RHYTHM IN THE NIGHT:

There’s been a constant thumping in the pipes behind the bed
every night since Berlin. The plumber says its ‘valves’.
I think it’s a tiny drummer with a sick sense of humour, living
in the pipes. Him & his tiny drum kit are lodged in there, CCTV
hooked up over my bed to clock the exact moment I drift off to
sleep. Since I got back to Essex I’ve had to move up the other end
of the house – can’t sleep through a rhythm. Thought I’d
chance last night back in the home-bed – getting cocky.
He started up at 2am, random, then found his groove. Three beats
then silence, three beats then silence. Just enough space between
the ‘threes’ to watch me descend into the abyss grinning as he
clocked the shock of the first beat strike. I imagine him chuckling,
at 3am settling into a constant four-gap-four pattern. Should have
sent me & my pillow growling out the room in gloom. But I’d learned
how to sleep through the cacophony of Berlin buskers. The howlers
& strummers, the yellers, cacklers & bottle smashers. All of them
gathering after midnight in the underpass outside my window
specifically for my benefit.
That first night in the city left me ragged, but without the luxury
of anywhere else to sleep I’d learned how to block it out.
I dug in, sunk deeper into the duvet & sent my head out in search
of a silent space – it worked. Then the tiny drummer started to sing
a song, a simple refrain repeating over & over as he laid down his
monotonous groove.

“You can’t remember the words of the new songs,
You can’t remember the words of the new songs,
You can’t remember the words of the new songs,
You’re gonna be replaced”

(K)