City of arrivals, departures,

of comings and goings,

your character determined by

the choppy ebb and flow of tides,

sailings and shore-leave,

signings on and off,

one day securing ropes,

the next day slipping them:

your come-day-go-day

perky Scouse philosophy

comes from rattling gangplanks,

shifting decks: a jauntiness

derived from old habits

of rolling home, then, skint,

of sailing off again. Your fortunes tidal,

you rise and fall in prosperity

like barometer mercury. No wonder,

for insurance, you flaunt not one but two

pert phoenixes above your waterfront,

one backwards staring, the other dead ahead,

plonk two grandiose cathedrals,

one space-age, the other antwacky,

at opposite ends of a street

called Hope. No wonder

you heroically support

two footie teams, the Reds, the Blues,

whose fortunes also rise and fall

like Mersey's grey-brown tides.

No wonder reconciliation, co-existence

are themes you nag away at,

shifting as you always do

between swagger and uncertainty.

Here's another Big Ben moment then

for taking stock, sussing things out properly,

one that marks two thousand Christian years,

in which you just about half-share

(that's if we all agree the kick-off's

twelve-O-seven with King John).

So let this moment be bright and brash

with celebration,

with fireworks and fanfares,

lashings of lobscouse,

and god-bless-yer-owld-cotton-socks,

Liverpool,

breeder of saints and sinners, of bruisers

and jesters and backstreet poets.

It's time to think again in terms

not of fall but rise – right for us

to think less of murky Merseyside and more

of resurgent Liverpool, time to be sexy

like that rude statue on Lewis's

where all the lovers meet.