Willie Nelson & Lee Ann Womack “Mendocino County Line”

I love this track, Willie Nelson is a legend and Lee Ann Womack has the perfect country voice. The Lyrics talk about a relationship that has failed but still has a pull on the people involved.

I don’t talk to you too much these days
I just thank the lord pictures don’t fade
I spent time with an angel just passing through
Now all that’s left is this image of you

If I have learned anything from the last seventy years it is that relationships come and go. That isn’t a good or a bad thing it is just the way it is.

There is an ebb and flow to life and friends drift apart or they just move. Over Christmas I met up with an old friend for a drink. He was a regular in my life in the 70/80s but he moved back to Canada when his Mother became ill. It was great to catch up and for a couple of hours the years faded away and and we became lost in our joint memories.

Over Christmas I also met up with a friend who died nearly twenty years ago. It was a very vivid dream and for a moment after I woke up I felt that he was still alive.

This week’s poem is inspired by another occasion shortly after he died when I am sure I heard a cat in the street say his name.

The cat who spoke.

A cat peered through the iron railings

He said your name over and over again

I wondered if the cat had a message from you

 

I did consider striking up a conversation

But there was nothing the cat could have told me

That I didn’t already know

I know you are dead

And that the dead do not come back

And the living miss them

And sometimes in their grief

They hear cats speak

It must have said something like “meow“

And instead

In my sorrow I heard 

Brian, Brian, Brian

 

® Jeff Price January 2018

Kiki Dee “Loving and Free”

Happy New Year and welcome back to Three Score and Ten after our festive break.

To start the new year, a confession and a humorous poem.

Firstly, a little context for those who do not know my story. At the age of 52 I left the

computer industry and became a student  at Newcastle University. With my Master’s Degree in Poetry and Creative writing, I became a full-time poet running writing groups, organising poetry events and working as a poetry tutor in schools.

Over the years before I retired, I must have worked with thousands of students in schools all over the North East. I helped them write poetry and also worked on their performance. At some point I would always tell them a story about a night in Newcastle at the Dolce Vita nightclub when I saw Dusty Springfield sing.

I would tell them how I went with friends and how during the whole performance Dusty sang to me. How her eyes never left mine. Afterwards, when I told my friends they were all amazed because they were all convinced that Dusty had performed just for them, how she had never taken her eyes off them. It is a technique used by performers, politicians and every teacher in every classroom around the world.

Now a confession. The story isn’t true, it never happened, at least not with Dusty. I used Dusty’s name because people would have heard of Dusty and even if the school children hadn’t heard of her then the teachers would have and I wanted them to remember the story. I also, as readers of my blog will know,  had a bit of a crush on Dusty.

The singer was Kiki Dee (real name Pauline Mathews) was born in Bradford in 1947 and had a big hit with Elton John “Don’t go breaking my heart,” she was also the first white UK singer to be signed by Tamla Motown. Kiki still tours and over her fifty year career she has released 39 singles, three EPs and 12 albums. 

That feels better, I have set the record straight, I have confessed and I ask forgiveness from all those students I have deceived and forgiveness from Kiki who deserved the limelight that went to Dusty.

My poem this week is about all the lies we tell when the truth in inconvenient.

The Cheque’s in the Post

 

My phone battery has died, the volume was way down

The taxi is ten minutes away I’m on my way to town

I called you yesterday but no one was at home

We can’t meet up today, I just need to be alone

 

Santa Claus is real, he lives at the North Pole

It is only those who deserve it, who are on the dole

Brexit will be good for the you, we all know that’s true

Everyone will be happier when their passport’s are blue

 

Things will get better soon, the economy is on the mend

The NHS is safe in our hands on that you can depend

My Facebook posts are just to inform, I don’t like to boast

I always pay on time and your cheque’s in the post

 

©Jeff Price January 2018

 

 

The Clash “London Calling”

Released in 1979 this seemed, at the time, as a call to action and a portent of what was to come. There was a darkness to punk that the Clash reflected. I think their music and politics was summed up by critic Sean Egan when he wrote that the Clash were exceptional because: 

“They were a group whose music was, and is, special to their audience because that music insisted on addressing the conditions of poverty, petty injustice, and mundane life experienced by the people who bought their records…”

I liked the Clash and in particular the album “London’s Calling” I have spent a great part of my life visiting London either because of work or to meet up with friends and family. It is a sprawling place were even the smallest journey seems to take a life time but it has an energy and vitality that is difficult to beat. Much as I love my home town of Newcastle it can’t rival London for sheer variety and originality. 

Over forty years ago I remember travelling from Hackney to Stepney on a bus late at night when I fell in to conversation with the conductor (this was in the days when you had a person separate from the driver who would collect the fares). He was reading a dictionary and we talked about words and language. English was not his first language and he was fascinated by the sheer number of words in the dictionary. The words had a magic quality to him and I loved the delight he took in discovering new words. Something I still find today, 

My problem was always not the words but the spelling of them but now thanks to software it no longer troubles me since I discovered computers, spellcheckers and word processing software.

This is an old poem of mine from my first collection called “Doors” but it’s a long time since it saw the light of day and finding it was like meeting up with an old friend.

 

Dictionary

 

My father gave me a dictionary

Full of words I did not understand

And could not pronounce

Every vowel was a brawl

Every consonant a skirmish

 

I learned to love the words

That I could not spell

To explore their meanings

Taste their sound on my tongue

Prising them apart

Stitching them back together

 

In my head I wrote poetry

Furtive words about secrets

Never daring to put pen to paper

In case my words would be mocked

And ridiculed

Geordie boys don’t write poetry

 

Thirty years ago

On a Routemaster bus in London

Going from Hackney to Stepney

I shared a dictionary with a conductor

We drooled over the pages

Like schoolboys ogling porn

 

I realised, I was not alone

This was not a fetish

Just a fascination for phonetics

Now, I let the software

Worry about the spelling

While I enjoy creating the lines

 

© Jeff Price August 1998