Ledbury Road

Two poems in memory of Mick Imlah

1.
‘Hardy and Housman lived round here,’
I said, slumped in an armchair in your flat.
‘Compared to those two, we’re small beer —
Hardy and Housman, geniuses crowned here!
No blue plaques for us, who’ve gone to ground here…
We’re pygmies, compared to giants like that,
Hardy and Housman, who lived round here,’
I said; slumped. In an armchair. In your flat.

2.
I don’t remember, Mick, if ‘Ca the yowes’
Was one we listened to together,
Long after closing time, in your small flat
With the almost-derelict sofa, the bows
Of our boat heading into heavy weather
(How so?), the whisky and the chat
Running out, both of us blind, close to tears
As ‘our Kath’ sang our pain, our longing and our fears…

But you’re gone now, and so are they
Who sometime did me seeke (Och no,
I hear you say, not that old riff again)
And I can’t make up my mind between
Her Handel Arias with the heartbreaking
‘Art thou troubled? Music shall calm thee’
And that song I know can harm me —
Know from the tears, the whisky, and the hand that’s shaking.