Eighty Not Out

Roy Harper is eighty years old today.
he is known among many other things
for being awkward with the music press,
but where when Bob Dylan was awkward
he was considered to be 'charismatic', 'an enigma',
when Roy was awkward it was not excused,
until after twenty years of making records
the new album launches stopped working;
the press repeated all the old false starts
he had endured in his career instead.

But he remains one of my heroes,
he said so much that my parents didn't
that stays with me, and I still process.

And like the beat poets of old
he tries to communicate with those
who value him in a common language
in which uncommon values are understood.

Here is his latest blog on the oddities
on achieving this strange longevity
and still being quite fit to play,
willing to record new songs,
but wondering when the world
will be a place ready to receive them.

Roy circa 1973, in hospital
surviving a lung complaint
but wondering at the end of the world.