John Robert Clarke as facebook suddenly decided to call him was of course known to us as Jazzman John Clarke and was a revelation on the spoken word scene. When I first started going to poetry events here I would invariably meet John homing in on the venue at the same time I did. I always knew I was at the right gig as John would always appear at the same time.
We were trying to cross a busy road and he was so caught up in what he was saying that he stepped out into the road and nearly got run over but I managed to pull him back just in time. "Woah....thought I was a goner there!" he wiped the sweat off his brow. I told him he could have been an angel on a cloud by now and picking the trope harp.

He laughed and said" "Hell no....that wouldn't be my Heaven...I would be a young man with a horn and blowing up a storm. I'd blow with Bix and Gerry Mulligan. Then all night he was scatting to Mulligan's  Song for Strayhorn.. Four years after that and many gigs later I wrote him this poem. It was four years before he died and he laughed and said I had written his obituary but too sooooon man....tooooo soon.