January | 2011 | The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

the east pole

i have made this journey because no one else could

i realise that now

all my many stops and drops and turns

wandering lost as a pathetic lamb on the lamm

the twin scourge of drugs and pleasure sexual pleasure

the fire of inflammable anger

wandering down an endless hotel hall

i forget the number of my fucking room

oh my god i’m steve kilbey i just remembered

i’m floating along past all the doors

and all of you are inside sleeping sleeping peacefully i guess

but i’m out here

and here isnt all that bad

here isnt a war or a hell or any bad thing

but oh i was walking through the desert

no it must have been the library

i was checking into my room i was so desperately tired

i dont recall the city somewhere anymore

i took my key from the non-assistant and levitated to 13th floor

it had been a big big night

smoked a plantation of jazzy jazz jazz

drunk champagne drunk whisky drunk mescal

i snorted something white i dunno what it was s’posed to be

fuck your morals

this is a true dream story blog poem fact truth lie exaggeration

i was a rock star i was a pig i was a gentleman i was a child

yeah i snorted a line of powder

the truth is i love(d) all drugs and i didnt care

whatever it was was alright by me

i was tired excited bored restless nondescript

you see i was everything at once

and complicating matters

agreed to these 2 fucking idiots filming me for a whole day

they were making a doco

they had already paid me

i had already spent it

now it was aftershow and i just dont know

they climb into lift with me

i look at em

i actually like em

the geeza is an ok guy but hes a bit thick

he never understands one bit of my constant stream of irony

geeza :” hey steve are ya nervous tonight?”

me : oooh i’m petrified

geeza : ” really??”

me : no man i’m fucking joking with ya!

ha ha ha

but neither of us never learned

i kept on with my tedious irony

he responded with his tiresome credulity

look what do you fucking expect alright its me

so we stand in our lift that is slow lifting off

and i look at the geezas missus or assistant or whatever she was

now it seemed to me she was giving me a bit of eye

but i couldnt tell because she was silent pretty much

she was quite sorty too you know a bit of a sort

sort of nice you know

but being a man and being an animal and being a spirit

well thats confusing i dont know how to act

i have no idea if shes looking at me because

a) i am a wasted strange sad creature

b) i am an exotic sex god from another universe

c) shes actually looking at my wrinkles pores and pimples

d) maybe shes not “looking” at me at all

e) shes nervous on the first day of the job

f) shes actually got some of my records and is a fan

g) i have something like parsley on my teeth

h) some other unguessable thing

its a weird situation or maybe i just imagined it

maybe i was/am so out of touch

cocooned in my own crazy paving life

my travelodge home my suitcase full of lead

my ticket i couldnt find

i had plunged into hedonism i was deep in amnesia

was this yesterday it seems like it

in my life as if under a spell

someone seems to have edited it together slightly wrong

no that bit isnt meant to go there

so i’m standing in the lift with the stupid filmers

the nice guy who doesnt understand me

i dont understand him either but i dont wanna fucking film him do i?

and the woman/girl/ assistant/ sorty sort

a real good sort

the more we look at each other …

well i starting to think she is definitely looking at me

staring defiantly at me and definitely moving her lips

a series of pouts smiles tiny movements all rapidly gone

if the geeza notices this he doesnt seem to let on

hes busy filming it i guess

the assistants got the papers and wires and bits n pieces

we get to some room someone eventually lets us in

hes pointing the camera at me

fuck man i’m really fucking tired now

i have something to wake you up steve he says

yeah ? i say

he produces a little glass thing

out of somewhere he sprinkles some crystalline slivers

here he says

i take a big hit

fuck!

i take another

fuck!

i take a few more

fuck!

oooh time is gone all curvy and delicious

ooh how did i ever get to feel so ….oh warm as this

and oh no i like myself

and fuck what a nice room this is

and wow a guy with a freaking camera oh yeah i wanna talk

oh yeah baby i wanna talk my fucking head off oh yeah

oh yeah man starfish oh fuck oh yeah

im gushing a stream of bullshit and bilge

oh wow man you dig under the milky way?

oh wow thats so cool you like that song

i dunno if the geezas had any of the stuff

but the assistant is certainly indulging

shes taking a deep hit

the white smoke slowly oozing outta her nostrils

oh man shes gone from being a good sort

to an extra good fine looking pretty gorgeous sort

now for some reason this kind of good sort began to make me feel devilish

not totally evil terrible devilish but still not a particularly nice devilish either

im mean im a fucking working class bloke made good as a rocknroller

i got no fancy education i got no airs n graces

i’m a fucking man and i like fucking women

i cant help it no more can i help breathing air

and im sitting here looking at the assistant

and some very wicked delicious lecherous romantic thoughts

she passes the glass thing back

i sit there puffing away on this stuff

it doesnt really taste like anything at first

nothing at all

and then you start to discover its subtle flavour

yeah there it is as you exhale this surely poisonous breath

im waxing loquacious about some lyrics i wrote to the geeza

im feeling real good real real good

so good in fact im not even thinking about it

the gig the journey the flight the time the years the pain

well they all seemed to vanish into some long gone past

before i was sitting in this oh so cosy groovy hotel room

with my mate the cameraman the unironical geeza

i watch the assistant get up n go out of the room

it was a condo type gaff i was sharing it with someone else in the band

after a while i couldnt tell

i was raving like a typical foolish me

blah blah blah blah blah fucking blah

oh my my my

in the middle of a sentence the assistant comes back

shes uh changed into something more uh comfortable

now shes dressed in some straps

yes thats right

like the outline of a bikini but only the straps

no fabric

her breasts push through the straps

the straps go round her hips n thighs but theres no fabric there either

just these thin black straps

shes looking very dreamy

like shes sleepwalking or something

like shes venus just born from the shell

like shes just found herself in this room dressed in straps

much more naked than if she was actually naked

the geezas filming filming filming

i briefly wonder somewhere in my mind

is this a good thing this filming filming filming….?

oh fuck its too hard to think about stuff like that

here in this cosy little condo style hotel

with this pseudo lux furniture and groovy anglepoise lamp

the assistant is dancing to some beautiful music in her head

shes not that graceful but she doesnt need to be

shes sort of floating about like a big fairy

except fairies arent dressed in straps

i notice too she has decorated various parts of herself with lurid lipstick

well you can imagine which parts i hope

some parts purple some pink some bright red

now i never asked for none of this

but here it is its happening

(filming filming filming)

the assistant finally comes over to me

i find im sitting there without me shirt on

its getting warm in the cosy condo hotel style room

she squats at my feet gazing up at my face

her pupils are like black plates her skin is flushed

she gazes longingly at me as if i am jesus

or somebody nice

but im not somebody nice

the camera filming filming filming

the geeza seems to fade away

i guess thats what good cameramen do

they blend in

they do not disturb the wildlife as they migrate and mate

the wildlife feels comfortable with em eventually and does its thing

but nevertheless filming filming filming

my my

oh oh

mm mm

the girl is sitting on my lap

shes whispering something in my ear i cant understand

its in another language i suppose

shes wriggling against me

when we kiss its like a whole universe pours into my mouth

the female principle in her chemistry goes rushing through my system

im a man

im a series of chemical and electrical reactions to stimuli i encounter

i was encountering this and my system was responding accordingly

the kiss seems to last a million seconds

her mouth like a succulent fruit

after that things became blurred elongated truncated

i noticed all my clothes were gone

god i was feeling good

it seemed so logical

and still the filming filming filming

he never said a thing i heard

in spaces of seconds the assistant kept transforming

she was a child she was a panther she was a comedian she was a whore

and wow

daylight eventually was breaking through a window somewhere

and we were still uh engaging with each other

we were acting out little scenarios

i was being cruel to her

then she was being cruel to me

then i was being oh so unbelievably nice to her

and she was being oh so unbelievably nice to me

and she was nice

and she was so beautiful

and she was so female

it made me angry

and i’d be cruel all over again

and i was saying all the worst stuff

praising her to the high hills

and then calling her the worse names

every name except her own which i heard once n forgotten

and so on and on and on

you can imagine

if you can imagine then imagine some and then some more

i found myself taking a long hot shower

when i came out my film crew had gone

it seemed as if they were never there

fuck i felt rotten tho unbelievably aching n confused

i took a sleeping pill i had reserved for a long flight

soon i was in the black void of nothingness

i woke up that night kinda groggy but i did my gig

fuck i musta imagined the whole thing

it faded from my mind

half of me liked it

half of me hated it

it was nothing

it was gone

it was ephemeral

fair enough

anyhow got a dvd in the post the other day

ok wonder what it is…

oh!

fuck!

The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

Greenville acoustic show added : The Handlebar 21 Feb

penumbra # 13