Richard Poems

She said, ‘My Richard
was called Claire.’
And I said, well, we all have them.

I wrote most of what you read here in a blur, in a few months, on my phone. I wrote these poems while walking around town, and on a trip to Auckland. I wrote these poems in Hawke’s Bay too. I wrote these poems and heard the music that had inspired many of them in my head, did not need to play the songs, sometimes would not have wanted to. I wrote these poems because I could think of nothing else. Many of them had been living inside me for 20 and 30 years. Some of them arrived as if to punch me in the gut. Others wanted to hold my hand and help me on the walk. And some are still trying to work out if they’re friend or foe. All I know is that I had to write these poems. It was time. — Simon Sweetman