The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

mo jo

spring has come to sydney in the middle of winter

my life is stranger than most strangers

a long time ago in another universe

i was a junky

and every day a very good friend of mine

who was also a junky would pick me up in her VW

and we would make the long drive out to cabramatta in sydneys west

where in the mid nineties there was very good heroin to be had cheap

my friend was a musician and we drove out there which usually took an hour

and on the way out we were sick and twitching

we arrive and she always waits in the car while i duck up the stairs

up to a karaoke place but no one up there is fucking singing

theres a guy at the door

hes got half a gram of smack in a 150 buck wrapper

you can have as many as you like

the stuff comes straight from vietnam presumably

its fucking deadly good

it was killing people

man you bought your stuff and you fucked off quick

these cats selling it are hard faced bastards

jump in the car

we drive to this weird remote kinda park thing in the middle of nowhere

and me and my friend would hit up our sweet poison and the mood would change

everything looked so refreshed in the light of that fix

as we drive home we are relaxed and loquacious

drive so politely and within all the laws to the tee

this happens day in day out for a long time

on our drives out there and back

we chart the courses of other junky musicians

my friend has all the latest goss on whos using the stuff

at the same time i came across these records by glide which really impressed me

glide were chucked in with shoegazer but in fact they were much more than that

they were around mid nineties

hell they even did a gig with us

william approached me

its an honour to be playing with you he said and shook my hand

i think i told him how much i liked glide

and how good it was to have them playing with us

i listened a lot to a record called shuffle off to buffalo

it was no surprise when my friend began to mention williams name

on our daily pilgrimage to sydneys heroin mecca

the music somehow suggested as much in some subtle way

only a junky would understand

a lot of shoegazer is perfect heroin music

anyway glide really had something going for them

before william who was the singer and mainman went and overdosed

one day when she picked me up

my friend said

william died . he OD ed

i sat there feeling sick and worn out and sad

my first impression was to envy him

that he had found some warm safe haven in the embrace of an opiate overdose

this would not be an unpleasant way to die

youd go out on a carpet of dreams

obviously my thinking was warped twisted and totally fucked up

but in the end i just shrugged

another victim of her-o-in

i imagined i’d probably be coming along pretty soon myself

i didnt care

life as a junky was a half-life as Karin used to say

my impression of william arthur is that he had some real fucking talent

these songs anticipate a lot of what was to come

he was an audacious witty poignant writer

the band play with impressive fury and restraint

the guitars often sound orchestral and ambiguous

anyway

i am having the pleasure of singing 7 songs at a glide night

vanguard newt-town 21 and 22 of august

one day i wrote a song about those days

and its called keeper

the speed seems to have slowed me down

we talk about william from glide

the names of the towns go past

im driving on the wrong side

another shot

and the land of light was peel back and reveal

as the brooks rush down into the the thirsty sea

as the cloudiest baby zephyr still within eos

invoke then the solemnity you needed

fiddling around with buttons and diodes

man you hammer on and off

some constraining angel harkens to your tune

you persist beyond death

you increase within time

just when they were gonna give up

hit and blindsided and run

some chick took off her pants in a strobe

while you sucked on the cola betel hula hooper

you hoovered up a line of prose straight up your little nose

you cried poor at the door of in-laws as the snow thaws

flying in the face of shredded decencies

you vacillated between the grotesque and obscene

holding third or forth on the life of some queen

under the blankets the best darkness i never seen

the trembling is still upon me or is it writhe in remorse

i hurl the chasms frame over my name

switch on for the next game

ive got babylon sister what about you?

a tremendous feeling of smugness and superiority crushed by a feather

gliding i pull alongside you

i decelerate to enter the intimately lit space

the eyes in your face

the solar panic flare of the cameras flash reflect off your lenses

forming your past in regrettable future tenses

inside my chest my heart must still beat

although i am virtually hidden to the world

in an arcane inn where i winter in austerity

my conscience pricked by thorny problems

i paint away at my lathe bathed in sweet sweat

in yoga asanas i am receiving a confidential transmission

but the years have their hooks in me

the days and their barbituate ways going under again

down by the transparent sea where you can see anything

i whirl upon the shells in my rubbery wetsuit thrusting shoals aside

i embark upon the lilting underwater trees of the coral corridor

i am knight of spades a real conquistador

my theatre of war amour

the residue still on the balcony

blue ray

when the electric strike hits the sky vein

and explodes in the earths head like a whiteness opaque

this whole reeling planet is circumambulating a little son

if you took just one minute to look under the rivers hood

and search the pockets of a woodland strip

hipped to the waste of blue max alpine air

lake redolent ripples away and away in water coloured waves

the owl busted the mouse falling out of heaven in dread beating wings

and art nouveau frog left croaking on a dying tree

their reflections are the shadows of other days other times

when i lived as another faraway in some painting

oh yes a lovely world slipped out from vishnus gorgeous pores

as he dreams in the causal ocean

and from him emanate baby universes like this one you hold in your hands

from the great unnamed event that has at least one thousand names

as scientists get nearer to god in a queue outside a bank

they begin to approach him in wonder

with their little measuring sticks and their little gauges

like ants who argue over weighing the moon

the guys in suits who say only war will save us

but blessed are the peacemakers

i looked before i hesitated

and i leapt before i was lost

my words are some mere distraction

from the horrors around you

it was a real pleasure

to feel you read me today

fuck

some weird infection got me the other night

freezing and boiling and recoiling in horror

i lie in bed and follow rivulets of reverie

in deep dark places i come across the strangest things

i exchange information

the banging in my head continues

i hobble around

my much vaunted vim dimly remembered

singer poor eyes

as this century begins to rush by

whilst slowing drab hours into years

i pause and wait for the next thing to say

i cause and placate and sing for today

i call upon the melody of the moonish lark

unfurling her stratospheric elegy in a mourning sky

how i

would love to climb up there into the realm she promises

but there are no women drinking or gambling on the premisses

and on the premise of all these things i began to sang

and sings about the sea lyin’ beneath this sand

in another time and in another land

i would put my hands together and pray for that ray on demand

and the secret transmission of yoga

that emanates attracting all animals of the spectrum

the red setter

the blue finch

the gold fish

the black cat

the whitest horse snorted up with derision

i am everything at once a diagram of what i could be

humble men dont say they are humble

so how do i say how humble i am?

humble as a tiny krill be sucked into some whales maw

humble as the jumbled jimbo in the bath

dreaming further and further away

yeah i too have seen these crystal scenes of eastern architecture

in the darkness as your lungs just become slower and shallower

seized by the seas tranquilities

you follow a whisper to your own doom

whose hand in that night was laid upon my shoulder

and who guided my footsteps to the shore of life..?

out there in space and in my wilderness

drifting over the pharaohs tombs in another egypt

the sight of myself in my daughters eyes

the shift of good and evil

trick of perception

a dance or a game

it will always hurt to love sang the women with me

my reverie gone i am revealed as wanting

a chorus follows me around an immediate mirror

i sing now from truth beaten around a little

imagine the stupidest lie recontextualized as a killer line

a gun that blows even ghosts away

imagine the world outside no longer is there

we are together in this song so light heartedly

and then wonder again

at tiniest things

he sings of these

forever please you

uncaptioned

picking up momentum

secrets only slowly reveal

so many memories

a long eventful life

all those w0rds i write going round

up n down in the pool again

another day will pass

music children painting

more life more to live

in my quiet room

where i work work work

play play play

closer to the sea

courtyard with floorboards and little plants

rain gently falls

my dreams will be amazing tonight i think

symbolic and prophetic and gone by morning

tuesday ruby red will rise from a green sea

no one bothers me or bothers about me here

so quiet

my daughters are all delightful

every single one what a blessing

every day they all amaze me

i hope i dream of some of them at least

let me dream of children i knew half a century ago

yet here i am still fired by some vigour

my mind and energy burn on and on

intensity and focus increase

let me sink into black slumber

where naked velvet flesh downy and fresh

cushioning my endless fall from grace

with the face of a fox tell me that

a spirit honours me with its whispered words

the rainy courtyard is drip drip dripping

buddhas and shrubs in some soft light from windows

i feel a sacred connection to the night outside

grateful for this peaceful room

i will lay down and let my furtive mind wander

in the dormant and deep turmoil of sleep

photo of me

on the bottom of the old white pool

winter swimming for endorphin fix i ever the junky

endorphin fix from twenty minutes of cold sea water is something baby

it aint nothing

man after that i sit out there and drink a coffee

i am blissed out on my own neurotonics and wow

every now and then i see a beautiful thing

winter arrives like a cold strumpet in my room

am i really in telepathic contact with some animals

or am i losing my mind?

i bought some thing sweet and i ate too much

i wish i could work harder

i think about about god and death a lot

five daughters are treasures i will bequeath for a better world

last night i listen to F/D

fuck!

i must not say too much

i’m doing a painting

i think about jesus

i think how much he would despise abbot and those guys

its so obvious

have they ever read the bits about looking after yer fellow man?

my thoughts are distracted by the model sopwith camel Chris b gave me

a book of indian tattoo i will comb through to see if i can recontextualise

a buddhist prayer deck from H Heart

i pull a card at random

people this is what it says

those whose minds are

filled with compassion

will never enter a world dark with woes.

no real harm will ever 

come to anyone who 

protects all living beings

and shows them kindness

so i love my buddha

i love my krsna

i love my jesus

i love the god of my understanding

not evolution

not jehovah creationism

i dont imagine you are ready for the totality of my god

i dont imagine for one minute i am either

but i have glimpsed

i have felt

something so fucking brilliant and so fucking compassionate

we are it

it is us

we are all one and separation is an illusion

yes but how to actualise that

i see some smarmy rich dressed up businessman type waddling along

i say to myself i love this man i love this man

some voice in my head going

like fuck you love this man..! you gotta be kidding me!

god says to me tell them this then

everything was and always will be here

our imperishable souls cannot be touched

we learning kid we learning

god says if you really want to work for me go ahead

that bass guitar of yours is a holy instrument capable of transmitting joy

with your words you can describe me forever and yet never come close

the creation of music and art

this gorgeous act of prayer and a wing

that white sheet of paper

that finger on the first note

the first word of your most achingly lovely song

let this heal those who are listening

fucking hell i have given them clues for the last 35 years

smoke some dope and listen to my music

there is sometimes something in there especially for you

you gotta wade through all those songs

but i digress

F/D will soon emerge

all will be revealed

i stake everything my judgement on this one roll

here it is

it took me until now to be able to be part of a record like this

all your preconceptions are mostly wrong

no one anticipated this

some beautiful muse guided all my actions

the band played on and on

we entered a creative realm where we mined songs from other universes

i mean how could some of this not be written before now?

familiar yet peculiar .

the record and sound has more layers that reveal and reveal

you will not be able to take it all in on first listen

you will only know that we have made one hell of a good record

soon you will begin to love it

we all stepped back and let this music in

the words were written in a secret book a strange angel gave me inner dream

how could i have written some of these couplets? where did they come from?

how did 4 musicians stumble across these lovely new but old songs

i dunno

i’m otherwise just a humble bloke in his humble room

humble except i happen to be on a roll and i know this is good

its like something that is purring along so fucking smoothly

walloping and caressing

warm and edgy

the whole record is a paradox

still i cannot explain it

i know a lot of you are dubious

i dont blame you

its hard to wait another few months before we can let it out

meanwhile

i swim

i do yoga

i hang out with my kids

i watch say lou lou and feel a deep parental pride that is surprising

because i am a cynical old bastard

i weep for ll the atrocities committed during last week

and all the atrocities that will come no doubt for the next seven days

the fucking idiots that run this stupid world

the beautiful cats like kip and JT and DR who make you have faith

the children

the future

room for every creature to live their life in peace

grant everything the mercy you would have god grant you

meanwhile F/D is gonna rocknroll your tiny world my friends

wait n see

you gonna love it or else!

empty frame of fame

all these options are driving me crazy

like some dumb stratocaster towering above me

its hearsay  the crowd used to love me alive

i was pulling it all in

i was tapped deep into the arcane shrubbery my legs all rubbery

my hands were slippered in gloves of satinate sequinned eyes of philip

in virtual miles i am taller than your house nestled into its hill

i visited the king in his exile-ish thing

hes down by the sand in a shack he built with his bear hand

the yoga and the sea did their magic on me

in fragile caves jesus saves my soul

in vast universes of blue light

the maintainer still holds back the oncoming night

in the wing or song of some bird i have heard

in a handshake in a dark place surrounded by shadows

in rushing trains and planes that shoot down lines

in the little girls heart a warm place for her dear father

alone in my room that i sit in as slumber beckons

i need nothing i have nothing i will become

in the blackness of dreams i will fly jungles and cities

old black cat inside a hollow dome

my old home away from alone