Tuesday Poem: The Wind Blew Back Biff Byford's Hair

We stand in the face of the wind, of the wind machine

Our stylists ready with product and comb

We take up our stance and seize our guitars

In the face of the wind, of the wind machine.

We sing in the face of the war, of the war machine

Our stylists ready with product and comb

We watch the director and follow his cues

In the face of the war, of the war machine.

We laugh in the face of death, of the death machine

Our stylists ready with product and comb

We tease out highlights and re-shoot some takes

In the face of death, of the death machine.

We sneer in the face of hate, of the hate machine

Our stylists ready with product and comb

We shout out to fans who've stayed staunch and true

In the face of hate, of the hate machine.

In the face of hate, in the face of death

In the face of the war, in the face of the wind

We take up our stance and seize our guitars

Our stylists ready with product and comb.

Credit note: This is one of the poems I cut from the final manuscript of Men Briefly Explained. It is published here for the first time.

Tim says: You will scarcely need reminding that Peter Rodney "Biff" Byford was the magnificently-maned lead singer of Saxon, one of the bands that came to prominence in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, or NWOBHM as one should properly call it (Nu-wobbem).

Here's Biff's barnet getting a good workout in an otherwise rather dubious hair-metal cover of Christopher Cross's yacht-rock hit "Ride Like The Wind"from 1988: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0OFr3-JPSE

After Billy Collins invented a parody of the villanelle called the Paradelle, I felt I had to go one better (or worse). I call the form I have invented for this poem the "Paradiddle", and hope that more poets will take up the challenge to write in this form, especially when writing poems about the lesser bands of the NWOBHM era.

My poetic tribute to the St Valentine's Day Massacre EP by the combined forces of Girlschool and Motörhead, should it proceed, is almost certain to be in the form of a paradiddle. I plan to call it "Please Don't Touch": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5dAyPoYax4 (R.I.P. Kelly Johnson, sadly missed).

The Tuesday Poem: can be found in all its multifarious splendour on, and in the sidebar at the left of, the Tuesday Poem blog.