Recently Bob Dylan celebrated his 75th birthday and in Taunton there was a great evening to mark the occasion featuring six bands and four poets – of which I was one – performing in front of an audience of more than 100! It was a great night and here’s one of the poems I wrote and performed that night..
How was I not going to get you
after being brought up on a diet of
Ella Fitzgerald,
Nat King Cole,
George Gershwin.
You were a storm building
on the horizon, thunderheads
flashing discordant lightning.
A strident hammering at the door,
notes off centre,
your voice whining
through cracks in our establishment.
Fuck!
The life-blood of a new generation
zinged through my veins. You
were right. The times were
changing, more than any of us knew.
And now?
Your waspish music
and whip-crack lyrics
are milestones on dirt
roads in a foreign country.
Many of us still live there.
That’s me ~ please note Joan Baez looking on!
welshstream 