Dear Sarah and Chaz,

Some things I have written during lockdown refused to shape themselves into song lyrics and so have remained resolutely on the page. These I call poems, but this may be a category error and they are, in fact,  just failed songs. Not all of them are quite as self-absorbed as this ‘poem’ but, Chaz, The Spanish Lady does seem to answer your question.

The line ‘a Spanish lady washing her feet by candlelight’ comes from an Irish-American folk song called The Spanish Lady, and ‘I walk with sweet Sally hand upon hand’ comes from my own song, Loom of the Land.

THE SPANISH LADY

All my songs are waving goodbye

They are trailing behind them a smear of rage

I am thinking with the mind of someone twice my age

I’m an all-singing, all-dancing thing that died

And nothing but nothing is going as planned

As I walked with sweet Sally, hand upon hand

I wanted to write up but could only write down

With my hunter dogs I walk round town

I’m swallowed by the city and lose my way

And pass by a window and suddenly see

A Spanish lady washing her feet by candlelight

And this was absolutely not part of the plan

But I’m suddenly alive and half my age

An all-singing, all-dancing horror on stage

Who never wanted for nothing, just a little bit more

As my dogs devour me to a hashtag of gore

I wanted to write less but could only write more

This song is waving to you with its busted crutch

I am lost and tired and completely out of touch

But I am something, I guess, that just keeps going on

As I walk with sweet Sally, song upon song

Love, Nick