Author Archives: karlhyde

Saturday 9th February

Posted on February 9, 2013 by karlhyde

3

A TRICK OF THE MIND:

 

Cold comes back to Essex on a guest list direct to the bone.

We warm ourselves around fires piled high with fresh hedge 

wood glowing orange, yellow white. Smoke as thick as cream 

clings to our hair & clothes, makes us smell good when we go

indoors, drifts across fields, languishing in valleys, 

runs it’s phantoms through naked forests. We look at one another 

smiling, clutching hands, warm, happy. Charcoal hunting in a frost.

Woke up to a thin pink sky, lay awake listening to the wind whistle 

pan-pipes round the house, still smiling.

 

(K) 

Friday 8th February

Posted on February 8, 2013 by karlhyde

2

SUNLIT & STRANGE:

 

Weird not to be rehearsing, standing in a frozen field 

with warm sun on our backs. The hiss of black top rubber 

& the crack of puddles broken ice beneath our heels. 

“The water’s got wrinkles” you said, smiling & a

golden glow lit your eyes – everything felt right.

 

(K)

Thursday 7th February

Posted on February 7, 2013 by karlhyde

1

BACK TO THE END:

 

Listening to Dylan with a phone in one hand,the sound of your 

voice, familiar. It broke out in sunlight as we locked ourselves 

together, answering your questions for our friends in Japan. 

I was flicking through the master’s poetry when I stumbled on 

the courage to write the way I feel. We’ve been making journeys 

by foot & film, the sound of your machine gun tongue, fuels such 

effervescent vision. Your passion is a beacon in the dark, your 

camera, the eye, you light the world – show me what you’re thinking.

Dylan glances back at me in black & white, concealed between 

the sheets of an old school CD insert, Telecaster Blonde 

gun-slung casual across a shoulder, so easy with those words 

that cut a path through jungles of self doubt & disbelief. 

 

(K)

Wednesday 6th February

Posted on February 6, 2013 by karlhyde

1

WHAT THE HELL SNOW!:

 

It came in sideways after sunset at the end of a glorious day.

Blue skies, clean crisp light, smiles & good food soul.

A long rehearsing day where games were raised when suddenly 

we went public – the first audience standing in the corner of 

the room – a memory of eyes & faces.Feel the thrill of adrenaline, 

the voice in the head telling me I’m crap & will never be any good – 

an old travelling companion – ha ha ha! welcome home. Body tired 

every night, but leaves smiling, headlights playing in the trees 

like a new film.

Fired up Django & rinsed my ears with cascades of polyrhythmic 

picking.

 (K)

Tuesday 5th February

Posted on February 5, 2013 by karlhyde

2

LONG DAY LAUGHTER:

 

Throughout a day of technical stops & starts rehearsals 

were filled with laughter – the joy of good company.

There’s an energy to every day, a pulse, an electric 

undercurrent that remains the foundation to everything. 

How low can you go? – not very in company like this. 

Hugs & hand shakes to finish off, driving into the dark

in a cold wind. Out onto the motorway with a satnav

voice for company. Flicking through channels to 

underscore the scenery flickering on the other side

of the windscreen. Headlights are stage lights, the 

road is a strip of magnetic tape running continuous 

beneath our wheels. 

A warehouse, an industrial estate on the edgeland 

of a luminous hole in the night. A door opens, a smiling 

face, familiar. Hands wave, shake, hug, a reunion in 

a deserted carpark secured with razor wire. We step 

into the cavernous interior of a giant metal box 

& there beyond the towers of flight cased electric

wonders Toby Vogel has built a cube of light. 

Our first screening of the M25 film, a synaesthetic’s 

view of a cruising circle around the edgelands of

London & the music of colours that sing on the other side

of the windscreen. 

 

(K)

Monday 4th February

Posted on February 4, 2013 by karlhyde

3

THE MAN IN A SLING: 

 

He walks in the sun swathed in yellow, smiling.

Caught in the reflection of a rear view mirror 

looking radiant, content. The black top turns

wet & silver, luminous in the glare of the morning

sun & I let it draw me in, loosing perspective, 

everything turns 2D. The hedges, slip past constantly 

peripheral dancing – sweet sensation. 

Sticks, cut brutal by the lash of machines lie 

broken toothed in ditches, turn their faces up 

at the sun & smile. I drive purposefully slow today 

squeezing pleasure out’ve every curve in the road,

turn the radio off & smile, listening to wind. 

 

(K)

Sunday 3rd February

Posted on February 3, 2013 by karlhyde

Reply

COLD WIND?:

 

A day that started dark lifts with decision to let 

the light in. ‘Layers’ is the fashion in the fields 

between Winter & Spring. The winds carry knives for 

ill prepared stragglers, imagining they can ‘think’

themselves warm in skimpy & shades.Standing still 

is a brutal pass time, as the dedicated & mad gather

in the fields, exposed. Cold creeps up, legs like wicks

draw damp into the bones. Flasks of hot stuff, three layers 

of everything & laughter. Smiles between friends re-united 

in the fellowship of the touch-line. Familiar looks, relief 

& pride when the final score tells stories of determination, 

collaboration & skill. The beautiful game played against

odds in a cruel wind that taunts us to give up, but, of course

we never do. 

What a fabulous way to start a day.

 

(K) 

Saturday 2nd February

Posted on February 2, 2013 by karlhyde

6

A START:

 

You cut the clouds to let in light, hope & those emotions

that dispel the darkness. 

 

(K)

Friday 1st February

Posted on February 1, 2013 by karlhyde

2

TODAY I MET A MAN:

 

Parked up on the roof & watched the sun dance across the roofs

of the City of Hope. Slipped down the back stairs & waited in 

the place he recommended. He arrived, all smiling & hugs, a 

familiar light returned to his eyes that I’d missed. We walked 

through antiquarian book shops & city church yards, engrossed 

in the rhythm of typography across the ages until we reached 

our favourite coffee shop. 

Talking, drinking, dodging traffic in the streets, beneath the 

delicately carved facades of ancient institutions whose stone 

faces translated sunlight into colours that made us happy. 

At a house in an alley we found a bell & rang it, gaining entrance 

to rare sanctuary. Rooms filled with Nicholson’s & Breska’s, 

sea pebbles & bleached driftwood monsters – everything danced 

in sunlight beams streaming in torrents though glass eyes that 

looked out onto the city of hope.

Up on the roof we hugged & shook hands, making a pact to do it

again, only sooner than later this time. 

Tomorrow I’ll be watching The Trans – Siberian Marching Band, 

when I’m in a good mood they take me higher.

 

(K)

Thursday 31st January

Posted on January 31, 2013 by karlhyde

2

LOOKING FOR ROBERT FRIPP:

 

I recoiled from it all through my youth when I couldn’t

afford the big boys pedals, but now sound I’ve hunted for 

weeks, trawling chat rooms & global pedal fetishists. 

Eventually I narrowed it to two, the black one or the orange. 

With a body like that it had to be the orange, reminiscent of 

the only pedal I  could afford as a teen. The one that never 

sounded Ritchie Blackmore enough, burying my riffs in mush. 

That was then, this is Thursday (express delivery from Joe)

 

(K)