Paul O'Grady - d. March 28th 2023

I saw your act; kitsch trollop

shaking a vial of acid, voice 

like an old Corporation bus,

yet hints of the queen beneath,

a sideboard stuffed with mercy,

a single lily in a cracked vase.

Read about Paul O'Grady here

Jacqueline Gold - d. March 16th 2023

She cries your name in the night,

rouged with triumph, satisfaction,

and the rustle of silk. The lights

flicker and die; a guiltless frisson

of adventure in the dark, a sight

of love and its infinite vibrations.

Read about Jacqueline Gold here

Dick Fosbury - d. March 12th 2023

Your run-up to Heaven’s gate
is a curve new to physics.
An improbable contortion
lifts you on pistons of muscle,
and everything we thought
we knew is inverted, the bar
raised to the height of an idea.

Read about Dick Fosbury here

Bill Tidy - d. March 11th 2023

A cartoon is history in a silly disguise,
drawn by a nib that sharpens with use.
But what truth to draw for us? Perhaps
that there is a place called North; that
when it is gone there will still be tripe.

Read about Bill Tidy here

Margaret Lake ('Mystic Meg') - d. March 9th 2023

The world unfolds without need

of augury; numbers are just numbers.

Yours come up today, or they don’t,

and fate is just the dark proxy for

all the things we didn’t see coming.

Read about Mystic Meg here

Chaim Topol - d. March 8th 2023

I don't remember you growing older,

ossified as you were in a time, place, 

character, ageless milkman of the spirit.

Your song was a blessing and a bruising, 

a song of pogrom and lamentation.

Here's to you, and to life; l'chaim.

Read about Chaim Topol here

Tom Sizemore - d. March 3rd 2023

Sometimes the action is the juice;
the heat of the world gets turned high
and the illusion of the role shatters.
The bad character becomes bad news,
unable to play the part of a decent guy
in the only scenes that really matter.

Read about Tom Sizemore here

Wayne Shorter - d. March 2nd 2023

In jazz, there are sidemen,
and there are sidemen.
There are those who blow
and those who know;
the score, and the way
the weather will go.

Read about Wayne Shorter here

Betty Boothroyd - d. February 26th 2023

The great dance of politics turns

on the fulcrum of sharp women;

one move ahead of the orchestra, 

chiding men who fall out of step,

stifling the popinjay and fascist,

calling out the cant of nonsense.

Read about Betty Boothroyd here

Barbara Bosson - d. February 18th 2023

Beyond the surreal dangers
of the anonymous urban,
there you are; a study 
in neurosis, so real that we 
could smell the fear of
middle age, the woman
drying like ink on a script.

Read about Barbara Bosson here

John Motson - d. February 23rd 2023

I too have stood in the gantry
overlooking theatres of dreams,
theatres of comedy. One voice
brought fire to frosty pitches,
forked the quagmires of glory;
a humble oracle in sheepskin robe. 

Read about John Motson here

Dickie Davies - d. February 19th 2023

Saturday afternoons are lost; 
girls in beige sets typing up 
half-times before we go over 
to Kempton Park for the 3.45,
Mike Marino vs Bert Royal
from Lewisham Baths, a world
where sport is slick, unruffled,
and somehow all that matters.

Read about Dickie Davies here

Dennis Lotis - d. February 8th 2023

A new beginning marks an end,
the fault line dividing austerity
from Rock’n’Roll, where teenage
sweeps its parents from the stage.
Welcome to the Palais of posterity.
where only the gods ride out trends.

Read about Dennis Lotis here

Raquel Welch - d. February 15th 2023

When I was thirteen 
they miniaturised you, 
symbol of your species,
injected it into my veins;
an unfathomable mission, 
not to save my life, 
but to make it sexier.

Read about Raquel Welch here

David Jolicoeur 'Trugoy the Dove' - d. February 12th 2023

Though every age must surely pass,
da innovators stand y’all.
We lay Plug 2 upon the grass;
a dozen doves spread out the pall.
The hero rhymes from three feet under,
and zero? It's the magic number.

Read about Trugoy here

Hugh Hudson - d. February 10th 2023

Show me today’s rushes
of the young men, fired
with hope and elation,
those stilted, distant voices
from faded time, wired
from light and imagination.

Read about Hugh Hudson here

Burt Bacharach - d. February 8th 2023

I heard this guy whistling;

a melody so far beyond familiar

that it felt like the story of his life.

It came at night; climbed the stairs,

turned the key, fell like petals

into his ear, wrote I love you

inside the chambers of his heart.

Read about Burt Bacharach here

Barrett Strong - d. January 28th 2023

I hear your music of love, money

and torment, a conscious groove.

Yours are the anthems of longing,

indelibly alive; now you’re gone, 

all you’ve left us is alone.

Read about Barrett Strong here

Tom Verlaine - d. January 28th 2023

How the darkness doubles now

in the moonless graveyard. 

The guitar goes into the case,

the maestro jumps a Cadillac,

and speeds into sweet oblivion.

Read about Tom Verlaine here

Sylvia Syms - d. January 27th 2023

I still dream of that first drink

with you, soft eyed and smiling,

in a bar that never closes, 

from a time I can’t go back to,

a cool place in a sultry world.

Read about Sylvia Syms here