Sunday, 17 January 2021

Sonnet Sundays - The Northmore Busker

Welcome back! This will be my last entry until Wellness Wednesday now so please enjoy.

I wasn't too sure which poem I was going to pick for tonight's edit - I have such a huge back catalog of old and new, terrible and terrific pieces (at least to me they are) - but when I found this one, it brought back such a beautiful memory of meeting this colourful busker named Philip Northmore in Plymouth High Street nearly 4 years ago. I sat and listened to him singing while I wrote the first draft of this poem which I gave to him. I saw him all over the town after that and we became friends. I think it's a reminder to me that life may be tough, but no matter what you're going through, there is always a ray of light somewhere.


The Northmore Busker

My heart beats in time to the busker

and his ukulele song,

his hair a Rastafarian Rapunzel,

his skin smiling at the sun through an open shirt.

The kids wouldn’t understand

his troubles beneath a rough Bohemian grin,

they can only laugh at his balloon pants;

he is mere music and they are

untouchable.

Yet to the soles of his busted-up boots

he is the most alive,

unlike any soul I ever saw:

 a solar-powered sunflower

dancing in the midday heat.

His voice caresses the air,

And opens our selfish eyes

to a joy that money cannot buy.

I thought children lived the purest lives;

I thought even love came cheap,

but now I know the true professor of happiness

gives his joy for free.

 

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