Beachcomber

Monday I found a boot –
Rust and salt leather.
I gave it back to the sea, to dance in.

Tuesday a spar of timber worth thirty bob.
Next winter
It will be a chair, a coffin, a bed.

Wednesday a half can of Swedish spirits.
I tilted my head.
The shore was cold with mermaids and angels.

Thursday I got nothing, seaweed,
A whale bone,
Wet feet and a loud cough.

Friday I held a seaman’s skull,
Sand spilling from it
The way time is told on kirkyard stones.

Saturday a barrel of sodden oranges.
A Spanish ship
Was wrecked last month at The Kame.

Sunday, for fear of the elders,
I sit on my bum.
What’s heaven? A sea chest with a thousand gold coins.


George Mackay Brown
from Fishermen with Ploughs (Hogarth Press, 1971)

  • 31 Plays
  • This Is the GirlPatti Smith

PATTI SMITH  -  This Is the Girl
from Banga (Columbia, 2012)

Beautiful tribute song for Amy Winehouse, “the girl who yearned to be heard”, with delicate echoes of the ’60s girl-group ballads she loved so much.

Some people flee some other people.In some country under a sunand some clouds.They abandon something like all they’ve got,sown fields, some chickens, dogs,mirrors in which fire now preens.Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles.The emptier they get, the heavier they grow.What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from exhaustion.What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped away,someone tries to shake a limp child back to life.Always another wrong road ahead of them,always another wrong bridgeacross another oddly reddish river.Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away,above them a plane sort of circles.Some invisibility would come in handy,some greyish stoniness,or, better yet, some nonexistencefor a shorter or a longer while.Something else will happen, only where and what.Someone will come at them, only when and who,in how many shapes, with what intentions.If he has a choice,maybe he won’t be the enemyand will let them live some sort of life.Wislawa Szymborska, “Some People” (1996)Poems: New and Collected, 1957-1997Translated by Stanislaw Baránczak & Clare Cavanagh (Harcourt Brace, 1998)
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Some people flee some other people.
In some country under a sun
and some clouds.

They abandon something like all they’ve got,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now preens.

Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles.
The emptier they get, the heavier they grow.

What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from exhaustion.
What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped away,
someone tries to shake a limp child back to life.

Always another wrong road ahead of them,
always another wrong bridge
across another oddly reddish river.
Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away,
above them a plane sort of circles.

Some invisibility would come in handy,
some greyish stoniness,
or, better yet, some nonexistence
for a shorter or a longer while.

Something else will happen, only where and what.
Someone will come at them, only when and who,
in how many shapes, with what intentions.
If he has a choice,
maybe he won’t be the enemy
and will let them live some sort of life.

Wislawa Szymborska, “Some People” (1996)
Poems: New and Collected, 1957-1997
Translated by Stanislaw Baránczak & Clare Cavanagh (Harcourt Brace, 1998)


  • 66 Plays
  • DjorolenOumou Sangare

OUMOU SANGARE  -  Djorolen [Worry]
from the compilation album Oumou (World Circuit / Nonesuch, 2003).
This is a shorter, digitally remastered version of the track which appeared on her 1996 album Worotan. It features Nitin Sawhney on acoustic guitar, but it’s Oumou’s singing which makes this such an unforgettable and moving listen.

Chorus translation:
The worried songbird cries out in the forest, her thoughts go far away
For those who have no father, her thoughts go out to them.

  • 19 Plays
  • Do What You Gotta DoRoberta Flack

ROBERTA FLACK  -  Do What You Gotta Do  (Jimmy Webb)
from Chapter Two (1970)


Tim MarshallSir Robert Fosset’s CircusClapham Common, London, Easter 1984 “The clown Nelo… was a clown whose personal life seemed to be in complete disarray. But he wanted to be loved and make people happy… After the show, I remember that certain pubs had a ‘no travellers‘ policy, so the people from the circus were refused entrance.” ~ Tim Marshall
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Tim Marshall
Sir Robert Fosset’s Circus
Clapham Common, London, Easter 1984 

“The clown Nelo… was a clown whose personal life seemed to be in complete disarray. But he wanted to be loved and make people happy… After the show, I remember that certain pubs had a ‘no travellers‘ policy, so the people from the circus were refused entrance.” ~ Tim Marshall