BULLDOZING PARADISE:

Early morning airport is a brutal scape, security concrete,
metal fences, bleak empty blacktop where there was once a
cheery drop-off. Ditches dug crude through what used to be
aesthetically sculpted lawns. What was my favourite airport,
a beautiful thing of metal & glass has been rudely
re-imagined as a hack-back-cover-up devoid of love.
A building that used to be something I was proud of resembles
a gutted store for end-of-line knock-offs – feels like being
back at the Berlin wall. I curse the car park machines,
feel a cloud descend on me, find something I can call
attractive, wind down the window, shout,
“Thank you!” driving the Southern back roads home.
Rinsing that visual kicking I just took with a music shower,
another day in the studio, writing for the Yew Double-Yew

(K)

GODFATHER:

Driving back roads I’ve never been before, low evening sun
in my eyes, Led Zeppelin up loud (Jimi’s guitar & the abstract
construction of vocal lines…). Rounding a corner, there’s
a black cat in the road watching over a fake horse head.
I pull over,
“You’re late!” says the cat as it cruises away
Turn off the stereo, the engine, step out, see something
macabre in the verge & laugh.
Things are different round here.

(K)

RIDING IN THE RAIN:

It’s fabulous, a light rain, my favourite of days.
We pull over, shelter in the lee of an old hawthorn
& listen. Everything changes in the rain, I don’t mean
the heavy stuff, the ‘frying’, I’m talking about rain
that’s just a notch up from ‘mist’. It suppresses
the rustling of leaves, revealing small sounds, birds,
falling twigs, the passage of microscopic footsteps.
I love the smell of Green & leaf mould, the trickle of
gutter brooklets, the vast grey smudge of a canvas sky
hung behind the day for a photographic eye.

(K)

WALKED OUT EARLY:

Walked out early just after dawn, thick fog hung low to the corn.
Wading out into a field, stood quiet, listening to dew cascade in
micro beats, whispering from leaf to leaf of forest trees sheltering
the liquid dance of bronzed heads startled by my rude appearance,
waiting for the sun.

Goodbye, thankyou, Tommy Ramone

(K)

ESSEX WELCOMES THE DEEP SOUTH:

Writing with Jono Ma, wrapped in rain. Reminds me
of the times I used to sit in the dustbin back in
Worcestershire listening to the rhythm, hidden from
the world. Turn on the lights, safe in it’s liquid
embrace. Blue light on the outside, yellow light
surrounds us. Start the groove, play music that
moves you, feel it lift you, listen to what it
whispers in your ear & follow it’s direction.
Listening to Mr Raoul K ‘Introducing my world’
slowed down.

(K)

ESSEX HOME:

Driving empty roads at 3:00am, radio surfing, connected
to the world, BBC World Service. Dialects & accents, voice
attractions to get lost in the comfort of the global hiss
between stations, airwaves vibrate from Delhi to the M25.
I caved to the need for chocolate to stay awake, cruising
garish service station shops, avoiding the eyes of staggering
drunks, I didn’t pick up that old coffee addiction Mother,
you’d be proud of me. Sweet coconut & water was all I used to
fuel the knuckles on the wheel last night, the eyes that keep
the wheels between the white lines. At the Essex boarder they’d
closed the roads on the final leg, (laugh out loud!) sent me
driving miles, looping back behind great lumbering carnivals
of elephantine truck processions rolling in to loading docks
concealed behind inner city outlets. Unseen, the nightly ritual
played out as the world sleeps, wrapped in cotton cocoons.
What’s this face I hardly recognise?, the mirror lies!, it’s
fixed eyes, focusing on a bedroom I left behind three days ago,
waits with promises…
Slip road off the monotone hum of motorway blacktop, taking
slow roads just to stay awake, hearing voices in between
the voices carried on the airwaves from exotic alleyways
I fantasise I walk down without ever being noticed, never
touch the sides, I glide along them, smelling dust & spice.
The words turn into shapes, lifting off the canvas at the back
of the eye, manilla twists, enraptured in the headlights
as I slip between sleepers, dormant cars pulled up on bare dirt
at the side of the road. Black & Grey & Brown & tiny animal
flickers caught in the headlights, startle fear, propelled at
impossible speeds across the road, escape the swerve of tires.
How I get home this late I’m still amazed, shaking hallucinations
from my head – did I really see that, am I actually alive?

(K)

SUNLIGHT IN ANOTHER CITY:

Breakfasted with enthusiastic cricket youths,
this season’s team strips, muscular, full of hope.
Black dressed executive women, greyed-out men,
peppered with t-shirted retirees, grateful for a
buffet freebie. Taxi’s wait to take them out into
the sun, the city greets them with all it’s best
stuff on display, open arms. Another day in the
company of artists I enjoy, inspiration freely
exchanged, laughter in the exploration of music
& words. The shock of last night’s football filtered
through soundproofed walls, friendships growing
behind secret doors. Did you slept well my friend?
Are you doing what you want today?

(K)

WRITING WITH YANNIS:

Reached Oxford in the early hours bleary behind the wheel.
Men cut metal at midnight, cascading sparks into blacktop,
tiny luminous daggers, eyes behind glass, making art for
no one beneath the glow of a half-moon sky sail drowning
in cloud. Am I asleep or awake? Did I die out here on the
road? Turn the radio up loud until it’s boring, slip
Led Zeppelin in the CD, Jimi’s rude guitar makes me feel
alive, I want to eat it. Fuzz pedal fantasies behind
the wheel of a speeding box of glass & metal under the
blind-eye gaze of cameras, festering behind the tail lights
of middle lane hoggers, lumbering long-hailers,
head on straight between the white lines.

(K)

BIKE RACE:

Drawn to watch the rhythm of the speed of rubber
rolling over blacktop in the sun, propelled by muscle
& tissue. Vibrant colours of sweaty lycra, mirrored eyes
& plastic heads. Skin & bone hurtling violently between
the serenity of the green, that will still be here, growing
season’s crop between the dirt & the sky,long after we’ve all
moved on.

(K)

RIDE:

Delicate rain rhythms & the promise of wet exhilaration
as we mount up & ride between the green. The vibrant
aroma of new life, the hiss of rubber rolling over juicy
blacktop – needle still riding the last groove in the
vinyl.

(K)