The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

bark alone

yo malchicks and drongoes

here in spain after a long bumpy frightening fucking flight

nice hotel but close to prima vera festival which goes day and night

my room sounds like the cafeteria in a rehearsal place

10 horrible reverberating bands all going at once

my hotel is very nice

full of hipster bands with beards and tattoos

where will they all be in 5 years time? (nowhere)

i saw spiritualised play and they were totally underwhelming

completely with black chick singers singing lines like

“shine a light shine a light on me”

very original i don’t think

altho i like their records tonite was a dud

but great light show

saw chet faker nice beard and he once did a song with lou lous

he was ok

he’s big in spain!

tomorrow we rehearse all day then leave for cologne a 2 day drive

oh joy and fun

found some vegan food

(get thee behind me seitan!)

its nearly 3 in morning

wtf have terrible jet lag

bumped into jean zammit and geelongs own grantley buffalo

ordered a pizza from room service and it was out of a packet!

in a 4* hotel

fuck that i told em to stick it up their Castilian bums

and got my euros refunded

am feeling weird

gig tomorrow night

rah rah rah

see ya round you blithering ninnies

i love you

sk

sugar hit

hey groovers

its the big boy here

tomorrow i travel to barcelona

to play at prima vera festival with my band the church

then we are doing cologne (the city not the stuff)

and amsterdam, belgium, paris and brighton and london

then i will having a short stay in sweden

its e and m’s 24th birthday on the 7th of june

and i’m having a week off in Stockholm

doing nothing at all except yoga and relaxing and catching up with friends

maybe i will even get to the country

in the meantime i have been scoring macbeth 1040

which i am pretty pleased with

my friend george ellis the conductor and arranger

said that my soundtrack work is the best thing i can do

and hes probably right

at least for a movie like this where the music is weird

i can certainly drum up weird dark music

meanwhile still

a new(ish) project called

Vela Velox; The Speed of the Stars

is falling together

this is the one begun so long ago with frank kearns the irish guitarist

he was out last month and mixed 2 thirds of the album out at rancom st studio

with ted howard who had a big input on further/deeper and el momento albums

this is definitely shaping up to be the best lyrics and singing ive ever done

i finally got the mixture right here on this still slightly unfinished record

i need to write and sing some more

but the first batch was so good its a little daunting to keep up the standard

i am really so happy with this record

its hard to describe it

organic lush warm open soothing spiritual celtic influenced

something about franks playing and his sound invokes ancient ireland

far beyond guinness and leprechauns

the mood here is gentle transcendence with small details and subtle fleeting moods

the guitar is unusually orchestral

sometimes i cant figure out what is doing what

i play bass and piano

and wayne from cactus is the mighty walloping drummer!

as well as that ive been  writing lyrics for an australian singer

for an album which’ll come out sometime late this year i guess

so thats it

when i get back to australia then its the blurred crusade further deeper tour

which is actually selling very well in most places

i would hate you to miss out (oh god listen to me!)

see ya in europe soon!

sk

coogee nsw 2034

neighbour hood

continue to be confused

now i am a monk in this garden

contemplating jesus neath the gentle belgian may side sun

larks song as my theme all along

every gentle trimming cut to the hedges and trees must please nature

st etienne at the fountain praying for peace in the triple worlds

the past present and the future lined up like lovely girls smiling hallelujah

time flows from christ above this earth clung to by man and ox

christ in his golden city surrounded by devotee and no need for locks

this precarious life is protected by a thread

this meadow pouring through space into my fragile head

this butterfly leapt from its chrysalis as the light fled

this blood measured in the night the stars have bled

this flesh upon these bones like a suit i take on and shed

this sound of evening leaving us nothing instead

a part of everything i am

nowhere at all

nowhere to fall

christ with his lamb

meandering rivers co mingle never single strands throughout the land

forest refuge during deluge on my high hill listen so still

the swift and the crow down below alight on the vines

the flowers that line the canals edges like valentines

in reflective little eddying pools i see the steadying images of headstrong fools

in mirrors in ghost rain plane i hear the keening voice of a hawk

falling from a may side sky faster than the universe can talk

dropping in on the hare through the burning silent air

in a simple room where i eat bread and contemplate heavens pearling gated homestead

by candle light and gospel fire a cracking flame within the heart

silver box of forgetfulness

reminding me of the emptiness that is not darkness

finding me at midnight embers inner semblance of a glow

god given remembrance of things i could not know

in contemplation and repetition of his one thousand names

each attribute a famous virtue it wouldnt hurt you to proclaim

in a cosmic state of flux our saviour sun

maybe warms another blue earth

where sweet life has begun

hands some thing back

in aquatic pattern reefed and ribbed

i ascend in bubbles upward towards the dark night overhead the sea

away from the light of the submarine city which pulses in dull throbbing glow

many many fathoms below

in the element of water rising into aether

lives within a dream

dreams within and over lives

i have been everyone and everything

there was always a me behind all of them

the liquid law of all jungles

the precision of a beat in the heart of a symphony

the grumbling thunder that wakes me suddenly

the sea at night is a lonely place

in the hooded shadow of the choppy waves a dim beacon

the fresh and sweet water rain on the salt skin

the rubber suit like a sleek seal

gills of a man lie within my head set

in the fiery trail of andromeda in eastward skies

a living rising star burst from the nothingness

a cold new seraphim now guarding over our eden

eyes of blank marble fixed over the orchards

the land is so much faster

i ride glaciers through palaces and minarets

making incision in poppy watch the treacle ooze out

in wildest vision webbed fingers pull me in

where the shoulder fits into the chest mind has settled

spears rip through peaceful island dusk with a soft whirr

the moonlight on the surface in tiger striped black and glare

i remember the way you moved beneath the lightning sheets

the confident sinking into the floor then you were gone

in treacherous caves half flooded with sunset

and drowned doomed villages subsidence in lake

little fishes swim through the drawing rooms

and serpents hide like eels

in the roots of a white undersea mountain

read em n weep

lets go upstairs n read my tarot cards

the story so far

weird art mystic hippie kp buk deep in the vermontian wilderness

first heard steve kilbey sing in the school canteen

where his water turned into wine

something about that stuff old kilbo was singing made buk stop and think

and for years the percolation of the lyrics and then much later the art

going round and round the search for meaning

the struggle for implications to grow in the dense canopy of the present

mysterious words like sacred cannons blasting  holes in the blackness of nescience

all of it reaching out into the unknown

into other pasts and futures

things not or not yet happened

scrying the angels in the crystallised dust of a Charn courtyard

fossicking through ninevehs memory sticks stoned to the gills

the words the music the painting

signifying what did it fucking signify?

buk began to experiment

a divination?

notes from an occult diary

what did the spirits and the magnets want?

interviews with dead marines and children beyond tomorrow

soon it was conceived in a ten year rush

the titanic deck fell into place

modern idiosyncratic intuitive

every thing you ever wanted to know about the future but were afraid to ask

well here it is in pictures and in lyrics and in buks very cool interpretations

every card charged with mojo

and a book explaining how you will divine the future too

win horse races?

sweep the pools?

break the stock market?

lovers on the horizon?

no sweat!

the tarot of the time being knows the score

and spits out more revelations per read  than yer average al crowley deck

each card will hold the secret of the future in its glossy E-Z slip finish

totb cards are used by more shamans witches freaks and weirdos

than the nearest most popular brands

in fact many card reading knuckleheads have declared TOTB

“the future in a little box”

yes the book and the cards are now available

what are you waiting for?

dont miss out and have no future to tell of

while all your friends take up this great new offer

and are predictably predicting stuff all over the place

track money luck and love in the future reliably and securely

with TOTB

now in its deluxe second edition with a foreword by

the lovely donnette thayer

returned from alaskan wastes to pen this succinct and lovely intro

TOTB is your guarantee of knowing everything about everything coming down the line

you can order it from these very pages if you do but look

TOTB is the best protection you got against future shock and time-lag

get it today

and stop living in the past

yes

new improved

TOTB!

GET IT!!!

breatharian

on the vast high seas beyond the limit of worlds

we groaned and were whipped by lash of talon

black rain fell upon the great green rocks in the rivers mouth

timbers shuddering like a thief betrayed we sank down

but not on our knees…

an island loomed out of nowhere suddenly sanctuary

wild blossom jungled jangled with birdsong

a god strode in those sacred groves of wales

a new god in an old land

we fell upon the grape fallen by the fire

peering into the fearful mists by pelican shore

or forays into the maze of the studded woods forest facade

where grew sweet thyme and lily of the valley

distant castles brooded in crags upon foggy peaks

the double headed eagle in black on a blood red square

the moonlight upon the luminescent sands of our youth

the gold was all gone in tombs stripped by ghosted script

the crypt of the high king desecrated by the playful little breezes

the chamberlain whisper the poison wing words

in days gone by a spring drinking in summer effervescent life

caravan nights in silk sheets drum of love beats

love like a hit in the guts you sprawl then you crawl

the subject changes as a strangest angel alights

more monster than man the thing can sure fly

on board the arc the darkness was suffocating

i’m sure the market would be flooded with deluges

but subterfuge reigned therein

i am brambled and ivied

envied and i rambled into the scrub

my double vision was decision enough

mendicant wind fill my subtle sail

i am beached on a shoal in the rippling rushing sea

another sun another moon

beside tide filled estuaries

the cenotaphs and monasteries

f sharp minor

inside where it was soft

i was playing an old sad distant song

croaky voice cracking on the words

inside my rooms the echo lingered on strangely

in the vertical climb of the strings

the sudden fall of the bassoon

the prescient bark of the winged harpist

in the dim droning hammers

and the cagey crunch of crash legato found sound

i have summoned a song from the other song

the second song is standing behind me in my thoughts

a female song with its rushing little hands

leans forward to kiss my spine tingling gliss

glossy lipped song its wrong of you to be here

your notes and chords are frayed i cant read them

the wind blows through your verses

and random shouts of chorus are lost in the jungle

man that song belongs out there not in here for appearances sake

i trim the hymnal hem of the love song beyond enchantment

with pleasure crafted the unique many melodies

my fingers find another mind behind music

my lady song going all silent as her last notes fade away

i begin again at the ancient keys

to cities whose throbbing wriggling songs escape from their time

signature of star has faded from the neck and the bridge

my feet beat out the time as i bleat out the metre of the yard

its hard being special but euphonia blast is fast backwards quite quick

i’m sick of the bells she sells as sea shells i’m sure

my suit is my drug is my soul is my suit

the white notes are good

the black notes are evil

between them lies chasms with tiny monsters within

i keep on singing but its bringing me no peace

to have this new lease on my song

the lady song with the curvy fade  that fades out in sibilant reverberation

the cymbals all clash shes only wearing a bare tune

the lower notes are like an ogre in vogue sometime in byzantine valentines day

the mournful unborn squeaks of a flute

cute yes but fated to be booted out of the band

the tambo expresses the limbo as music in a photo

music as a ghost song in a ghost town

the barriers are down at midnight

when the flurries of quavers flew in through the stave

steven even you must admit and emit the divine elegy too

and yes i do

mid knight

the all father my baby

thought on one shoulder

memory on the other

why i give my eye

for that loss i gain

staring down at this world of men

hanging high in the ash tree cinders

i rescind myself to fate

i rekindle myself to fire

sadly flaming on for no one

nothing can stop this twilight

turning into night

once in the spring when everything was king sun

i followed the swans to their southern idyll

still basking by the river euphrates

or else lebanon land of cedar forest

the hermit deep within a candle room

meditating on gods grace almost face to face

there the prayer they gave

some will i save for myself

what on earth is this world

without the wealth swirled in her streams

how can i tremble so

below skies in vibrato

where is the sense in that

i’m condensing and coalescing

bless his endeavour whether  like it or not

the all father is all you got

eastwood abound

and then everything began to go even faster still

we hit horse latitudes running

kathy and dad and me

kathy said

look its just whats left after the fire

she pointed at the dull red flames that licked her sacred heart of forest

no i said

this is all going wrong

but dad said

be quiet both of you and help me with the distance

dad said

son you are riding your nightmare again

through the pages of peoples mind

dad said

kathy give him a little hand

she secretly smiled in her rudest way

but dad said

kathy thats a very nasty little smile

as we blew through cinders and the tier drops away

as we negotiated every hazard known to mens sons

dad look out i say so slowly

we swerve away motionlessly

as we start to dive without falling

things move through us as if we are dream

dad only smiles as turns on his controls

something invisible is steering us he said

he said

children hold on now

as we accelerated to a halt

as we fathomed the shallowest film of water

kathy said oh dad you are such a good driver

kathy said when we grow up then we fly

oh dad i want to bathe in mooned pools

and drift nile-like as queen so utterly enamoured

i dont even know what that means i said

i said

dad this is that new song i told you about playing now

and he turned it up loud and it moved about our speeding room

but he frowned at the wild bits and he yawned at the sad bits

kathy said

i feel like we are already there

and yes we were rushing towards zero a long division loomed

but i felt safe with dad there

and sometimes there were others who sort of seemed to be there

and the space shrank or grew at this sickened rate

and i sort of had a dream that someone was waiting for me to sleep

and someone came through and took something out of my back

it hurt but the hurt was a long way away

dad said

it makes people sad to hear all that stuff steven

why cant you talk about some funny show youve seen?

kathy said

i like that show about the mannequins who came alive

and the girl who turned into a turtle because she was such a slowcoach

and the book with that marvellous little man

who rode bullfrogs and toads in the roads that criss cross beneath our vision

she smiled as she remembered where we were

hurtling silently through the wild black yonder

the stars seemed to smile and whisper at us

dad said

steven it sounds like we are cosmonauts

kathy said

its just a game isnt it dad?

its frightening to think its all real isnt it

and dad said

why dont you two have a little sleep

when you wake up we will be there

but kathy said

well thats strange because i am already asleep

and i said

but i was awake all through the whole thing

dad was concentrating now though on his guidance apparatii

there were comet and whirlwind and soft summer evening all at once

i could neither sleep or wake up

steven why is your light still on

called dad through the door

but by then

i was so far away

crosstalk traffic

when the southern squalls falls upon the sealine

embedded with coral shrine

some intelligent designer

the divine swirling mingling with the supine ocean

i uncovered your gentle white skinned skies

as the crow flies

as the day dies

amongst the soft and dripping plants

my hands roam the slipping planets earth

the birth of immense within small

i call all your names into battered air

as if to set them free so let them fly unto you

my eyes flood just to think of you

the rapidly darkening clouds shot me red

under winter street lamps the rain blurs into diamonds

looking out from behind the north wind climbing the dunes

soon eventide will harmonise with the moons ray

today will be gone again

i say ok