THE PEAS & THE QUIT:

At home in an empty house, doors wide open to encourage Spring.
Not alone. Flu hanging on, throat hacking & cracking, head dizzy,
but…
The peace & the quite, the healing hand of birdsong, wind & rain
& days that take the time they need to get whatever can be done
at a pace that feels right. Boredom, that most necessary of drives,
has at last come to visit, welcome! No longer driven to do & do & do
& keep on doing with no break at the weekend, or justify five minutes
zoning out in front of the tele, not having to explain the need to
‘drift’ & see what where it takes us or feel the energy draining as
we try to please someone else, ignoring our intuition. Suppressing
the voice that’s guided me all my life is hard work, every muscle
straining against it’s self to remain motionless.
But Flu is my old friend, comes calling when I wont slow down,
shows me how it’s done with all the trimmings & rewards.
Simon Stephens himself couldn’t’ve scripted it better.
At home in an empty house, doors wide open to encourage Spring I can
see the path again, hear the voice & want to sing.

(K)

DANCING IN THE AIRLOCK:

Flat out then ill, alone in an empty house, everybody
somewhere else, do I smell? This is the Christmas
I never had, the break I was holding myself in for,
running into free-fall when all I craved was somewhere safe
for a few days, a clearing, space, a clean place, gentle feel-good
where I could say my name without flinching. The house is empty,
body seems to be responding to the medication, head not so scrambled.
I even picked up a guitar.

(K)

FLU-BUG PAYS ROYAL VISIT TO REHEARSAL:

Throat sounds like a loose floorboard, vocal range of
‘low-off-key’, conversation punctuated by rasps & hacks.
“What’s that crackling noise? – Oh, it’s Hyde trying to sing!”

(K)

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAD & FEET:

Flu, day 2, rehearsal going well, laughter. Scrambled-egg-head in
the morning, giving way to cloudless sky, bright light, sun, frost.
Pull the bins to the edge of the world, pause, listen, look around.
No pictures today please, could be I can’t be bothered or feel
too good just to be in the moment, for once not documenting it.
Rebellion, body aches, scrambled-egg whispers,
“curl up in a ball”,
feet ignore it, moving in the right direction. You can always rely
on your feet if you give ’em a good education.

(K)

ROCK N ROLL BABY:

Rehearsing for Dubno with the Flu, sandpaper throat, laugh!

(K)

TOO BUSY:

John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins & I knew each other through email only,
introduced by my mate Perou, who sent me photographs of
the two of them together, ‘Hoppy’ looking frail in the picture,
handing Perou a book of his photographs.
“You have to check this guys work out!” you insisted, I obeyed.
John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins & I knew each other through email only,
he’d contact me once every couple of weeks enquiring if I was
going to call in to see him & pick up the book I’d ordered.
Every mail got a “Sorry I can’t make it this week” response,
life being oh-so-busy-busy, until, the other side of New Year,
I return from another week of flat-out-full-on to find that mail
in my in box telling me he’d passed away. His work was beautiful,
lifted me, made my eyes sing, raised the roof off my head,
got me out’ve bed & moving & I wish I’d told him in person.

(K)

OFF-ROAD:

Walking backtracks between fields, swapping stories on drover’s roads,
green-lanes, ancient by-ways, history stuck to our boots, heavy as
divers lead, waddling like cartoon robots. I like you with the smell
of leaf-mould in your hair, fresh earth turned by the plough,
frost-crumbled, worm-hole pocked, acres of brown, peppered with
smashed, Biomorphic, Jean Arp flint, split bean stones, white as bone,
bellies black & exposed. Men with hedge-cut sticks, nod with dogs
in passing & beards, canvas bags slung across shoulders, point us to
short-cuts down the glistening backs of gravel tracks by-pass these
rivers of congealed mud.

(K)

IN LOVE WITH THE SATELLITES:

My poet is numb today, abandoned on the rails between Birmingham
& London. Infected, breathing, sneezes, coughs, flinching to the
spikes of ringing cellphones, toddler tears & the recounted legends
of McDonalds meals.
My poet dribbles, lurching over toast & butter, tea-bag in the cup,
trying to remember what happens next.
London, Corby, Stockport, Manchester, Kidderminster, London,
the real united Kingdoms of our tiny island are everywhere but here
in the Land of Oz. Optimism, unrelated to the wallpaper silk spun
politicking of daily transmissions, we philosophise down here whilst
the rest of our nation, expecting nothing for their troubles, gets on
with the business of determining their own futures regardless of
promises.
Essex is everywhere, the spirit of ‘kettle-on’ lives!
15 recorded interviews, 15 different experiences, 15 lives lived,
everyone of them building, moving on, positive, relentless hope.

(K)

HUNTING CURRY IN SMALL TOWN:

Last night at the late night curry house, last still open
in a small town, bright lights, rope lights changing colour
round the bar & modern art & staggering drinks call in,
anaesthetised eyes, for a late one, after the last one for
the road, take away to stuff swarthy jowls, lean over the
bar breathing heavy, sour breath,… we were in raptures!
Best curry in weeks, best company, best state of mind, best
everything.

“Excuse me lads I’m just going to the Gents”
“Yes sir,” Smiling
“It’s just down the back. On the left”

Walls unfinished down the other end, fresh plaster, modern art
awry, leant against unpainted walls. In the toilet stall,
totting up the riches gathered on the road of our experiences,
this week, laughing to myself at being here again in this
Dali situation, walking these childhood streets at night
in such fabulous company, impossible to dream this as that kid
who felt the walls coming in, growing up in a small town on
the edge of nowhere.

Now, all I see, is beautiful, glad to be back, peaceful, healing,
now all I see as I leave the stall at the back of the last
curry house open, is a woman who says,

“Karl? – Is that you? – It’s me – Remember?”

That little girl sister you sent to sit with me in disappointment
that it wasn’t you, come to listen to ‘head music’ in my mother’s
kitchen, that night I longed for you, were you laughing at me?
Little sister girl you sent is now this woman smiling at me,
welcoming me back to town with stories of families I never forgot,
nor the question of how long you were going with him behind my back,
that night our transit van caught you in the headlights.

“Lovely to see you, what are you doing now? How’s your family?
give them all my regards & say ‘hi’ to your sister, I saw her on
the tele. Me? I’m doing fine thank you, those are my friends,
from London, well, it’s a long story, we’re on the the road, it’s
been a long day, but we’re happy, very happy, look, can you see
them smiling, listen, you can here them laughing. I’ve got to go”

(K)

TRUE NORTH:

I’m repelled by the smell of chlorine coming out the bathroom tap
as I bend to clean my teeth, drunk from oxygen deprivation in
preference to sleep, rare to find my bedroom window closed, no
matter what the season, must be getting soft – hold me.
Familiar morning, grey light, steam rising from the roofs of the
monumental stone facades of lush & loaded architecture from
the first time this city found it’s pride.
Manchester, can’t express my love enough, Red or Blue your groove
is in the bone. Brought me home broken from solitary confinement,
the misery of a California sofa surfer. Fed & watered me, nurtured
back to health, re-educated me, turned my feet & taught me how to
dance, changed my future. Fools Gold, Step On, doctors Bez & Brown,
& 25 years before, never let me down then either, whispered in my ear,
“Don’t do it!” when I was about to choose a career that would’ve
killed me. Manchester, you always had my back, don’t know why or
what I’ve done to deserve you, got my camera & note book here & two
fists full of dreams, walk with me again & let me listen to your song.

(K)