Clem Burke – d. April 6th 2025

Sweat pools under your drum stool;
there's blood on the snare.
Every roll alternates hot and cool,
and every fill is a symphony.
Let every skin shudder,
let the backbeat sing one last time.

Read about Clem Burke here

 

Dave Allen – d. April 5th 2025

In the chasm of the bassline
you will find that essence rare:
the throb of steel-wound strings,
their slap like sinews snapping.
And oh, are we not entertained?

 

Read about Dave Allen here

Johnny Tillotson – d. April 1st 2025

Make the most of your time; a few
short 45s and a long fade-out,
swoonsome girls and misty-eyed
lenses on American Bandstand.
Sing through tremblin’ lips while
you can; Elvis is marching home.

 

Read about Johnny Tillotson here

Val Kilmer – d. April 1st 2025

No man made from ice can last;
they melt in the Hollywood heat
drain away into backlot sewers.
Life turns down its own sequel,
and for every saint
there are a million sinners.

 

Read about Val Kilmer here

Trevor Lock – d. March 2025

Grant me the gift
of an interposing hand
in the presence of
berserkers, the coolness
of an inside pocket
while a hot gun is held
to my unbowed head.

 

Read about Trevor Lock here

 

Richard Chamberlain – d. March 29th 2025

What nobility, anjin-san,
to play the tall man in the
tallest of tales, to conceal
the pain of forbidden love,
yet show each moment of it
in each glance, each stance.
 

Read about Richard Chamberlain here

Andy Peebles – d. March 22nd 2025

I turn the set of memory on,
tune the frequency out of time
to wavelengths of a life now gone,
to hear the stations of the mind;
Piccadilly 261,
1053 and 1089.

Read about Andy Peebles here

George Foreman – d. March 21st 2025

What is that sound?
leather on skin, shots
that could fell a tree.
The referee cuts through
a jungle’s heat to end it;
a life where, until now,
every step has been
a forward step.

Read about George Foreman here

Alex Wheatle – d. March 16th 2025

A hand picks up a pen,
draws a line of sufferation
from Brixton to Crongton.
So many barricades on
the road from brutality
to beauty; we’ll get there.

 

Read about Alex Wheatle here

Bruce Glover – d. March 12th 2025

If God had wanted man to act -
    - he would have given him
            more than one voice, Mr Kidd.
 
And if at first you don't succeed -
    - they say that death can be
            a great healer, Mr Wint.

Read about Bruce Glover here

Brian James – d. March 6th 2025

You couldn’t wait
to mess around
with our heads,
setting off your guitar
like it was a cannon,
the bootlegged sound
of relentless slaughter
on a distant Soho
night. Night night.

Read about Brian James here

Oleg Gordievsky – d. March 4th 2025

Bravery is an ideology of its own,
an uncertain code that accepts
the reward of an inevitable bullet.
Death is the final exfiltration, to be
stuffed into the trunk of history,
freedom in treason’s disguise.

Read about Oleg Gordievsky here

Roy Ayers – d. March 4th 2025

Beat my soul with a mallet
until it chimes like tuned steel.
Keep it bright; remember,
not all vibes are good vibes.
Bring me sunshine; doesn’t
everybody want a slice?

 

Read about Roy Ayers here

Jack Vettriano – d. March 1st 2025

When my final day is set into
its frame I want it to look like this:
she and I dancing on an empty
shore, a man stepping from dusk
to wind the gramophone, to pour
us both one last glass of wine.

 

Read about Jack Vettriano here

David Johansen – d. February 28th 2025

Get the glitter out your ass
and get up to the mic.
When all fails get into a tux,
get a new face, get busted.
Get whatever’s going,
even if it ain’t yours to get,
and get it while it’s hot.

Read about David Johansen here

Boris Spassky – d. February 27th 2025

Now, at your dead-draw ending,
history might speak of stalemate,
of gambits accepted and declined,
but in the Cold War of the board
there can be no detente, just
sixty-four squares on which to die.

 

Read about Boris Spassky here

Henry Kelly – d. February 25th 2025

Who am I? I am the face
of Little Europe, interlocutor
in the insignificant game.
What am I? I am a place,
a golden time, urbane visitor
to a continent with no name.

Read about Henry Kelly here

Roberta Flack – d. February 24th 2025

It’s long past midnight. A storm
passes through my room, sung
like still air, yet nursing a spark
of bliss to turn my cold to warm.
One soul, two lips, one tongue:
what gifts you gave to the dark.

Read about Roberta Flack here

Gene Hackman – d. February 18th 2025

Hey, you with the face
like a derelict fairground,
where you been? Busting
another crooked ass, maybe,
or cutting through the script
to what is real, or picking
your feet in Poughkeepsie.

 

Read about Gene Hackman here

Rick Buckler – d. February 17th 2025

Build the riser high for those
who serve the song with broken
sticks, sweating through a three-
buttoned suit while kicking the
beat forward in bowling shoes,
keeping time, and more than time.

Read about Rick Buckler here

Chris Moore – d. February 7th 2025

I dream of cities raised in
distant orbit, sleek ships at
anchor in deep atmospheres.
If the stars are not for man,
the shape of our lonely future
will be in its illustrated detail.

Read about Chris Moore here

Brian Murphy – d. February 1st 2025

Consider the situation: brow,
furrowed with resignation,
scene after scene, playing
what the quiet ones know;
that sometimes the sequel
to love is emasculation.

Read about Brian Murphy here

Marianne Faithfull – d. January 30th 2025

A nation swung on its axis;
a voice turning from sugar
to sandpaper, a siren’s face
streaked with expensive
mascara, a cooling shadow
looking through us from the
back seat of a sports car.

Read about Marianne Faithfull here

Christopher Hughes – d. January 29th 2025

What do they know of trivia whom only

trivia know? You could tell me who nearly
said that, while grudgingly accepting that
though knowledge is not always power,
information is its steadfast currency.

Read about Christopher Hughes here

Denis Law – d. January 17th 2025

Once I saw a peelie-wallie ghost,
blond gangler with eyes like steel.
A sway of hips and a deft one-two,
a swivel, a shot goes in off a post.
The stars align with a curving heel
that turns a young boy’s heart to blue. 

Read about Denis Law here

Joan Plowright – d. January 16th 2025

I, who have kept to the script of my life,
sanctify such as you who live off-book,
with your wardrobe of a thousand roles,
your alchemy of voice, poise and gesture,
your lines ringing as my house lights dim.

Read about Joan Plowright here

David Lynch – d. January 15th 2025

I woke up screaming and saw you
in a velvet haze, camera lenses
for eyes, cigarette in one hand,
severed ear in the other. You sang
to me: Don’t be afraid; I’m just here
to oil the machinery of your dreams.

Read about David Lynch here

Diane Langton – d. January 15th 2025

I have a confession; I once pledged
myself to the unreality of television,
to girls like you, archetypes of ditz
and froth, the brash and brassy,
who have it, but don’t know what
it is, yet know what to do with it.

Read about Diane Langton here

Linda Nolan – d. January 15th 2025

I bet we looked good on the dancefloor;
pastel jumpsuits, flick-perms, Revlon
pouts, perfecting moves we saw on
Top of the Pops, sparkle-eyed sisters,
harmonising while we still knew how. 

Read about Linda Nolan here

Eddie Stobart – d. November 25th 2024

I passed you on a lost highway,
heading southbound in a convoy
of Scania 18-wheelers, your name
in my rear-view mirror, a sure sign
that home could not be far away.

Read about Eddie Stobart here

Tony Slattery - d. January 14th 2025

The next game is called Party Quirks.
Tony, I want you to be funny in the
style of a man who doesn’t realise
how funny he actually is, a clown
with movie star eyes, who becomes
the punchline to a joke he cannot tell. 

Read about Tony Slattery here

Laurie Holloway - d. January 9th 2025

The star act steps onto set;
house band hits its cue,
a drum-roll, a brass sting,
strung to the tip of a baton.
Fame is a tight arrangement,
its accompanist often in shadow.

Read about Laurie Holloway here

Sam Moore - d. January 10th 2025

You came to us on a dusty road,
selling guarantees at the top end
of your range, swimming rivers of
trouble to pay the bills, proving that
horns may be the lungs of a song,
but they cannot breathe without soul.

Read about Sam Moore here

David Lodge – d. January 5th 2025

Teaching is nice work if you can
get it; an exam one is free to fail.
Writing, even the smallest word,
is the pursuit of story as a grail.
Language is the keenest blade,
sharpening even the bluntest tale. 

Read about David Lodge here

Johnnie Walker – d. December 31st 2024

The sea reflects sound, music
that the law cannot constrain;
rock psychedelicacies, glam,
and every shade of groovy.
I hear swingin’ station idents
from beyond the 12-mile limit
sing your name into the night. 

Read about Johnnie Walker here

Jimmy Carter – d. December 29th 2024

Trust me. I lived through a time
when crooks and bigots beat on
doors only to be turned away,
when circumspection was no crime,
people meant more than peanuts,
and leaders marched on Labor Day.

Read about Jimmy Carter here

Olivia Hussey – d. December 27th 2024

I stand at the foot of your balcony,
enslaved by eyes all over again,
green and boundless as the sea,
saying that the first crush is pain,
that the Romeo would never be me.

Read about Olivia Hussey here

Sugar Pie DeSanto – d. December 20th 2024

Someone set fire to the stage tonight:
a woman with body of a child,
voice like an emery board, dynamite
in a dress, ten types of wild
in every song, unquenchably alight.

Read about Sugar Pie DeSanto here

Julie Stevens – d. December 5th 2024

Here’s a house; here’s a door.
Here’s a woman; now no more.
Here’s the hour; here’s the day.
Here’s a game; let’s all play.
Here’s a child; watch him grow.
Here’s his life; let him go.

Read about Julie Stevens here

Duncan Norvelle – d. December 12th 2024

Innocence is a comedian’s friend;
a licence for sweet insinuation, for
the grin of a man who knows that
when he asks us to chase them
he knows that someone always will.

Read about Duncan Norvelle here

Kreskin – d. December 10th 2024

You predicted the date of your death, not
by magic but the unwritten science of the
sideshow, a guessing game where you’re
looking for an answer the rest of us already
know. You’re cold. Getting colder. Ice cold.

Read about Kreskin here

Dickie Rock – d. December 6th 2024

It’s Lent and you’re in town again,

flushing dismal ballrooms with colour,
your candy-store smile mowing down
the front row, teenage banshees with
wild hair, keening Spit on me, Dickie!

Read about Dickie Rock here

Terry Griffiths – d. December 1st 2024

You stopped between pots to chat,
as if still playing the provincial halls,
so I wrote this slowly, each word
a ghost ball sighted and weighed-up
on the glacial landscape of baize. 

Read about Terry Griffiths here

Barbara Taylor Bradford – d. November 24th 2024

You did not write for me
but for such as my mum,
closer to rags than to riches,
who could not bear to see
herself in character; of some
little substance in her kitchen.

Read about Barbara Taylor Bradford here

Charles Dumont – d. November 18th 2024

Je suis la voix du trottoir
et une arrière-salle enfumée.
Mes mots restent dans la bouche,
mes mélodies fermentent dans l'oreille.
Je suis un verre de vin et de regret.
 
I am the voice of the pavement
and smoke-soused back room.
My words lodge in the mouth,
my melodies ferment in the ear.
I am a glass of wine, and regret.

Read about Charles Dumont here