Wilf Lunn – d. December 13th 2023

This verse is the final product
of your automatic elegy kettle,
read by a gramophonic mouse
as six hearse-tricycles wheel
you to the musical incinerator.
Rest in peace, and axle grease.

Read about Wilf Lunn here

Ryan O’Neal – d. December 8th 2023

What was your story? Not love,
it would seem, but maybe a story
of a handsome lead who loses
everything he is except his looks,
but never has to say he is sorry.

Read about Ryan O'Neal here

Sheila Templeton - d. November 26th 2023

Yir wirds were scrievit
wi thunner an honey,
wrocht wi a giggle
and a tear in thi een.
Ye had a Makar’s haund
an a fechter’s hert.

Benjamin Zephaniah – d. December 7th 2023

Words are a dread affair; colours
of language are never just white/
black. To read is to understand,
to understand is to change. Culture
breathed you in, breathed light
out; you were the pen in its hand.

Read about Benjamin Zephaniah here

Denny Laine – d. December 5th 2023

So many are destined only to play
the canon of overlooked songs
as if they were all number one. Now
I wonder: didn’t we already say
goodbye? You hung around so long,
but life is blue; here a while, gone now. 

Read about Denny Laine here

Glenys Kinnock – d. December 3rd 2023

Y tu hwnt i dogma mae argyhoeddiad a
gweithredoedd da a wneir o'r golwg
Nid yw'r chwith yn golygu gadael ar ôl,
ac yn iawn yw'r hyn y gwyddoch sy'n iawn.

Beyond dogma is conviction
and good deeds done out of sight.
Left does not mean left behind,
and right is what you know is right.

Read about Glenys Kinnock here

Brigit Forsyth – d. December 1st 2023

There are Thelmas
in every blighted neighbourhood,
prim and precious,
studies of love strained into dishes
of cold disapproval,
choosing husbands as if choosing
a pair of curtains. 

Read about Brigit Forsyth here

John Byrne – d. November 30th 2023

A man paints all the fruits of his life,
writes likenesses of people too large
to be inventions. He looks down on the
city looking back up at him, dancing
with colour while black and white sleep.

Read about John Byrne here

Shane MacGowan – d. November 30th 2023

I saw a derelict in a Soho boozer,
toothless, leathered but lucid,
singing about the ould country,
two shots of punk and one of poetry,
new songs for old men, all going
where streams of whiskey are flowing. 

Read about Shane MacGowan here

Henry Kissinger – d. November 29th 2023

As you step from your final shuttle,
who would greet you? Paddy fields
stagnate, despots toy with brittle
peace and nothing’s really healed.
Rivalries of birds gather above,
unsure if you are hawk, or dove. 

Read about Henry Kissinger here

Terry Venables – d. November 25th 2023

For some, the ball is more missed chance
than wheeling celebration. Like the days,
it rolls past, rattles obstinate posts, leaves us
out in the semis, and out of the door.

Read about Terry Venables here