These winds holding you high on Helsby Hill,
This flagrant stony crop, the visible scar
Seen from as far as Warrington, Liverpool,
Down the stretch of estuary flat,
Beyond Runcorn, crushed by its cloak
Of electoral solemnity, a pall conspiratorial,
Where last the Mersey sweeps inland,
A flood on the rise, menacing redshanks
That wade in the sinking quickening
Ba…