Howard was an all - American

hands big enough to crush opinion,

retired now from being an actuary,

a sun around whom a penumbra of ladies

revolved while their husbands receded

in the heat of him.

 

He stumped up an adulation

for the Rolling Stones and

the follies of brexit.

His voice was Job on the hilltop

persuasive and unassailable.

 

Not quite ready for the fifteen hundred pounds

to see the Stones in Colorado

he fell back on older memories

of those colossuses of rock

eagerly recounted with expansive sweeps

talking almost of the living Christ and the disciples.

 

Under his snappy panama, he planted

his big face against the nimble Irish hostess

while his beer, forgotten was going slightly flat.

 

I regaled him with a waspish rumour

to engage his mind

but he buried me under a slurry of humour

Howard the hail fellow well met, and

he made me feel I was in his debt.