the future holds,
whether he can still risk
being bold – here
in the saloon bar
of small ambition.
Whine follows wine;
another nod, another smile,
then he ambles out
to the smoke-hole
for nicotine’s
distinct perspective,
and he’s back and back
to back-to-back
redbrick warmth,
cherry-and-white buses,
Labour politics, Latin laments,
small town saviours
and cruel pathways
across the land of his birth.
The measure of his worth
is balanced here –
in the bar at the end
of the peninsula.
Stephen Regan has had poems published in The Screech Owl e-zine (Oct 2012), The Passionate Transitory e-zine (Dec 2012) and in the print anthology Best of Manchester Poets Vol. 2 (Dec 2011). His poem Unhappy Valley Sunday won the Runner-up Prize for Poetry in the Sefton Arts Writing Competition 2011. His poetry has also appeared in the following print publications: Vertical Images 7 (London, 1993); Poetry of my Shoulders (London, 1994); London Voices (1993 and 1994); The Mental Virus Arts Magazine (Wigan, 2009); and Wirral's Winter Words anthology (Dec 2009).
Stephen is founder and co-organiser (with David Costello) of two poetry clubs – The Liver Bards (Liverpool) and the Bards of New Brighton (Wirral).
He also created the persona of "popular TV critic" Sam Brady, who appeared regularly on ITV’s Oracle and Teletext services from 1989 to 2002. Sam Brady continues as a blog: http://sambradyoracle.blogspot.com/
Stephen writes a further blog on the Liverpool Echo's website http://steveregan.merseyblogs.co.uk/