Terry, Derek and Me
on Friday nights sitting around cigarette over-flowing ashtrays
in the Catholic Club. Terry, as usual, had photocopied a poem;
we droop over our copies, earnest as watchmakers repairing
some desperately broken Christmas present watch.
The poem I now believe was always an Ian Hamilton.
My new poem, more often two or three as Derek
brings one slowly from his inside jacket pocket and we scribble notes.
The next day I pore over their comments.
I am the only one alive and that is always a shock.
Tom Kelly has had a varied career from his first job in a Jarrow shipyard Time-Office; working along the Tyne before a late degree and twenty-odd years as a lecturer in FE. His next collection of prose and poems, Walking My Streets, will be published by Red Squirrel Press in April 2024. www.tomkelly.org.uk
Black Nore Review 