PAIN IN RAIN ON DARK TRAIN:

Rain rhythms, bird rhythms, pounding head rhythms, body doing
twists & turns, rebels at the thought of catching trains.
The Emerald City calls, offering bits & pieces for a boy on tour.
What-nots & do-da’s, stuff to stick in travel bags for emergences
& unforeseens. Get you hair cut boy, walk the streets for poetry,
draft of a book hot in your pocket, written for months, fat stick
file in your jeans, pleased to see me? Body wants to go to sleep,
drift, stay home. Head’s got ideas & deadlines to meet, I’m going
with the head, see how long it lasts, get your waterproofs on.

(K)

LAST REHEARSAL IN ESSEX BEFORE…:

Weird light illuminating Essex, feels good, something different,
a light on the verge of casting strong shadows, but not.
A smudged charcoal sky, blue but not quite, grey but not quite,
solitary clouds creep low to the horizon, trying not to be noticed.
Essex looks ready to be filmed, body feels ready to rehearse,
still coughing, but slight, low to the horizon, trying not to be
noticed.

(K)

100%:

Beautiful day, Essex with the roof off, sailing into the wind,
body creeping back on line. Fell asleep in the sun, listening to
BBC radio 4 Just a Minute, it ain’t Rock-n-Roll, but it’s
high octane food for the soul, 100% luxury direct injection fuel.

(K)

THE CURSE OF MUSIC:

The Beautiful dirt you leave for me to find, is a paper trail
I follow, into the far north, working with brother Fred Gibson
on a songwriting master class with the youth of another town,
each one inspiring in their own right, pumped on enthusiasm
for the thing I love & how do I express the gratitude I feel
to be in the presence of their passion for music, going public
with their ideas, no matter how embarrassing, to see each one
overcome themselves reminds me of the kid I was, crushingly
self conscious, introverted, shy, unable to converse, couldn’t
meet anyone new without turning inside out. Music, was the only
route out’ve the dark hole, still is to this day & today,
listening to all these young dreams laid bare in company I was
lifted. Courage like that is an honour to witness, filled my
tank up, took me right back to the root of why I chose this road,
or did it choose me?, Lucky to be still here not only with loyal
friends of years, but welcomed into their circle of inspiration,
& new friends found along the road like Fred – today.
Wish you could’ve been there, heard their songs, every one of them
from the heart. Personal is the only way forward, no time to waste
on a life of imitation, sing what’s going on with you.
The more personal it is the more universal it becomes.
As we left this house, early in the rain, car loaded with studio
& more than a little trepidation, we both turned to one another,
bleary & spontaneously burst into grinning,

“I bloody love music”

Start the engine.

(K)

REHEARSING REVERSING A HEAD FOR REHEARSING:

Everyday as I gain consciousness, words start to form into
sentence structures in my head, the dust of the night evolving
into sounds, beats, rhythms that speak. First one of the day
is, “Hey, I’m alive!” next. “What a beautiful day!”,
rain or sun, doesn’t matter, this default setting ensures
the head is pointing in the right direction.
Today, still recovering from late winter bugs, rehearsals
affected, though not enough to worry, coughing & spluttering
in the shower, the words get mangled up with negatives, the
self-centred stuff of old-scholl thinking that breaks through
like radio transmissions, criss-cross cutting up positive grooves.
Find a room, sit down, open a window, breath, slow down, switch off,
listen, bird song, wind, rhythm of flight, animal, machine,
planes coming into land & leaving, sun reflecting off the tips of their
wings, cars in the distance, whispering, winking glass eyes in the sun,
everything moving in it’s rhythm, everything in it’s place.

(K)

FOLLOW DIVERSION SIGNS, RESURFACING IN PROGRESS:

Burning the candle at ends it never had, reversing health
regeneration with tech overload, work-on-work, late nights
& a little cherry of stress. A thin cold wire is being drawn
through my head, I pull down the shutter in the passenger seat,
you drive today. The presence of phones makes me nauseous,
I lower the window, cold wind full in the face, the first feel-good
of the day. Simple is the way to the healing.

(K)

FORGOT TO SLEEP & KEPT ON TYPING:

Another late one eyes out here, neck in pain, fingers numb
punching keys to get a book done, the later it gets the more
mistakes, I take a break sit out in the cool night air, feel
human, start again, straight back into making the dumbest
mistakes. Rehearsing again with Rick, first day back together
body’s in free fall, caught with anti-biotic fingers, nursing
throats & body parts back to enough health to tour. This morning
felt my chest & arms go tight, time to action, Doc did all the
tests, shook my hand, wished me a successful tour & smiled,
not sure what the smile was about unless he’s got a direct line
to the ticket touts. I thanked him, cashed in his prescription
& dutifully started his course of action. Voice coming back,
body coming back, any more progress like this & I’ll be out’ve
excuses, can’t even blame it on the monitors, Funktion 1 did
too good a job.

(K)

DOG OWL & THE BODY CLOCK BARK:

There’s that owl, two calls for the end of night, every night!
Thanks Owl, I was hoping we could do a deal, let me get some
sleep, health in remission, recovering from another blow up,
but the body’s like a missile, autogyro set to target Bristol.
I have faith in this old friend, gets over everything & does
it’s job, crashes heavy after maybe, but never cancelled a gig
because of it. Don’t think about it, you’ll give it a name
& names become beliefs that imaginary things are real.
Still dark, alarm clock ticks a little louder.
Sun not yet even a rumour & body wont go back to sleep,
the sleep it didn’t get to hours before, walking the night
corridors, a dog moving circles in it’s basket for comfort.
I consider getting up & writing in the kitchen, think better
of it, negotiate a drift, surf the edge of sleep, I don’t mind,
it’s warm in here, thoughts not clear enough to engage me,
I’ll build a raft of nothings & float.
Check the head,…ok
Body,…ok
Throat’s as dry as prehistoric bark, cracked, rasping,
sipping water, band my head, set the alarm back 30 minutes,
grin.
Check the head,…, seems you’ve been thinking too hard again.

(K)

THE LAST GIG ON EARTH:

The last gig on earth, was a freezing wet sunday night on a
back room pub stage on the edge of town, an officious
sound engineer coiling cables chanting,
‘Please step off the performance area, no, I mean it!’
as you lean in to shake the hand of the man who’s just
emptied his heart in front of you, music that defies you
to find fault & radio to broadcast it, a sound that would’ve
been all over the Peel show. Pete Um, fragments of songs,
never long enough to let you second guess, never let you
down, everyone a chorus & an anthem, each individually wrapped
by hand for your discovery, gone before you knew they were here.
My ears come out to play, face hurts from grinning. The queue
at the back of the room as he rummages in his bag, fishes out a
12 & pauses, wrestling with concepts, art & commerce,
what price honesty? He should be touring the world, spreading
his brand of syneasthetic joy, tonight you’re grateful he’s here
& you can shake his hand for now.

(K)

BEFORE THE PEAS QUIT, THE QUIET:

Walking at sunrise, frost clings to the edge of fields,
mechanical birds bounce around branches, vibrant song.
Walking with rhythmic ‘crunch’, gravel, twigs & mud,
David Nash, Cardiff Art College sculpture department 1977,
the boys from the north dragging half trees in off the street,
bark stripping, rollies hanging off their lips, sleeve pulled up,
raw wood, sawdust, fire. There’s a  mound of ash next to the hedge,
who’s been burning while the wind was low? Miking twigs sing,
‘crack’ in the flames, the way they move, transient colours,
off & on, heat, hope, cold ash sculpture in the morning, damp,
alive with colours, vibrant Greys.

(K)