The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

gossamer

a new voice has begun to talk in my head

amidst the clamour amidst the ebb of music

amidst the uncertainty of lives

a fantastic visitor lodged here in mind

a wonderful cruel philosophy fatalistic and abstract

this voice mumbles to me as it stumbles through me

sometimes a man sometimes a woman

sometimes a child sometimes a cat

over long outer long inner long lee

i said this night aches with memory

i look at the lights in the city ive seen

i wonder how far you can fall dont ask why

theres always forever you fell from a sky

falling through nights so much thicker than tar

and you fall and you fell and woke up where you are

no you crashed in the morning right out of the blue

looked in the mirror it was no one we knew

yes you looked through a window all covered in you

in valhallas where warriors wait for the wars

and paradise stranger than a lane changer

and heavens number seventeen and in between

and spells cast arithmetically

everything is still possible you see

my new voice suggests the most useful of guests

haunting out my mystery

whispering weird things it sometimes thus sings

all the love the virgin brings

all the moon on moth wings

all of a sudden the dull thudding of the clouds

yes my new voice has ears and it hears and it hears

listen it tells me listen to this and i listen and there is its bliss

fasten me to the mast boys i call out in my dilemma

as we float past the sirens off the island of alabama

yes ive heard the songs yes ive been touched by their words

i screamed at the men set me free  because ive heard

(so then i whose telling this story pleaded with my new voice)

tell me then of these marvellous visions !

on one condition

answers the voice so clear in my ear i wonder no one else can hear

and it says something strange i cannot decipher

an accent unknown pronounced with a quiver

a cypher a sound a glyph from beginning

a sign from the gods the harvest was coming

a wedding a feast a flaming blue summer

but i couldnt tell what ever its asking

i just agreed ; it was my greed to get on with the thing

i just said yes it was my guess that everything would take care

of the rest

but i wonder in a warm safe room in my past

the voice walk beside me wearing a mask

it touches my skin and enters therein

i remember places that i never been

i remember face that i never seen

i watch myself right up on that screen

i watch that screen what does it all mean

that screen in my head that the voice shows to me

that sea in my head when that voice flows to me

that wind in my head when that voice blows to me

that thought in my head when that voice knows to me

the simplest creature divinely inspired

beautifully made lovingly wired

hand fired

wrought from lust in love if so desired

fairy dust encrusted

trusting not all her jewels to mere fools

knowledge  a deep chasm in an ocean of  folly

as you go further down theres more to be known

and the secrets are obvious as soon as revealed

but up until then their sense was concealed

like a pressure or increase in the outer shield

like an undetected presence in the magnetic field

like life within a tomb

like death within the bloom

watch her walk across the room

the voice says just try and understand

how the sea and the land love each other with rivers

the comets overhead are the returning souls of the dead

(at this my neck was aquiver in shivers)

the rain is alive as it falls from on high

and the pain that you feel is in some ways unreal

and the joy that you take is in some ways an ache

sometimes you bend sometimes you break

sometimes you dream that youre really awake

sometimes the grace of the system slows it all down

you might get to re-live it again and again

you may live to regret it over and over

of course i can never translate what i saw

in the gaps of synapses that acted like doors

the voice then is silent

i stand here alone in my head as dry as a bone

i call myself on my inner eye phone

bring bring

hmmm no one home

a white shot in your heart

christ

i am reborn in far off lebanon

mosaic spring heralded by a carpet of poppy

golden carp swim up honeyed streams and echo in reflection

the frenzied mating of the ibis

the cocoon of the bat

in between fig trees taller than clouds strides a noble lion

the crush of grapes leads to such a fine fine wine

yes drink if you are thirsty

drink and sleep and dream

oh the gentle sun nudges me forward in your footsteps

we pass shrine after shrine on the road to joppa

we hear of miracles we hear of devils

in the quiet of cities we can only see

the forest implies itself upon arrival

a great mossy portal

feeling of being watched

the snake says nothing

the worm broods in earth

a monkey or two in the canopy

their sad human eyes trapped inside animal

oh yes i see everything now

even the distant sea which burnt far off in morning

even the garden with white walls where you played as a child

my thoughts tremble upon uttering these words

we loved each other more than this world deserved

my hands slump from wrists

mammon hammers me

male day upon female night

male wisdom within female magic

male anger inside female scorn

an egret at the edge of a heavenly lake

the bright green frog in its mouth represents mankind

the clear blue water at its feet represents ripples in time

the egg in its nest represents the ever replenishing future

where my heart exists in song

my father moving through the mountains snows

my mother at the edge of solomons pool

my wild sister at the frontier of her glorious madness

pleasured insane by the sentience of all things

each word had its own colour

each colour had its own sound

she can perceive with ease a creatures name for itself

her eyes fly with birds she has tamed

as she lingers alone at the end of a day

awaking from reveries given by god

as eden was stolen by harlots and thieves

and the tigris was filled with the blood of our adam

and it floated through memory staining the banks

it set man and woman together apart

both expect mercy but neither will give it

both need forgiveness though neither will have it

with one eye i can see the passing decades

with another the rich threads of each second dissolve

i know that my saviour kneels in clairvoyance

and hearing the throb of the sin in this world

and my love dressed in black stands at a funeral

and whose grave is that if it is not mine?

and my children in roses under her bluest of sky

and my friend strides beside me grim and so fair

and our arrows are knowledge of nature and science

we never ask how we only ask why

go home to your wives and lay down in love

go home to your beds and lay down in sleep

tomorrow again the morning star rises

spirit nature love dream come

if i am indeed your son and your sun

and your only one

i ask you this and only this

reverse treacherous time which is up to my neck

more life is all i crave

more flowers more hours more lovely days of summer

a refuge from winters cloying claw

dark bloody winter with his train of frost ghost

dead soulless winter quiet like death

hard hollow winter with pieces of skin

whitened black winter his face is a skull

i once knew a woman in nescient egypt

her magic was growing stronger each year

but all of her hemlock and philtres of nepenthe

couldnt absolve me from each fleeting  minute

and none of her fingers all ringed in mute sapphire

and none of her toes all ringed in screaming gold

and none of her souls surrounded by jet

and  none of her prayers which were guided by light

and none of her sisters who were spirits of trees

the oak and the fir and the spruce and the pine

they danced with the fauns at the back of her dreams

a fever she got when she visited tyre

a wind had swept out of the mountains in rage

and it visited plagues on the temples of set

that same old serpent who constricts this globe

the one who offered  fruit to another mans wife

the one who descends in a fog of thick blackness

shadow the sun in a shroud of cold intent

no day can come through eclipses like that

no star may break through those raptured in lies

but my saviour with  his armageddon eyes

he lives and he breathes and he hears and he sees

the planet we standing on suddenly gone

and he smiles and is secretly pleased

see sick

oh my

kitten kaboodle

you made me laugh in the middle of next week

right out the other side of my face

into the softest night now you can run free

down by the sure thing

around the square

feline made a beeline

kitten kaboodle with a little poodle

kitten not smitten merely bitten

ooh a big red car gonna run you over there

you think i care?

theres a nice honest mouse that lives in that house

i bet he tastes nice (if you like fucking mice)

he licks up your tears

maybe after years n years n years n years

and after many many beers

he’ll appear not so queer

its hilariously sad

so sanely mad

so goodly bad

transparently obvious

obviously transparent

he shower you with gift

oh brother he smother you with love

he take you to bondi vet

he give you anything i bet

he’ll gobble the morsels you chuck him

all you gotta do is……

oh well theres always a catch

close yer kitty eyes ( he’s half yer size)

think of england natch

it wont take too long

not like his song

that seems to go on n on n on n on

at night if you can still get out

i bet you soon out n about

looking for a much bigger rat kitty kat

and now

thats that!