JAMES SIMMONS R. I. P
You were the one I wanted most to know So like yet unlike, like fire and snow, The casual voice, the sharp invective, The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant Who never gave a
AN EVENING OF POETRY
Arriving for a reading an hour too early: Ruefully, the general manager stopped putting out the chairs. “You don’t get any help these days. I have To sort out everything from furniture to faxes.
POET-IN-RESIDENCE
You are my dream Of the East You are my life In the West Fused in one You begin my day And end each day With a silent smile When I die I will
LETTER FROM KIRKHEATON
I have no camera but imagination’s tinted glass I cannot pass this crumbling dry stone wall Without a break to catch the vistas of the chain of Pennine hills That splash their shades of
IN HARM'S WAY
I was never a film buff, give me Widmark and Wayne any day Saturday matinŠ¹es with Margaret Gardener still hold sway As my memory veers backwards this temperate Boxing Day- Westerns and war films
WANTS POEMS AND HAS NEVER REJECTED ANYONE
Eamer o’ Keefe with your tinge of brogue And Irish warmth, Daisy and Debjani With your karma and cool verse, I salute you. ( III ) “Ecoutez la voix du vent” – listen to
YOU
“Remember, you loved me, when we were young, one day” The words of the song in Tauber’s mellifluous tenor Haunt my nights and days, make me tremble when I hear Your voice on the
AN EVENING WITH JOHN HEATH-STUBBS
Alone in Sutton with Fynbos my orange cat A long weekend of wind and rain drowning The tumultuous flurry of mid-February blossom A surfeit of letters to work through, a mountain Of files to
TO LEEDS BIG ISSUE SELLERS
When I come from the Smoke to visit my son on the ward I see you everywhere: by the station, by the neon sign of ‘Squares’ By every shopping mall. Leeds seems to have
FACES IN A CROWD
The women are all wearing imitation silk scarves, Blackpool or Biarritz, sipping Woman, masticating The morning’s post, new babies and bathrooms, going To file, snip, fiddle and smile through fish-eyes, Crinkly green gloss, store
BRIDE OF THE WIND
for Brenda Both had come with no gardener but the soul; I had myself expressed them in weariness, Like the last drop of milk from your tired breast. The red rose was no rose
DIRECTIONS/MISDIRECTIONS
I sit inside the train of tears The station mellow in shade Unoriginal phrases air-brush the canvas. Puzzling minds I wonder If all are like my own Closed to stillness. From girders hang the
MEMORIES OF THE FIFTIES
Eggshell and Wedgwood Blue were just two Of the range on the colour cards Dulux Tailored to our taste in the fifties, Brentford nylons, Formica table tops and Fablon shelf-covering in original oak or
THE DAYS GO BY
for Daniel Weissbort Some poems meant only for my eyes About a grief I can’t let go But I want to, want to throw It away like an old worn-out cloak Or screw up
MORNINGS LIKE THIS
Mornings like this I awaken and wonder How I have moved so far, how I have moved so little And yet in essence stayed the same Always passionate for the unattainable For Joan Baez