Dislexia

haunted sucky memories
day schools
of lonely lunch-boxes
 there
    their
       they’re

polytech
lath, gilloteen
random words
for scrabbling attention
 here
    hear
       hare

reading book disco
jumping flashing screaming
slowly chasing
 wear
    where
       we’re

never believed them
thick not
just hurting
 tear
    tear
       tier

carrying a past
fretting four a future
walking with
 dislexia
    dyslexsia
       dyslexia

Brutal and Beautiful

During the week
he sweated on Central’s
sunny roads
smashing black tar
into cracked brown earth.

He spent his weekends
in the safety of his
state-house fiefdom;
sucking cigarettes, drinking
Speight’s and watching
the gee gees.

Then on Mondays
he was gone again.

We kids knew no different:
the stench of stale fags,
peeling yellow weatherboards
filtered sunlight
and Mum’s tired tears
slipping down her
wet bruised face.

She died from too many years
of having her heart broken
by the thing she loved the most:
the smell of her summer’s road.

Today her husband
sits alone
with his arrogance,
dusty television and
overflowing ashtray.

Blood holds us together
brutal and beautiful
he is my Dad.

before

tired sheoaks
struggling to fight
invading pollutants
of a future closing

together we two, three or six
would sit
in wee morning hours
caffinating

24/7 freshly roasted aroma
grubby footpath
ruddy tables
tired groaning stalls

Ethiopian Vienna
jazzed out veins
sculptured cream
hiding bitterness

it was all about the coffee
toot toot!!!
and now
it is all about you
and our last memories
together
at Potts Point
before

the leukaemia

“Verses for the King” – the journey

Verses for the King

I am not a fan of separating the different parts of myself and for me it was difficult to present a poetry book in such a narrow genre, however many of my faithful Christian friends had murmured that it would be nice if I were to write a Christian poetry book. From this place “Verses for the King” was birthed, it is a thank you to the many Christians who have been so faithful in encouraging my writing whether it be secular, Christian or both.About a year ago, I collated the collection and prepared it for self-publication. As an afterthought I decided to send it to Vineyard International Publishing. I thought ‘well since it has been written by a Vineyard pastor and is full of Vineyard values, then maybe our home grown publishing wing would be interested’. To the best of my knowledge VIP has never published poetry before.

To my delight VIP agreed to a 50% publishing deal, this meant that I had to raise 50% of the publishing costs. For me this was a huge amount of money. I avoid debt at all cost, so the natural progression was to turn to TradeMe.co.nz and Crowdfunding. My nerves are not that strong and I did not enjoy the process, however PledgeMe was a good company to deal with and people pledged enough to cover costs.

Altogether we had 74 pledges, by 12 different nationalities, who pre-purchased 202 books & 32 badges, raising a total of NZ$4200. This was absolutely phenomenal for me. The first print run has the book for sale at €5, this price is discounted because of your generous pledges.

While people were pledging I had a team of ten people and six different nationalities producing the book. It is not easy work compiling an almost mistake free book. But thanks to the team I am very happy with the result.

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I had a few hiccups on the way, the printer printed less books and Lithuanian customs charged me much more that expected.

P1220715 P1220716The book was officially launched by Alec Timmerman in Eetcafé, Wageningen, the Netherlands on March 19. It was quite a fun evening with a rocket-launch-style-countdown and with music provided by ‘Cheeses of Mexico’.

The book launch was part of my ‘Number 8‘ poetry and short story tour of  Germany and the Netherlands. “Verses for the King” sold well on tour and is now my highest-selling poetry book. It can be purchased from my website.

P1220486Now I am in the throes of autographing, packaging and sending out copies to all the international pledgers. I am also still waiting and encouraging the completion of the eBooks.

Thank you to everyone who has ventured on this journey with me.

And again special thanks to those who helped create this book; Charlen Williamson, David Vink, Fedir Shulenok, Jan Bernard Struik, James Metelak, Katrina Bullen, Maisie Tremain, Sharon Fowler, Tomas Šečkus and Kim Hough at Vineyard International Publishing.

Verses for the King” is a worship poetry book. The King being Jesus, and finally I would like to offer my thanks to him for making this crazy journey possible and for blessing every step along the way.

Thanks and cheers, Kel

“Number 8” the tour

Well, it was all a bit scary venturing out into non-native English speaking countries, but it was a risk worth taking.

My first gig for “Number 8” was in Berlin I arrived rather unrehearsed and a little tired having just finished attending a conference that afternoon. I have yet to experience Berlin to its potential, however it is a city that makes my blood boil and I enjoyed every moment I was there.

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My opening gig was a ‘house gig’ that was related to a group called something like ‘wine and more’. It was a lovely venue and my support act ‘Fefa‘ was simply the perfect compliment for poetry. Lovely audience, but as I have learned big city people are often quite reserved.

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The next day I had a 262km drive to a lovely wee town called Chemnitz and was hosted by an Irish couple in an English speaking church. The level of English was not actually that high and I had to simplify things as I read. I spoke after worship as part of their Sunday evening church service. After this gig I had a lot of positive feedback from some really lovely people.

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The next morning I left relatively early, eager to cover the 528km of snow-laden autobahn as quickly as possible. My host and support act in Balingen was a friend whom I was eager to see. Perhaps the highlight of my whole trip was reading ‘Emo’ this evening and watching the contrasting reactions from the audience.

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My three gigs in warm, responsive Germany definitely blew away my preconceived views of German culture.

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Gig 4, my hump gig, was another 610km away and it was snowing hard for most of that journey. Gig 4 at Eetcafe in the Dutch city of Wageningen was also to host the launch of my latest book “Verses for the King” I was very tired this evening, but buoyed up a little by being around friends and with the music of ‘Cheeses of Mexico‘.

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It was a good night, the launch changed my routine and helped me keep focused. The actual launch took place as the crowd joined in with a NASA style countdown coming through the sound system. As the count hit zero, a cloth was ripped off a music stand revealing a lonely copy of “Verses for the King”. At the time I was giggling away like a kid in a candy store.

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The next day was a double-gig day and I love double-gig days. Gig one was in a prison in Arnhem; I did not actually read much poetry, but did share a lot. The prison was perhaps my most meaningful gig. I was asked to return in the afternoon to keep talking with the men, fortunately I had the time to do so.

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The evening was spent at Dwaze Zaken in Amsterdam and was run to the theme of social justice. My evening started with practically jamming “I Am His” with Schrijvers Voor Gerechtigheid, who are a great band. I could not understand their lyrics but totally dug their level of musicianship and their style. However Amsterdam was maybe my hardest gig of the tour, perhaps mostly because of a fold-back speaker that I couldn’t turn off and big city reserved people.

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That evening, I caught the train back to Utrecht, where I enjoyed the luxury of sleeping in and spending two evenings in the same familiar bed. The next day I walked down to what I call “Vicky Road” and purchased yet more second-hand CSI dvds and just generally lounged around.

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The evening gig was pretty much below my bed, which to my delight meant that changing out of my slippers was unnecessary. The support act was once again the lively fun ‘Cheeses of Mexico‘. I had to bribe the forever well-mannered Dutch audience into responsiveness: though a little embarrassing this worked with some success. The room was full and the people were fun.

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In the morning I had lunch in town with a friend and spent the early afternoon cheese and gift shopping before heading to Armsfoort. Late afternoon I enjoyed my first Dutch city cycle trip. My final gig that evening was my smallest gig, unplugged and without a support act. The people were responsive and even dared to ask questions. I perhaps enjoyed this gig the most.

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The next day I had another 600km drive to my ferry in Kiel. I stopped at a friend’s place on the German border, went for a walk and a cold windy and very quick 25km bike ride. Racing through the snow I made the ferry with five minutes to spare.

I am happy to say that my books sold quite well and I more than broke even financially for the tour. The short Dutch travelling distances helped this. Generally speaking and especially in Germany people cried, sighed and laughed on cue. I was not quite prepared for the Continental European long deep thinking silences, nor was I prepared for the intelligent compliments and follow-up messages. Germany and the Netherlands were a good experience for me and one I would like to repeat one day.

Overall I had a good and smooth tour, thank you very much to all my hosts, organisers and audiences; thanks for gifting me a wonderful experience.

Cheers Kel

All photographs were taken on my camera by friends with the exception on the Amsterdam photos. The Amsterdam photos were taken by an unnamed professional photographer.

His Temple

Okay this is the first of the poem from ‘Verses for the King’ that has been turned into song.

The musician/composer is James Melelak and the poem is His Temple

Gig 7 – Utrecht

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‘Cheeses of Mexico’ strutting their stuff for a second time. I actually got to hear and enjoy them more this time.P1220821

Please note the slippers, I gave out a prize for the first person to compliment my slippers.

Oh house gigs are so much fun, I even pulled out my two happy poems for the occasion.P1220827