Mikhail Gorbachev - d. 30th August 2022

What courage to open curtains

though your house is full of dark, 

to make peace with neighbours

while family changes your locks,

to shop for days of hope when 

mistrust is all we have in stock.

Read about Mikhail Gorbachev

Vincent Gil - d. August 21st 2022

Somwehere between the unrighteous 

and the unroadworthy are scags like you;

tailgaters, jailbreakers, petrol-blaggers, 

the sort who'd cut you up, leave you 

for dead. Oh yes, I'll remember you 

when I look up at the night sky.

Read about Vincent Gil here

Jerry Allison - d. August 22nd 2022

Downtown rings with songs 

the sort they don't play 

anymore, except this one, 

on this day. If you knew 

that shuffle on the snare

was the sound of goodbye, 

maybe you'd be blue too.

Read about Jerry Allison here

Josephine Tewson - d. August 18th 2022

There are leads and there are players;

some front of shot, others just in frame.

A troupe of neighbours, sisters, wives,

playing small truths, over and again.

Here’s to you, the ensemble of the world,

whose faces we know but cannot name.

Read about Josephine Tewson here

Duggie Brown - d. August 16th 2022

I hear sounds; a pickaxe on coal,

the whine of a milkfloat at dawn, 

the crackle of terylene under velvet,

the crackle of a cheap microphone,

a working man among working men,

chiselled from old grit and old jokes.

Darius Campbell-Danesh - d. August 16th 2022

Sometimes it’s just not our time,

baby. Sometimes the light shines

on another face in the chorus line, 

sometimes the songs don’t rhyme.

Keep singing, baby. You’ll be fine.

Joe Turkel - d. June 27th 2022

Revel in your time:
your lugubrious face,
the pouring of a bourbon 
in a darkened place,
the bioengineering of magic
from short scripts of wonder.

Nichelle Nichols - d. July 30th 2022

Hailing frequencies open;

the sound of a trillion voices 

singing strange new songs 

across the ebony of space. 

You kiss me in the darkness, 

a promise of new civilisation.

Read about Nichelle Nichols here

Raymond Briggs - d. August 9th 2022

Blooming stories! Yours to tell

in line and colour and little else.

You held our hands. We never fell.

The wind blows. The snow melts.

Read about Raymond Briggs here

Lamont Dozier - d. August 9th 2022

Every day is like a new song:

What are you writing today?

Will it be an itch in my heart 

or a twitch in my heels? 

Either way,  

it’s love, here and now, 

even though you’re gone.

Read about Lamont Dozier here

Olivia Newton-John - d. August 8th 2022

That final reel was my adolescence frozen,

a teen ache made physical. There was

no getting over you, only unripe emotion,

nothing but a guilty crush to admit to.

Oh, we boys and our hopeless devotions. 

Read about Olivia Newton-John here

Judith Durham - d. August 5th 2022

Somewhere 

there is a fleeting voice,

half-sunshine, half rain. 

Somewhere

they are packing the sound 

of a carnival into boxes. 

Somewhere 

there is a mourning town,

many miles away.

Read about Judith Durham here

Roy Hackett - d. August 2nd 2022

I will not pay to ride your bus. 

Today I’ll walk. I may not know 

the way, but I know there is a way. 

Another bus is coming soon, bright

with smiles and manners; you and I 

and all of us will find a seat inside.

Read about Roy Hackett here