HABITUALLY LATE:

It was becoming a habit, one he wanted to nip in the bud, 
but the bud was starting to flower & days that started early
precisely so he could have time to write were filling with 
unwelcome noise. Any time past 9:00am there was no space for 
clear thinking where thoughts turned into words. 
He stood on the edge of the fields at dusk,watching mist rise 
thick from fields of barely & oil seed. A patchwork of Yellow 
& green stretching far into the distance & the air so thick you 
could cut it with scissors – it was going to be a hot night.

(K)

PIANO HEAD:

“Are you going to play properly?” she would ask, exasperated. 
“I am playing properly”
“No, I’m mean tunes I can recognise”
“I like these tunes”
“Well they aren’t really tunes”
“They are to me”
“They’re more like ‘noise’ and it’s giving me a headache”
“It makes me happy”
“Well why don’t you give it a rest for a while?”
“Being happy?”
“No, playing the piano. How about giving it a rest for a while?”
“Because I like the sound”
“Well I want you to stop now and give it a rest.”
“But I really like it”
“I think it’s time you went outside to play”
“I want to play the piano”
“Would you like me to teach you how to play?”
“I ‘am’ playing”
“No, you’re making a noise and it’s getting on my nerves!”
“I didn’t mean to do that”
“I know, but you’ve been making that noise for a long time”
“It’s not noise to me though”
“And why do you have to put your head inside the piano?”
“It sounds better”
“That’s not how you play a piano”
“But it sounds lovely in there”
“Well it’s time to stop”

(K)

SATURDAY NIGHTS:

Most Saturday nights, when other boys were riding bikes, 
we loaded up the Ford & drove out’ve the village. Sometimes
South to towns with working men’s clubs, Sometimes East to 
the nightclubs of Birmingham & the Black Country, but often
West to village halls in the outlying districts. 
The working me’s clubs smelled of stale cigar smoke & beer, 
your feet stuck to the carpet at the load in. Black Country
night clubs were organised, had load-in bays, bouncers & 
dressing rooms, they were efficient, unemotional, did what 
they said on the tin. The village halls guaranteed a fight
& spilled blood, but nothing serious you understand. 
I was 14, the other lads a few years older, but when a fight
broke out age didn’t matter, it was all about etiquette, 
you didn’t touch the ‘Turmn’.
The boys from the village would eye-up the boys from out’ve 
town as they strutted in at the start of the night. Watched 
them pose at the bar like they were taking over, let them
get settled, spend their money. Somewhere around the midpoint
break, somebody would say something, someone would do something
to someone or something would happen outside & the word would
go round. You could feel it from the stage, an energy shift in
the room & you knew ‘it was on’. I don’t know if they picked
a specific tune as the signal, but one minute the dance floor
was packed with laughter then suddenly it would turn.
Fists, feet, teeth & broken glass, the floor awash with beer,
farmers boys on the door would come in to break it up, then
one of them would take a punch & it always turned serious but 
only for a very short period in which you had to keep playing 
or risk getting noticed – keep believing ‘you don;t touch the Turn’.
We stopped once, somewhere out near Godforesaken, a geezer
came up to the stage & yelled, 
“Keep playing or you’ll get a clout!”
When we started up another face tore it’s self away from the 
mob & screamed, 
“If you don’t stop me & my mates are gonna wait for you outside!”
My dad, sensing the crossing a line stepped up,
“Is this bloke bothering you son? That’s a lethal weapon in your
hand lad, if he tries anything, hit him!”
The bloke looked dad square in the face but seeing what was in 
his eyes, winked at me & went back to the fight,
“You’re alright kid me smiled” 

(K)  

MATCH TAG & SCATTERINGS:

No matter how many years I’ve done this, the rhythm of another 
discarded beauty takes me by surprise as I walk between
birdsong & the distant hiss of rubber on black top in the early 
morning. Still fascinated by the apps for that little 
Palm Top Theatre device we picked up at Sonar. Something about 
the way the images draw themselves, responding to touch & tilt, 
like secretly dancing to the beat of a silent kickdrum. 

(K)

WEST BROMWICH #2:

Outside a night club, early 70’s, a long wheelbase transit 
parked up on the pavement, backdoors open for the load out. 
The boys, have survived an ugly night, they’re ferry equipment 
out the front of the club to the annoyance of the manager who 
huffs & wants them disappeared. He stands at the door, trying
to distract his regulars, greet the suits & short short dresses 
entering, smiling to loosen purses & pockets, encourage a little 
more heavy spending at his over-priced bar. The bouncers are 
tolerant, we bonded on the way in, concealing their shrugs & glances, 
“Just be as quick as you can lads” they whisper. 
All the boys leave the van alone, something they could maybe do back 
home in the village, but here it’s asking for it & I wonder what 
world they’re living in, may as well leave the gear on the pavement & 
drive off, so I sit on the bonnet looking blasé like I know something, 
faking un-phased nonchalance as gangs cruise past & sniff around. 
In the early 70’s you could do stuff like that & not get stabbed, 
pull a double bluff & carry it off, looking back it seems quant. 
How sweet, a fresh-faced boy in his late teens, shoulder length hair 
& jeans, slouched on the bonnet of a a two-tone Ford, yellow & green, 
red on the inside, still smelling of fish from a previous owner. 

(Thanks to David W. for the photo)

(K)

LAUGHTER IN THE RAIN:

Body coming back on line, surviving French air traffic 
controllers strikes, twelve hour flights, midnight tapas, 
baked in the sun & an attack of something bad coming on
just as we took the stage at Sonar, lasting all through
the night – a stomach disorder fixed by Coca-Cola magic.
The sun in Essex is more beautiful today than I remember,
calling us out to walk amongst Oak & Hawthorn, where the 
vibrant rhythms of twisted sticks & ragged fences cry out 
to be played & danced to. The instruments in my head strike 
up faster than fingers – I have to join in. Last night,
the poetry of travel & re-entry layered with a Marvin Gaye
documentary, last night the combination operated within 
it’s own set of rules & I don’t want to force it to make
any other kind of sense. I have no idea where the journey 
goes, just grateful to still be thrilled to be on it.

(K)

HOME:

Feeling the reverberations off Paul Simon waiting alone on
a bleak English platform back in 60’s, that song is like a 
ghost on random shuffle. It will be good to touch the green 
green grass of Essex though we had fun in the sun with friends 
from home & faces come to celebrate something different for 
a night – the groove is in the heart. 
Met people from http://www.palmtheatre who talked with a light in 
their eyes that made me warm to the little device they had
created, so we got one the play with. Talked to a father a 
long way from home, interviewing me up against a wall behind 
the people carriers parked up outside the festival – the only 
private space we could find. He strapped on his headphones & 
slipped something furry under my noise to find a kindred 
spirit as the city performed it’s symphony in 3D all around us 
& school boy footballs narrowly missed us, escaping from 
the yard on the other side of the wall. We smiled in parting,
acknowledging the moment in the moment we had shared & resumed
our circuitous journeys back towards home.

(K)

BACK FROM MIDNIGHT TAPAS:

Walking back from midnight tapas, two homeless guys 
sleep in the lobby of an ATM outlet, safe on the other side
of the security door – from the street all you see are legs & feet. 
They’ve made a Pop artwork on the floor out of red & blue cans, 
arranged in the shape of a cartoon heart & underneath, with the 
left – overs, written the word ‘LOVE’ . Outside on the pavement a 
hunk of meat, with arms like calves thighs, pauses to repeatedly 
kick his dog in the shadow of a bus shelter, wearing a Brazilian 
football shirt like a badge of honour. 

(K)

INTO THE LIGHT:

The Edgelanders smiled, one to another,the happiness at 
their re-union spread throughout the crowd gathered around
the hole to the sky. Bleary eyes & kisses, sleeping rough
up the walls of planes with a stale taste in the mouth &
salty skin, but nothing could dampen their tangible joy 
at the prospect of doing what they loved – talking dogs, 
playing boggle & peddling goodvibes in another beautiful city. 
Today it’s Barcelona, one’ve the finest cities in the world
for marks & scratches, the home of Antoni Tapies, his building
topped with a cascade of razor wire, a memory of River Road 
Dagenham, filming the Outer Edges in a freezing wind, 
photographing discarded garments & loving every second. 
Today The Edglanders stepped out into the warm embrace of 
summer sunlight & smiled, one to another, the happiness in 
this moment made all the better by the shared experience 
of it as it spread out around them like the pink satin halo of 
a Christo wrapped island. 

(K)

ON THE LINE: 

The touchline crew were a disparate bunch, pulled in from all
walks, people whose paths would never cross let alone bring them 
to jovially passing the time of day. Regardless of their obvious 
differences, they were magnetically drawn together for the weekly 
ritual of the touchline. 
The smell of the rain, the touch of the grass, the kiss of the 
sun, they were all a part of what drew them away from their daily 
routines to congregate along the white line, transported for a 
a brief moment by the thrill of possibilities. 
The loose or win, the pain & elation, were a roll of the dice 
that enabled them to transcend themselves for an hour amongst 
kindred spirits. 
Some people went to church, others were drawn to the touchline – 
it started out so innocently, souring in time liked Spring blossom 
before the fall, as smiles turned to grimaces, elation to frustration, 
back slapping to stabbing & loyalty to desertion. It would’ve been 
easy to have abandoned it all, walked away & retuned to their 
distant worlds, embittered by the experience, never to speak again, 
but for some, the memory of that time when they were briefly united 
in unbridled enthusiasm along the touchline would forever connect them. 

(K)