Janice Long - d. December 25th 2021

We spent so many nights together,

two conspirators plotting via ether,

you spinning me to my own revolution,

me in awe of each sonic revelation.

In the darkness, a voice. Is that you?

I like this one. You might like it too.

Read about Janice Long here

Desmond Tutu - d. December 26th 2021

True strength is kindness,

beyond evil and its noise,

to form a better argument,

not just to raise your voice,

to know that forgiveness

is a grace and not a choice.

Read about Desmond Tutu here

Sally Ann Howes - d. December 19th 2021

I knew your look, your voice,

before and beyond the adult

I reluctantly became, and yet

even now my heart beats 

so unruly at the possibilities 

of love, song and silly stories.

Read about Sally Ann Howes here

Thomas ‘Mensi’ Mensforth - d. December 10th 2021

Give me the honest upstart

who lives what others only sing,

who knows the fascists in town

and calls them out. It isn’t art

but it’s a start, to shout a warning,

in song and not be shouted down.

Read about Mensi and the Angelic Upstarts here

Anne Rice - d. December 11th 2021

Like all your species,

you smelled the fears

that filled our veins.

You alone wrote them

in a haemovore's hand,

humanised the inhuman,

breathed pity into undeath.

Read about Anne Rice here

Mike Nesmith - d. December 10th 2021

All men must have someone,

have someone to pretend to be,

someone deep in the shallows,

someone quiet amid the hoopla,

someone tender in a tapioca world.

Read about Mike Nesmith here

Robbie Shakespeare - d. December 8th 2021

Every cloud shakes: no speaker is safe

And no blues party bluer. A bass rumble

Deeper than Dawkins Pond tells the people:

God's riddim section is mashing up Babylon.

Read about Robbie Shakespeare here

Steve Bronski - d. December 9th 2021

A train is coming, clanking

out a perfect beat, stopping 

at even the smallest towns.

A young man steps aboard,

cheap synth under his arm,

looks for a seat. He's come

so far, but still so far to go.

Read about Bronski Beat here

Stephen Sondheim - d. November 26th 2021

They dim the lights

as you make your exit

with your usual flair,

note-perfect, 

sure of your lines,

the sum of all song.

Read about Stephen Sondheim here

 

Mick Rock - d. November 18th 2021

The past is a fast-blurring photo,

a radio slowly drifting off-station.

My shelves heave with long-

players, your covers a peepshow,

your images rock's bright blazon,

bending white light around song.

Read about Mick Rock here

Wilbur Smith - d. November 13th 2021

My father quartered the veldt

at your side, shot at big game, 

missed, dug for diamonds, 

found none, searched for 

the place where the lion feeds, 

lived the hard fiction of real men.

Read about Wilbur Smith here

Gerald Sinstadt - d. November 10th 2021

Resist cliché. Find ways 

to say what we see 

but don’t see:

the art in technique, 

the beauty in graft, 

the game as theatre, 

the sport as life.

Read about Gerald Sinstadt here

Clifford Rose - d. November 6th 2021

We knew it was only an act, 

but oh how you breathed life 

into death, banality into evil,

smiling that unsmile, a study 

in terrible duty, quiet horror.

Read about Clifford Rose here

Andrew Barker - d. November 6th 2021

We follow 

your state ritual: 

kick drum boom,

low-pass filter,

white noise snare,

hi-hat skitter, claves,

squelch, handclaps,

and the joy of acid.

Read about 808 State here

Lionel Blair - d. November 4th 2021

Still on air, your slight figure,

all alone on the darkened stage,

soft-shoeing it through the taps,

drops and brushes of a routine

begun as a child, so quietly 

thrilling from overture to finale

that you could not bear to finish.

Read about Lionel Blair here

Leslie Bricusse - d. October 19th 2021

Who can take a story,

gild its wings with charm,

burnish its quintessence

till it glitters in the eye,

turn choruses to poems

of the playground, of the 

cradle, of the screen?

Read about Leslie Bricusse here

Alan Hawkshaw - d. October 16th 2021

Play him out with brightness,

with stings and jingles, tunes 

and not-quite-tunes. Sing him

without words in little anthems

of the inconsequential world.

Read about Alan Hawkshaw here

Rick Jones - d. October 8th 2021

The moving finger plays 

and, having played,

moves on to a place 

where songs are whimsy,

angels are made of paper 

and life is just a length of string.

Read about Rick Jones here

John Challis - d. September 19th 2021

We can hear you, Aubrey,

way down here in the Nag,

horse-trading with angels,

sealing the deal with a laugh

like a tommy gun, 

one part adenoids,

three parts scorn.

Read about John Challis here

Melvin Van Peebles - d. September 21st 2021

What was sweet about 

your baadasssss song

was not the song 

but the singing of it;

a revolutionary chorus,

stealing their own scene,

collecting their dues.

Read about Melvin Van Peebles here

 

Richard H. Kirk - d. September 21st 2021

Through murk of interference

comes a drum pattern, blunt

as a drop-forge, and your voice,

distorted, flanged, phased:

This is the voice of the Republic;

stand by for a new manifesto

- beats, bleeps, menace, freaks.

Read about Richard Kirk here

Jimmy Greaves - d. September 19th 2021

After your life of action replays,

a whistle blowing full time

over and over, you in a suit

instead of blood-red shirt, 

the ball still finds its way

to your feet; the saddest man

in the stadium, and the sharpest.

Read about Jimmy Greaves here

Clive Sinclair - d. September 16th 2021

A solemn procession winds

through our streets, a column 

of whirring white hearses,

each conveying components

of a man before his time,  

who made the world bigger

by making it smaller.

Read about Clive Sinclair here

Maria Mendiola - d. September 11th 2021

We'll meet at the eternal disco;

you'll be dressed in sleek strings

and a bright halo of boogie. Maybe

you'll do your dance; a floorshow

for the ages, where everything's

too exotic, and just a little shady.

Read about Maria Mendiola here

Jean-Paul Belmondo - d. September 6th 2021

Vive les essoufflés ;
ceux dans les rues 

ensanglantées 

ou entre les draps,
leurs sourires disant non, 

rien n'a d'importance,
pourtant agir comme 

si chaque petite chose 

était importante.

Long live the breathless;

those on bloody streets

or between bedsheets, 

their smiles saying no, 

nothing matters, 

yet acting like every last 

little thing matters.

Grange Calveley - d. August 22nd 2021

Here is a dog. Here is a cat

Here is a life undrawn.

Wobbly lines. Wobbly mind.

Wobbly days, all gone.

Read about Grange Calveley here

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - d. August 29th 2021

You built a boat of sound for us,

a black ark of your imagination,

charting underwater frequencies, 

madness lurking in every channel,  

upsetting the world with iration.

Read about Lee 'Scratch' Perry here

Charlie Watts - d. August 24th 2021

Listen to the engine playing;

fills with no frills, on tempo, 

less-is-all, never straying,

suited and sharp as a hypo,

directing madness from a stool.

Only the hottest can be this cool.

Read about Charlie Watts here

Don Everly - d. August 21st 2021

The price of love

is what it demanded

from you; to be the half 

that made a whole, 

imperfectly indivisible, 

unaware 

that for the rest of us

half of something 

was everything. 

Read about Don Everly here

Peter Corby - d. August 20th 2021

Late checkout for a dreamer;

now we old guests will break 

shortbread together, cluster 

in crisp slacks at your wake,

drink Nescafé with creamer

in your utilitarian memory; 

a 5-star mind in a 3-star world.

Read about the Corby trouser press here

Sean Lock - d. August 16th 2021

There is no punchline

for you; no one-liner

for a moment’s laughter, 

but your surreal estate,

a deadpan 15 minutes,

then misery ever after.

Read about Sean Lock here

Gerd Müller - d. August 15th 2021

Ich bin einmal mit Der Bomber geflogen;

er hielt sich wie ein Paket

aus Gelgnit, unhandlich,

ticken, ticken bevor es explodiert

in Stücke von sechs Metern.

I once flew with Der Bomber;

he held himself like a package

of gelignite, impossible to handle,

ticking, ticking before exploding

to smithereens from six yards.

Read about Gerd Müller here

Nanci Griffith - d. August 13th 2021

I thought I heard 

a lonely sound;

of hope, peace, 

the instruments of 

our common band.

I hoped it was you,

but it was just

another voice

in another room.

Read about Nanci Griffith here

Una Stubbs - d. August 12th 2021

The last time I saw you

was up East; painted cheeks,

spangled eyes, buttoning on 

a smile like a rising moon,

half-waving from the window

of the red double-decker

that carried you away.

Read about Una Stubbs here

Jackie Mason - d. July 24th 2021

From Brooklyn to the Catskills

the laugh’s on us; hotel tills ring

and punchlines are real punches.

A rabbi steps from the wreckage

of his joke; woman looks up from

her borscht, whispers nervously

are we allowed to laugh at that?

Read about Jackie Mason here

Andy Fordham - d. July 15th 2021

Old Viking steps from a longboat,

sways, smiles, and takes aim.

He is the gentle drunken warrior,

his people baying at his back. 

Sometimes such love is enough; 

Sometimes it is too much.

Read about Andy Fordham here 

Raffaella Carrà - d. July 5th 2021

Quando dicono
canti troppo forte
ballare troppo velocemente,
mostrare troppo,
butta indietro la testa
cantare, ballare,
fare l'amore selvaggio
e fallo, fallo di nuovo.

When they say

you sing too loud,

dance too fast,

show too much,

throw back your head,

sing, dance, 

make wild love

and do it, do it again.

Read about Raffaella Carrà here

Greg Noll - d. 28th June 2021

Beyond the reef,

the last great swell 

is forming. A man,

half boat, half bull,

paddles out to meet

himself, tougher than

the wood of his board,

waxed with self-belief,

death just one more

wipeout far from shore.

Read about Greg Noll here

Richard Donner - d. July 5th 2021

From the eternal set he rises,

seven daggers in his pocket,

framing the unclean streets

comic book style, shooting

by the light of kryptonite,

and when he says action!

he means 

ACTION!

Read about Richard Donner here

Stuart Damon - d. June 29th 2021

Through your ageless hyper-eyes

I saw the world become unreal,

as despots and their regiments

were stymied by the nemesis

who senses all, whose grip is steel,

who never fails, who never dies.

Read about Stuart Damon here

Donald Rumsfeld - d. June 29th 2021

There are people we know

whom we know are dead

and people we know 

whom we do not know 

are dead

and people we do not know

whom we do not know 

are dead

but we know Donald Rumsfeld 

is dead.

Read about Donald Rumsfeld here

John McAfee - d. June 23rd 2021

I scanned my files for you

and found the following:

1 viruses - P4r4N01d

3 trojans - Liber-T, 

SpyGrass, DeathCon4, 

and malware, malware

in every baleful eye.

Read about John McAfee here

Brian London - d. June 23rd 2021

The past is an empty ring,

and that sound you hear

is the sparring of a ghost,

plying brutality as a career,

broken nose, broken heart

yet tough as Blackpool pier.

Read about Brian London here

Damaris Hayman - d. June 3rd 2021

I cast the runes this morning

and they were clear; 

death is nigh 

for the jolly Englishwoman, 

the white witch in tweeds, 

giggling at her own reflection 

in the depths of her reticule.

Read about Damaris Hayman here

Ned Beatty - d. June 13th 2021

You have meddled

with the primal forces 

of nature, unclothed 

a masculinity previously 

unseen but now all gone, 

steel into rust and dust, 

heading downstream.

Read about Ned Beatty here

Edward de Bono - d. June 9th 2021

This poem says not why but how

This poem says not soon but now

This poem says to learn not know 

This poem says to find not show

This poem follows no straight lines

This poem will be redesigned

Read about Edward de Bono here