KARL MERRICK

Karl Merrick: All Things Folk

If you love all things regarding the traditional arts scene you would surely have bumped into Karl at one event or another in the Moseley area. He is all things folk in a living being: the music he plays, the poetry he writes and the way he dresses. Karl is a regular performer at open days and special events at Sarehole Mill, and he can be seen performing songs and music at the Traditional Art Events at the Prince of Wales in Moseley. He also performs regularly at a plethora of open mic events. One of his recent poems is currently in the Pre-Raphaelite Society Journal, of which he is very proud. Karl has always enjoyed poetry since childhood and even won a certificate for a poem when he was in primary school. This love of poetry flourished when his academic studies took him to The Romantic period of the 18th and 19th Century, a period of time that

still fascinates him today. Karl is studying for a PhD in Pre-Raphaelite Poetry at Birmingham City University. Karl has always had a strong love of music and performed glam rock and punk as a teenager. The historian in him developed with age, taking him further back in time on his search for the traditional folk music of England. This has led to him learning to play a wide variety of instruments including the guitar, banjo, appalachian dulcimer, autoharp, ukulele, mandolin, concertina and harmonica. Karl is also known to sing a Murder Ballad every now and then. Karl has recently formed a duo with Kate Akars and I have seen them perform at the Station in Kings Heath - they are well worth hunting out if you enjoy traditional folk music. Until that time, you can see them perform on their own Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Eros, Cupid, blind and stupid youth, What gods bore ye? Raven or dove?

And thou art the product, thus of both; Pleasure and Pain, War and Love,

And thou shot hard, shot straight and true; Stifled my mind and clove me from dreams,

Yet who should you shoot poorly through? Scarce scratch the skin, pierce her seams:

The ambivalent maiden, with a beauty of stone, One who lives in the shadows, fixed in a frame,

Did she love me once? But now better alone, Her eyes are vacant, I daren’t call her name,

Yet enamoured am I, sick of her beauty, Fixed painted lips, scarcely a smile,

Speak nothing of purpose, meaning or duty; We lay and dreamt for days a while,

Hand me thy arrow, I shall make her love me, Pierce her harder, over and over again,

The folds that blind thee, they shall bind she, To hurt is to feel, and to love it is pain,

Yet feel she will not, she will not relent, To the arrows that pierce or the ties that bind,

Yet I feel or I think she must be content, To haunt my dreams and harrow my mind,

Is her sole purpose mere pure decoration? Why shoot a statue? Stupid hunter of hearts,

In this sick, shallow world of imagination, It’s love for love’s sake and art for art’s,

Tell me Eros, how can I make her feel? You, a god, must sure know her mind, Half a person; is half a love real? Her sugared words made me sick with joy, She, torn from paintings lost long ago,

To be half a man, no, barely a boy; A statue’s heart I can never know,

Would I dart ‘til all of her pain would relent, Just truly I longed in her bosom to rest,

I dart her til we, both spattered and spent, Grew colder and colder, now she does me detest,

I would beg thee shoot me, again, once more, If my poor heart could stand the thrill,

And go roving once more, on your hunting floor, Shoot, young Eros, shoot to kill.

Debbie Aldous https://m.facebook.com/ kateakersandkarlmerrick/?ref=m_notif&notif_ t=page_post_reaction https://www.youtube.com/user/kateak ers?fbclid=IwAR198oh2bKDEvmNLb0ytLJyUdu84SRcXir_YfbiTyF9bg0rwOJIbEe3VNg