For David Stephenson

David Stephenson was a deep friend,
I met him through books.
He came from Carlisle
with that intense and craggy look.
We studied life together,
smoked Full Strength and sipped Real Ale.
He liked his women big.
I learnt from him to visit pubs at lunchtimes
to end up pissed in lectures
but, most of all
to read the letters of Van Gogh,
the diaries of Franz Kafka,
to go inside the jazz
of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor.
David told me that ‘Most people are thick’
and, as a socialist of a kind,
I sometimes think he had a point.
I wonder where he is today.
Back across country I surmise,
smoking and looking at the sunrise
with a fat woman kissing his neck,
listening to Mingus and the sky.
Keith Armstrong.