Robert ‘Didfyman’ Smith

Happy birthday Robert Smith - The Cure

Robert Lax never used the letters of his name in a poem (as far as i know) but a favourite poem is his 'white blue yellow red', published as a screen print by edition hoffmann in the 1980s, and which we have framed in our front room.

These wonderful poetic songs of lament and praise - ruminations juxtaposed to contradict, sooth, expose, appease within the natural and manufactured world we occupy. Full of lyricism throughout. www.shearsman.com/store/Alan-B...

Tonight at Waterstones Liverpool! Last few tickets at the link: www.waterstones.com/events/saul-...

And isn't committed to the truth, or even quality of debate.

Glen Baxter

Tributes to Ric Hool included in A Landscape Pulsing with Life (one from me) I’m pleased to say a poem of mine finds its humble place in A Landscape Pulsing with Life: Some tributes to the life and work of Ric Hool , ...

I've just heard in the last half hour that the poet and organiser Ric Hool has died. It was only a fortnight ago he sent me a YouTube link to a new song/video. I added it to my post about the book of tributes to him: read and listen: robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2026/01/trib.... He was a fighter!

the empty center

Harry Fainlight, ‘Street’

Of course Trump is looting our tax contributions: the Trump family fortune is based on looting our tax $.

Trump owes his political career to mass theft of public $:

If his father hadn't stolen $413,000,000 by ripping off federal housing funds, plus tax evasion, there'd be no POTUS Trump.

lastpoetstanding.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-... a poem, of sorts

HER CARDBOARD LOVER The way you look tonight is perishable, unphotographable, laughable. Sometimes dyslexia strikes in late middle age. You are the way I look tonight. At last my love has come along. And you are mine at last. Slowly the orchestra wives pick over the set, go behind a wall. The big smiley man is thinking, thinking he has an IDEA! Well, if he says so. You gotta believe him. One orchestra wife comes back. She has forgotten her pearls. The orchestra riffs around, they come back. “Well, I never! Of all things!” Oh, it plays to the breach. You see it. Her lover and best friend came along the hall. “I’m sorry, Dan. But I just couldn’t.” So it’s all alright, he thinks. He thinks it’s a secret.

The big smiley man is thinking,

John Ashbery

Max Ernst ~ Quasimodo Genetis, 1956
#MaxErnst #Surrealism

Glen Baxter

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we're sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Cla...

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity

I have another Poets in their Poetry found poem in this week's edition...

A man of property Just outside the City of London, in the secluded streets once occupied by the monastic precinct of the Black Friars, is an unassuming warehouse building

Found a Shakespeare thing; wrote about it in @thetls.bsky.social: www.the-tls.com/regular-feat....

Excellent gig by #JasperHøiby tonight at #peggysskylight in #nottingham. The third instalment of his 3 Elements project. Tonight with #XaviTorres on piano and #NaímaAcuña on drums. Naíma was amazing...so much work but never intrusive...a rare listening drummer....Always great to hear Jasper...

Week 15 of documenting everything I lose and find in 2026.

This isn't Out Of Touch Rich Guy, this is Dementia Case Makes Jokes To Cover. Donald Trump has experienced corner stores. He has used the term in everyday life. He quite simply forgot in the middle of a speech. His brain is collapsing like a dying star.

Pete Hegseth Quotes ‘Pulp Fiction’ Fake Bible Verse at Pentagon Prayer Service Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meant to invoke holy scripture in discussing the rescue mission of an American fighter pilot stranded in Iran -- but he actually quoted Quentin Tarantino.

Give him a break: I confuse Tarentinino's script with the AV all the time: 'Then Jesus saith unto the interrupting motherfucker, I don't remember asking you a Goddamn thing!'

variety.com/2026/film/ne...

Starting a project of rereading all my old Oystercatcher Press pamphlets, beginning with this one from 2009; reflections on Eastern Europe and beyond.

Snow was general all over Stroud. It was falling upon the Tesco Express from its toilet seats and, further westwards, falling into its car park. It was falling too upon the chained trolleys. It lay drifted upon the dashboard of James Joyce's BMW . . .

This is... incredible.

Hegseth quoting Pulp Fiction as actual Biblical verse.

Lots on and a few amends! 🙂

Events are free but do book via the website

They're in the news again!

Police hunt for 4ft Superlambanana stolen from garden The garden ornament has huge sentimental value

Yes, we have no superlambananas.

Trev Eales and Robert Sheppard: HOLME FELL: A Sample of Landscapes Number Three Holme Fell, the place, is one of Alfred Wainwright’s two hundred plus Lake District fells, located a few miles north of Coniston, Cumbria. T...

A third excerpt from my poem HOLME FELL with Trev Eales' photo. More plans for publication: robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2026/04/trev...