From the archives - Diana

Now that there are some days that The Daily Express don't actually lead on a story about Diana, it might be time for some of the rest of us to publish something on the subject.

I took these photographs on the day, probably in 1990, but it says exactly when on the inscribed stone on the entrance, that she came and opened the extension to Portsmouth Cathedral. She was accompanied by David Stancliffe, who went on to be Bishop at Salisbury, but then was still putting on marvellous performances of Bach cantatas in Portsmouth.

I wasn't one so involved with Diana's death that I needed to buy Elton John's record by the handful but there didn't seem anything else to do on the day she was brought home but to watch it on telly.

Such luminaries as Ted Hughes, Maya Angelou and Carol Ann Duffy published poems in the Sunday papers, as well as, one supposes, any number of lesser known poets some of who might have been writing their first ever poem.

But it wasn't until an image stuck with me from the funeral that I joined in and I've since read that poems that refer to Icarus are often the first to be dismissed when judging poetry competitions. Well, I can live with that. This poem first appeared in the microscopically limited edition Line Drawings that I printed in 1997, that included poems about prominent 'celebrities', from Stephen Hawking to Gianni Versace and from Lisa Simpson to Banana Yoshimoto. The Diana poem appears in Re-read, Selected Poems, still available for a mere three and a half pounds (inc. p&p) or near offer.

But these are the words I made out of it.

Diana

There she goes. London's never been as quiet
as this -a vast but passive riot
has occupied it. One last summer day
is arrived to watch her taken away.

Perhaps I thought of Icarus but then
decided that no such comparison
was needed. Let her remain human if
she can before she is made into myth.

Horizon after horizon she goes through,
returning home, a life folding back into
itself, flowers raining in on the hearse
like a soft explosion in reverse.

6.9.97