A melancholy December vision in Liverpool invokes a Dickensian ghost with more worldly but still warm realism Down on the c anal on Christmas Day Down on the canal on Christmas Day a man walks towards me out of water-light, upright, Cratchit-wrapped, a smile to say: I know you. Hello Chris. Ghost in a time-ripped landscape where a low solstice sun spills whisked through a metallic staircase. With joy, the man’s smile haunts me for miles — a long blasted path, where a dead rat’s belly festoons its purple crinoline Christmas hat. Continue reading...