REID ON

 

(i.m. Keith Reid, 19th October 1946- 23rd March 2023)

 

Keith Reid died last week and took a nation’s lost language
With him; one part ode, the next psychedelic, his way with a word
Made each notes placed under the keys selected by Gary Brooker,
Which then began to seep through them as if there were sound

And sea waves as he wrote. Holocaust haunted the dark in his poem
Lent prose was his father’s. And yet as son and survivor Reid versed
A strange time, by unleashing trapped thought and exposing it all
To air’s acid, or rather, revelation’s air which in sharing made

Both stab and scream sound sublime. Now A Whiter Shade of Pale
Makes more sense, as does Homburg, frankly, as those cartwheels across the floor
Ape ghost movement and the Grand Hotel shimmers while succumbing
To Shangri-la like dissolves. The man moves through the myth

Of his own non-appearance, for rarely if ever forthcoming, his blurring
Of backgrounds roused secret meanings that no sense or study
Or biography could resolve. Unlike Goffin’s King, or George Gershwin’s
Ira; unlike Sammy Kahn, or Hal David, Don Black or Tim Rice, 

Reid boiled the real until obscurity’s steam was verse vapour.
While other lyricists watered, Reid was stone and sand and black ice.
How can you write In Held Twas I and You’re the Voice for John Farnham?
Talent, craft, concentration, and some kind of soft vice to hold vision

As the sixties slipped into pap. But like those Brill Building boys,
Two of whom were Lou Reed and Paul Simon, Keith kept the contract
With both the surreal and pop’s crap. He served the song,
And gave music as meal its word dressing. Language as instrument

Started with writers like him. He spun lines. An ordinary bloke,
Whose linguistic whims whipped up whirlwinds in which observations
From the eye arced in triumph as if imagination itself felt designed.
If Bernie Taupin wrote words that gave Elton John his wide journey,

Reid opened up worlds to walk through, and made the commonplace
Alien. Whether it was Homburg’s ‘lipsticked unmade bed,’ or
Long Gone Geek’sweird goingson at the jailhouse,’ Keith broke free
From convention before his body began failing him.

Now, the pen is poised, paused;  a sword seeking the secret stone
To return to. In the mask of mist he’s now wearing the courts
Of Kings Arthur and Crimson and Procol Harum become the homes
And safe harbours where Art’s carrying craft and star vessel

Can now at last dock and sail in. The light fandango’s been skipped.
Neptune got to ride his last mermaid. And now, one week settled
Another writer achieves frequency. His words are part of your ear,
Emblems from an age we have squandered. Now, removed,

He reminds us that home may well be where the heart is,
But it is the soul which survives us, and for that sweet, strange essence
There is no end or location. For death is bandmate and agent
Securing art’s future, and its ultimate tenancy.

 

 

                                                                               David Erdos 1/4/23       

 


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