Friday, 19 June 2020

Ian Holm - d. June 19th 2020

I admired your purity,  
from outside the stadium,
to the middle of another Earth, 
to the coldness of space
- a survivor, always believable
in your unbelievable art.

Thursday, 18 June 2020

Vera Lynn - d. June 18th 2020

A table is reserved
at the Ritz of any age.
A menu of optimism
falls open at a page
adorned with bluebirds.
Angels sit expectantly
as you rise to the stage.

Tuesday, 16 June 2020

Keith Tippett - d. June 14th 2020

There are no blueprints
for spontaneity: breathe
in a note, chord, cadence,
breathe out brilliance
through fingertips that,
even now, don't know
what's coming next.



Sunday, 14 June 2020

Ricky Valance - d. June 12th 2020

Tell Ricky, who loved him,
that in the chapel steeped in song,
we are singing his hymn
to doomed adolescence, the wrong
words but the right tune, grim
as the fate we expected all along.





Saturday, 13 June 2020

Rupert Hine - d. June 4th 2020


Takeastrangerpathandlurkfordecadesinthedarkness

Takeaquirkysoundandmakeitintosomethingquantum
Fixxuponafutureanddesignitforthestereo
Thinkmanthinkofhowyoullhearaheavenandremixit

Read about Rupert Hine here


Friday, 5 June 2020

Steve Priest - d. June 4th 2020

Are you ready, Steve,
to raise some hell, push 
the button marked blitz,
square off with the bass, 
find the action, grab a piece?
All right, fella, let’s go...




Monday, 1 June 2020

Michael Angelis - d. May 30th 2020

There's a promised land,
thick with accents, jokes,
where there are jobs 
for all the boys, signals 
are all set at clear
and there are rabbits, 
rabbits, everywhere.

Friday, 29 May 2020

Larry Kramer - d. May 27th 2020

Amid those years of chaos,
waist-deep in prejudice,
you cut through the BS,
wrote uncomfortable justice,
of the first lesions, the KS,
the plague before the abyss, 
scripted a warning, a witness.

Friday, 22 May 2020

Fred Willard - d. May 15th 2020

Eh, wha’appen? 
I blinked and missed you,
then rewatched,
as all of us must surely do,
and you snuck in,
smiling, not knowing a damn
thing. I went for you
like you were made outta ham.

Read about Fred Willard Here


Saturday, 16 May 2020

Astrid Kirchherr - d. May 12th 2020

Your wraith, in half-shadow,
is the spectre in the cellar
or the dark boutiques of 
Mathew Street, St Pauli.
A stylish ghost, friend to
genius, tutor in the art
of the unschoolable cool.

Read about Astrid Kirchherr Here




Saturday, 9 May 2020

Little Richard - d. May 9th 2020

Hail! Hail! We genuflect
before the king who wrote the book.
Originator. Architect.
You sang a prayer, then ripped it up.

read about Little Richard here



Wednesday, 6 May 2020

Florian Schneider - d. May 6th 2020

Sounds. Rhythms. Frontiers. Legend.
Sounds. Rhythms. Frontiers. Legend.
Sounds. Rhythms. Frontiers. Legend.
Sounds. Rhythms. Frontiers. Legend.

Read about Florian Schneider here

Millie Small - d. May 5th 2020

My, girl, 
how you lit the fuse 
to that cane-sweet beat, 
blue as Kingston sky, 
mashing up systems 
from here to Brixton,
making the world 
go giddy-up.

Read about Millie Small here

Tuesday, 5 May 2020

Dave Greenfield - d. May 3rd 2020

No more your riffsinblack,
textures like suninblack.
Play then the dirgeinblack:
Long gone is youthinblack.

Read about Dave Greenfield here

Thursday, 30 April 2020

Jill Gascoine - d. April 29th 2020

We need someone to be
the first to the old scene,
cast an eye on a dark place,
witness and be witnessed,
gather fresh new evidence,
present a gentler case.

Read about Jill Gascoine here

Saturday, 25 April 2020

Gabi Delgado - d. March 22nd 2020

All is not good today.
Sweat drips as you channel 
Ramone and Moroder, 
sex and steroids, leather
and propaganda, body
and rhetoric colliding forever.

Heute ist nicht alles gut.
Schweiß tropft, während Sie kanalisieren
Ramone und Moroder,
Sex und Steroide, Leder
und Propaganda, Körper
und Rhetorik kollidiert für immer.

read about Gabi Delgado here

Friday, 17 April 2020

Norman Hunter - d. April 17th 2020

Among the artisans
imagining themselves 
on canvasses of grass
are the easel-carriers,
biters, thwarters, 
necessary masters 
of the unbeautiful game.

Read about Norman Hunter here

Sunday, 12 April 2020

Tim Brooke-Taylor - d. April 12th 2020

Good news from the bunker.
I had to read it again:
how three is indivisible
by one, how having a clue
is overrated, how being silly 
for a living is the antidote.


Stirling Moss - d. April 12th 2020

Fast off the grid into Moxie, 
sharp left-hander at Doughty,
drop down into Grit Corner,
up the gears through Cocksure,
dab on the brakes at 90
then flat out to Arcadia.


Saturday, 11 April 2020

James Drury - d. April 6th 2020

Let us ride out, you and I,
on a pair of snowy Appaloosas,
saddled with a displaced youth, 
leave Shiloh in its lushness
for a West of the imagination.

read about James Drury here