THE ROAD THROUGH THE DARK:

Naked trees dance unseen, listening to the songs of
gale force winds from my hot bed, no star visible
to navigate by.

Soft Machine

(K)

RINSING THE COLOUR:

Days blur into one another, weekdays no different to weekends.
It’s just a different ringing phone & emails change their tone.
When I was young, the days of the week were divided into blocks
like a ladder lay on the ground. The blocks were coloured in
tones of green, now they’re tones of very thin grey, but look,
here comes the sun…

(K)

THE WIND CRIES MARY:

Wind blows open the windows at night as we curl beneath
the covers. Rain lash the house, driving floods into the
painting studio. Standing knee deep in mud & ditch water,
raking out twig & apple damns. Water proofed against the
weather, working up a sweat, it’s as good as dancing as
the groove is carried in the wind.

(K)

NEW GROOVE FOR LEGS:

Legs don’t want to play the game, gone strange on me today,
walking like a dinosaur, like granddad’s ‘roll’.
I have to ‘think’ how to walk to make them work like they
did – they used to dance, the need for that appears
unrequited on the path ahead. Dancing was something I was
too embarrassed to do as a kid, I thought everyone was
cool but me. I heard them excitedly taking about weekend clubs
& dances, the moves & who they’d snogged & it scared the life
out of me. I felt like a freak, out of step with everyone else
my age. They were enjoying the thrill of dance & I wanted to
feel that so bad, but just couldn’t get past this painful
self conscious isolation. All the time, I was watching though,
soaking it up, the moves on the tele, the struts, the thrusts,
the body grooves & slides. James Brown, The Motowners, The
Atlantic records soul stars, that whole scene going on in
America thrilled me. Then Acid House landed in my back garden
& opened it’s doors in front of me like the last chance saloon.
Baggy Motion, bodies in abandon, steppin’ to a new groove.
I watched, stood at the side like a little kid again, too
afraid to join in, but the groove got to me & a voice in my
head whispering,

“Chicken!”

Listening to Howlin’ Wolf ‘Moanin; at Midnight‘

(K)

SKY-HOLE & DIESEL:

Essex winter before sunrise & mild. Isolated birdcall,
strange song I never heard before. Two roads leave in
parallel, one West, one East, both into the sky.
Sitting in cabs, listening to drivers recall every detail
of the last time they went where I’m going – at the same time,
sitting in my car alone, engine off, listening to the rain.
I could sleep here all day, curl up, radio turned barely on.
Down there, where sound goes straight into the blood, turns
my skinny jeans to skin, steam fixes this uniform familiar to
my body, wakes me up smelling of milk & biscuit dreams.
Now we’re leaving, widening the circle, this connection,
this fruit of the seed of our union. The person you need to be
you’ll find on the rails of California thrift stores,
as mine waits for me on the streets of Berlin.
You leave through the sky-hole, I fill the tank again with diesel.
Did you see me looking up, laughing beneath the floodlights?

Listening to Motorpsycho again – ‘DEMON BOX‘

(K)

HOW DID YOU GET ON?………….GOOD:

Sometimes, if you want something ‘that’ bad,
you got to go for it. Do you know how much I got
for that car?………….’four hundred & fifty’!

‘Breaking’ & ‘laughing’, oh my God, ‘running’,
the rhythm of your breathing………….tell your boyfriend.

(K)

COZY DOZY WARM & POSY:

Black & Black & Blue & Silver, hanging on a Gold chain,
Swinging. Festoon of Black & Rainbow Silver loops in
the White warm window, inviting us in, liberate some cash,
feel good, staring back out at the rain.

(K)

FULL MOON WITH A SLEEVE-FULL OF GOODTHING:

You had me dancing, wandering corridors at night, electrified.

Jo Stafford singing ‘Allentown Jail’ as I drive home, headlights,
thick fog.

(K)

I GOT DRUNK LAST NIGHT:

I was drunk last night. Not on that liquid misery, nor any of
it’s cousins. I was drunk on art & music & words & making stuff
that wouldn’t exist if I just paddled along ticking boxes.
In the last few days I’ve been punched into submission, stopped
fighting the desires & thrown good intentions out with the
Christmas wrapping………………………………for today.
A series of events, things that jumped me as I mapped out
journeys through the Winter. Mud, fallen stick rhythms, rust,
decay, wet brick rhythms, deer tracks, & the smell of leaf mould.
Sunsets, Sunrise, the cathedral domes of crystal clear blue skies.
NewJazz drummers, New York street sounds, Berlin, Ginsberg
reciting ‘HOWL’, Kerouac reciting ‘anything’, the smell of
woodpiles, sawdust, BBC radio, the sound of AM radio between
stations when I’m driving at night, voices from other countries
breaking in & out, always an accordion player in there somewhere,
morse code messages, the hiss of radio waves duetting with the
hum of the tires, Radio 4 Long Wave, the Shipping Forecast,
‘I’m sorry I haven’t a Clue’, ‘Just a Minute’, Saturday morning
Radio 4, Late night Radio anything, Discarded cans jettisoned
from passing cars found crushed in the grass at the side of
the road, Hub caps in brier ditches, birdcalls at sunrise,
the rhythm of birds sitting on telephone wires, memories of
old women sat on back steps telling stories tumbling their thumbs,
The rhythms of flocks of birds gathering in the sky getting ready
to migrate (the most fabulous of rhythms), The blood red sales of
Thames barges, Charcoal, ash, Paint dripping off heavy brushes,
torn paper, cardboard reclaimed from the street, objects found
lying in my path as I walk, marks on walls, conversations,
collaborations & the free exchange of information gleaned on
journeys, connecting up, building bridges, opening doors for
artists to talk & make new stuff, turn the insides of heads into
things I can touch & smell & feel & hear & feel alive!

(K)

JANUARY CHANGING ROOM FEVER FALL-OUT:

Scott, you’re girlfriend’s calling, walked in caught you
calling…someone, fake fox fur parka collar from the
January Sale Rail. Cactus spiked, Joshua Trees on fire
around her neck to keep her warm while you were busy
calling someone……………………………else.
Scott, she got you this time!, do you proper when
she get you home & do you mind if I sit here, take your
sweet-spot-seat, let’s face it you’re not coming back,
you paddle on behind her with that little
wide-eyed-lost-dog face………………………..?
Scott, you done it this time brother! All you had to do
was one time what she wanted, all you had to be was
present, help her, but you couldn’t, rail yourself in,
stop yourself from cutting off another slice of that
connection-addiction-thing.

(K)