TWO STONES HUGGING KISSED BY SHADOWS:
Saturday rode trains in the sun to the penultimate day
of the Japanese Outsider Art Exhibition here in London.
It pumps the air with joy & energy, shouts loud of a
deep passion to give song to that inner voice for no
reason but a desire to dance- best show I’ve seen in years
Last day today.
(K)
SPEEDING THROUGH SPACE:
On a ball of dirt & water – breathing oxygen
(K)
A WALL OF TEARS TO WASH AWAY:
Time out from story telling to follow the sound of rain to
‘The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk’ Volume 3
(K)
HIDDEN GURU:
Every Saturday, through the summer of ’69, me & the two
invisible boys cycled six miles to visit our Guru.
He’d appeared to us first as a travelling salesman but
now that his true identity was revealed we were drawn
to his flame, enthralled by his stories of a secret life
in the Emerald City. Was it a moment of weakness or an act
of charity that inspired him to reveal his address?
Either way we took it as a green light to drop in whenever
we needed & we needed weekly.
He lived in a modest semi on the new Oaklands Estate, built
on ripped up tennis courts in the grounds of a grande pile
where Mom & Dad used to play back in the day. That’s when I
lost any interest in the game, unable to lift a racket with
even two hands, but loving the sound of my parents laughter.
Me & the invisible boys
had expected a more esoteric dwelling,
but guessed he must’ve chosen it as a cover. The dust green Ford
was always parked round the back, but strangely disappeared soon
after we knocked the front door. It was a big deal to find him gone,
our hopes of stretching out on his orange leather sofas,
listening to music brought back from the great city in the South,
the latest releases from Islands Records & stories of recording
sessions with legends – it was all crushed on the days his Ford
de-materialised, but we kept coming back. The Guru was our only
link to a world that existed on Thursday night TV, he was our
bridge to a ridiculous dream.
(K)
AFTER THE LONGEST DAY:
Rose at 5:00am to the sound of gentle rain & watched succulent greens dance in celebration. The pinks & golds at the end of the longest day illuminated Technicolor landscapes for slow walks into sunset like Essex was cartoon California. Today the world pulled its duvet over its ears & took the morning off, time stopped, held its breath & stepped back for us to slip undetected between the fields.
(K)
FLAT WHITE:
In 2013 they met in a coffee house on Berwick street,
the village boy & the boy from Oz. Both a little older
than when they used to own these streets, when everything
they did was regarded with wonder & heralded as blessed.
They chuckled, one to the other, “Still here then?”,
laugh lines pointing like arrows to the light in their eyes.
The coffee was too strong for so early in the day, but it’s
perfume hit the spot as they planned the road ahead. People
came & went, new faces, new lords & ladies, confident
& full of it as they had been. The coffee boy behind the
bar played his mix CD, he was that kind of retro in his
style, with a tight & tiny beard, de rigueur for the day.
The music jarred, but no one noticed, only the village boy
& the boy from Oz. Supertramp broke out of the speakers
the rasp of a distorted harmonica unexpectedly turning into
rich green cubes of spikes that progressively expanded into
the tiny shop. The boy from Oz didn’t see or if he did he didn’t
let on as the village boy flinched to avoid the violence of
the sculptures threatening to impale him against the wall.
Just as he was about to shout “Oi! turn it off for God’s sake!”
it stopped & the violent structures disappeared, replaced by
the hiss off a chromium coffee boiler as steam curled down from
the ceiling like phantom surf & they were wrapped again in
soporific aromas.
(K)
Karl Hyde 