Tuesday 25 June 2024

Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh – d. June 25th 2024

'…Archangel Gabriel to Archangel Michael,
No relation. Michael back to Gabriel. Still
no relation. Jesus has the sliotar, kicks one
from 50 yards…it’s a miracle. Atheists from
Dingle to Drogheda are buying rosaries...'

Donald Sutherland – d. June 20th 2024

Today I saw someone who could
have been you; raffish, charming,
dangerous, troubled eyes that
spoke of suicide missions and love
in the dark. You saw me staring,
pointed at me, and screamed…

James Chance – d. June 18th 2024

New Wave corrodes into No Wave.
The world contorts and blows itself
out, leaving us with two chances:
no chance and James Chance,
and James Chance just left town.

Françoise Hardy – d. June 11th 2024

Tous les garçons

connaissent tes chansons;
ils sentent ton souffle
comme un couteau dans la chair.
Toutes les filles
connaissent ta douleur;
la tension d'un coeur
qui apprend à casser.
 






All the boys
know your songs;
they feel your breath
like a knife in the flesh.
All the girls
know your pain;
the strain of a heart
learning how to break.

Bill Anders – d. June 7th 2024

How small this capsule, too cramped
for the spirit of a man who looked
through the lens of space without
seeing his own reflection, who went
to the Moon but discovered the Earth. 

Michael Mosley – d. June 5th 2024

Learning is the only real diet
that works; 5:2, where five
is common sense and two
is science. It’s all we can do:
eat well, dream, think, be alive
until the body returns to quiet.

Nicholas Ball – d. June 4th 2024

The gumshoes tail the wide boys;
sometimes you can’t tell which is
which, all those dropped aitches
and pickup lines while boozers
burn, and every villain has a tale:
who’s brown bread, or brown ale.

 

William Russell – d. June 3rd 2024

Eternity beckons to us, opens doors
of the blue boxes of our imagination.
The Universe is wondrous but malign;
be amazed for us, frightened for us,
our small teacher in an infinite school. 

Rob Burrow – d. June 2nd 2024

Life will take six tackles: childhood’s open
field; the scrummage of youth; the day
you find your best position; victory and its
disguises; defeat that you cannot admit;
the hooter that never blows for such as you.

Richard M. Sherman – d. May 25th 2024

I was born on the back seat of a car
on the sad-happy road between
Hushabye Mountain and Lullaby Bay.
It was music that brought me this far
from all the grown-ups I have been
to the little boy in my shadow today. 

Frank Ifield – d. May 18th 2024

Few now can honestly recall
your times - the waning croon,
the looming beat, throat-trill
and tears, pure vaudeville,
songs that ended too soon,
the intangible thrill of it all. 

Roger Corman – d. May 9th 2024

Terror at the Drive-in; shock and schlock,
art brut and buckets of blood, all shot by
The Man With X-Ray Imagination, who knows
that when the light goes over-budget
you can always tell the story with shadows. 

Shirley Conran – d. May 9th 2024

The night is nearly done, yet still
so many positions to be explored;
woman as missionary to themselves,
money like Spanish Fly, how life is only
too short for housework when it’s over.

Steve Albini – d. May 7th 2024

The problem with music is that
there are more broken hearts
than broken strings. Crank up
the amp, fill your lungs and play;
faster, harder, bigger, blacker. 

Bernard Hill – d. May 5th 2024

Where is the horse that could bear
such as you, so often playing beaten
and broken? We need to see dignity
in defeat, a Kirkby kiss that breaks
a nose, a heart: you could do that. 

Duane Eddy – d. April 30th 2024

Time twangs like a guitar string;
we are all rebels at the low end
caught in the shimmer of reverb.
I nestle the Gretsch in its case
and close the lid once and for all. 

Read about Duane Eddy here