John Barraclough I love you
You see
What you gifted me back then
Made me
Gave me the taste for the new
For Joy
Division and Dexy’s on
Vinyl
How could I resist your love?
Listen
You set something burning
Just like
A brother who passes on
Advice
You seemed so precise in your
World worn
Way beyond mere teenage dreams
Who needs
More fucking libretto shit
I thought
Now I know you were the real
Rebel
At John Taylor’s on Rusper Road
We shared
Poems and readings with
The group
You did not go to Luxford
Like us
But we danced to Funky Town
Just once
John Barraclough I love you
Because
The LPs you gave up I
Took on
Sounds that were the dog’s bollocks
A gift
To the interlocutor
Inside
Short back and sides, long coat and
One stud
In a small and perfect ear
In tune
To the piano you played
Before
Reading Fine Art at Goldsmiths
Before
We knew the YBAs, Blur
Et al
Before you made up your mind
That to
Honestly create is to
Devote
A life to selfish dogged
Pursuit
To dig down through the crust of
human
Toil alive happy to be
Searching
For the answers in image
And word
Antony Pickthall, 2019
