Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 03:01 AM

RayPadgett's post of the poem on Facebook    https://www.facebook.com/raymond.padgett/posts/pfbid0F2K1Na9FUeDrJcP9iXo3VcQA9BJznCairQq5L4EujX4ACjM9PJeRLuVy1NDETKbtl?from_clos

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: DaveRo
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 04:42 AM

GeoffLawes wrote: RayPadgett's post of the poem on Facebook...

Only visible to FB members.

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 04:46 AM

I'm glad I don't use faceache!

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 06:03 PM

Link to Post SONGS AND POEMS BY LES BARKER on Mudcat thread Any January Songs? /mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=169254#lesbarkersongs:~:text=Subject%3A%20RE%3A%20Any%20January%20Songs%3F%0AFrom%3A%20Ge

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 06:33 PM

I am a Yank.

I never had a clue - until you brought up this delightful man's death. Brillant wit!

Sincerely,
Gargoyle
weee smalll hours of early mornings stealing a couplet or two

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 07:07 PM

Hadn't heard (yes that's the right word - the words are so audible) this before.

What a wonderfully accurate tribute to a wonderful person.

Not often I'm moved but am writing this with tears in my eyes!

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 04:46 AM

I'm glad I don't use faceache!

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 06:33 PM

I am a Yank.

I never had a clue - until you brought up this delightful man's death. Brillant wit!

Sincerely,
Gargoyle
weee smalll hours of early mornings stealing a couplet or two

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 03:01 AM

RayPadgett's post of the poem on Facebook    https://www.facebook.com/raymond.padgett/posts/pfbid0F2K1Na9FUeDrJcP9iXo3VcQA9BJznCairQq5L4EujX4ACjM9PJeRLuVy1NDETKbtl?from_clos

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 06:03 PM

Link to Post SONGS AND POEMS BY LES BARKER on Mudcat thread Any January Songs? /mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=169254#lesbarkersongs:~:text=Subject%3A%20RE%3A%20Any%20January%20Songs%3F%0AFrom%3A%20Ge

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: MoorleyMan
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 01:49 PM

Thankyou FreddyHeadey, for posting the full version of John Watterson's magnificent tribute, the existence of which has been unknown for the past 7 months to those of us not on Facebook ....

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 06:47 AM

In January Little Robyn posted part of John Watterson's poem.
Here it is in full.

---

RIP Les Barker
On a cold rainy night in a thousand folk clubs
People stand, as if straining to hear
The world was in shock at the loss of a wordsmith
The one they had worshipped for years

They clutched at their hand stapled booklets
To read through what they’d read before
And had heard him recite a thousand times over
Just to join in his punchlines once more

Have you got any news of the poet
I just need to hear him you see
Have you got any news of the poet
He means the whole world to me

Treating all as his sisters and brothers
Life’s furrow alone he would plough
For Les was not like the others,
Les was different somehow

Although most that he wrote was so comic
It had audiences fall off their seats,
His pen was a sword aimed precisely toward
The liars and bullies and cheats

To Trump, to Bush, Blair and Boris
He would call them all out to the end
When you’re a politician so full of bullshit
A poet called Les ain’t your friend

Apparently God needed cheering up
Sometimes, yes, even He gets downcast
So he sent for Les the very accurate wordsmith
And his body of work unsurpassed

So here’s to the bear and the iceberg
To Cosmo and Spot, and mange tout
In the hope that day, we might hear him and say
Déjà vu, Déjà vu, Deja Vu

from John Watterson's Facebook post 2nd March 2023

Subject: RE: Obit: Les Barker (1947-2023)
From: DaveRo
Date: 24 Oct 23 - 04:42 AM

GeoffLawes wrote: RayPadgett's post of the poem on Facebook...

Only visible to FB members.