The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

illumination

the beautiful forest grove that leads to a pale sea

cockle shells and looping terns the ferns and the stones

afternoons of forgetfulness still vaguely remembered

the way a woman swayed before me afraid of some shadow i saw

the day i prayed to your poseidon beside pools they say

the god often comes to cool his heels in the hot aegean sun

lovely old blue haired king ocean his tunic undone

yes frolic in the shallows with them narrow waisted nymphs

yes shake the sodden earth to its fiery centre you have this power they say

these island studded waters full of monsters and easy landings

i steered starboard in my wreckless craft after your storm blew me off course

now the birds have returned for evenings weakest worm still squirming in the light

among the pines i dine on crystal waters from a flask

as night hath dropped i crawl into my tent hellbent on a dream

as i fall asleep some baying creature beseeching solace from a moon

then in my dream i realise i am at last awake beside a still lake

eerie mist is rising rendering me a little spiritless

on deck i am in lying in bed looking at the back of a persons neck

as the ripples spread over head in a river bed

and fish turn into whales downstream

weeping willows with tears of rainy sorrow bend down around the bend

on sandy days in youths distant haze my hands graze your skin

this is where the water and the land begin

this is where the fields of heavy poppy yield their first sin

this is where we tear down some pagan idol with its vile offering

this is where we first meet the harridan enslaved by a saracen

someone said good morning so far away and yet i could hear it

fearing a sudden downpour my dream went indoor

in the light of the weak sun my greek conquests seem no fun

in the sight of the quiet creaking trees and the pebbly brook run

in the valiant fight of leviathan and plankton

the milk like horizon slightly curved merged with the sea

and the velvet curtains of oblivion fall upon the city

white flood

i’m glowing in the dark baby

i came in out the rain

the sea and the salt have rusted my metals

in weed and in foam now let me adorn you

the clinging brine has swept into my eyes and blindsided me

the rushing sand that comes with the storm

the coldness of the onset of the drop

temperature plummets out of the night sky

chemical smell of the fix on bright paper

i chart the rise and fall of civilisations within a single drop

i am only the messenger sent out who forgets the message

in a sudden flash i am revealed turquoise and grotesque

in meaningless symbols a download into your sweet head

in rambling storeys let me describe my fathers house

in trails of vapoured souls a fabulous picture emerges

in dells and dales we will walk with the beloved one

in frequent squalls the winds will reach 100 knots and undo them all

in a laneway of a street i met up with an old friend in for the long hall

in a bar where lovers drink milk of amnesia and touch each others faces

in a vacant lot a lot of strange things were going on

i come to you as before damp and bewildered

ashore for the night my uniform is lost

a miracle in the darkness has increased my appetite

the more i have the hungrier i become

goodbye to sugar goodbye to wine

goodbye to honey goodbye to awful things

the rain has a peculiar sound and it makes everything so quiet

i am so alone in my room full of odds and ends

no evens or beginnings in sight

the night is my lovely friend though i know it tho its young

drifting swirling storms i welcomed you with opened arms

the starfish in rockpools are slightly trembling as shots hit the surface

i am embraced by the tide under a wave i promise to be braver

i am drowned in the wrecked bed of devouring dreams  streaming live

the black waters hammer the land i cant say i really planned to stay

in lyonesse i knew a beautiful spell much less than yesterday

your window ever open someday maybe i will magically reappear

bringing you diamonds from the minds and life from a spear

deep summer

tonight of all nights

tonight when i should be working working working

i slip down to the piers and jetties among the fisherman

sitting in the gentlest softest rain that falls from the white night sky

in the softest touch on my face infinite droplets

my black umbrella above like a crow i go along the bridges

under wavering lights dimly humming with moths

the spray drifts to earth slower than snow

a fugitive from myself i slink into the alleyways and trees

i shrink from my shadow which almost cannot be seen

i reach in my pocket and caress the raised ridges of a credit card

the water in my shoes is warm i slosh along then pleasantly

the label in my shirt sometimes scratches my neck and distracts me

everything i see or feel or hear keeps passing through me

i love everyone i see although it is very very dark now

the loving rain coaxes the plants from the soil

the loving sun pulls the water up from the sea

the merciful clouds raining their miraculous gifts

sometimes lightning thunder and hail but not tonight

under my own authority i have skived off work

i run across vast coastal plateaus soaked through my nine lives

people stop me to say things but the lovely rain muffles the voices

i look at their faces so soft and wonderfully dim

under the arc of the clouds

under the blankets of a  hazy darkness

cars streak past in street with gurgling gutter

impression of drain moving under us swollen in flood

impression of some beautiful cat eating some bird

impression of sobbing child about to give up forever

my encyclopaedic brain with many pages missing

i abandon my boots barefoot on the pavements

walking and walking wherever i’m going

impossibly quiet in the lanes near the sea

i suddenly wish i was home

alone in my scruffy room with guitars and pastels

and the sound of my fridge purring away in the heat

i would sit at my keyboard and type type type

i would come up with something

i’d be safe and i’d be warm

i could lay down and sleep

and then

i would be free

gimme yer hands

my friends we have lived through this night over and over

aftershave and winebars

a thousand cigarettes later

you sitting down on a beach talking to some girls

when they ask you your name

you cannot remember

the evening has overwhelmed you hip and unexpected

the whorl of time unravelling slow as it does

squashed into a booth its hard to read the menu

alone under the creaming stars its vertiginous suddenly lurching

people scream over the din

at the idiot inside me who nods and grins

and agrees with their multi chewed off sins

i guffaw and i shout waving money about

somewhere outside myself someone hovers watching

the streets crawling with cars black silver white

i exit through a door in the wall

we walk along through streets of memory

laughing out loud at nothing in particular

we walk through the shadows cast by towers and sphinxes

the bridge in your gardens bright with pantheon decorations

learning to embrace south east asia

i accepted these monsoons and these buddhas as my own…

in the warehouse downtown

they are watching yachts racing in emerald seas

i long to be free of these old days and their films

i sit under coloured lanterns drinking saki in the village precinct

i drive my sleek car to fantastic parties

degenerating into sordid glamourous orgies

i pull out my triple golden cards i am gained admittance to pleasurable nights

with bankless banking i summon money from the static into my pocket

i give arms to the poor who are rich in memory and in hope

in a backroom over a deal i feel real lucky i’m a singer

as someone counts out the fifties shifty eyes fall upon me

but i come with my words they have all heard

it calms them to hear the sweet music in the air

over a coffee by the ocean i over hear them plot a crime

they invite me to write the music for their knavery

life is surreal when youre a surrealist

hey its saturday night what do i care?

i let myself be driven on long seaside boulevards

in the back where i sat indulged in the view

the salty air flew past us healing and wholesome

a strike of empathy

as a plane in the sky sounds like stravinsky

there are get-togethers up and down my street

booze fuelled merriment and dissent

paddy wagons cruise laneways and alleys

in a lift we go up to a suite in the skyline

they jump out offering you the fucking moon if you want it

soon youre relaxing by a pond in a faux forest

curvaceous dakini like beings sit and chat to you

in charming accents soft and demur

can we just check your nsw driving licence ? they say

can you tell us the expiry date on your visa?

dishevelled you stumble out of the elevators

disoriented in the oriental bent of the cherry blossoms on clark street

you wander into a seven eleven and order a rissi frutti

the queue softens a little as you bid your adieu to your few friends

you can see the glittering coast at the end of the road

casinos and motels and white haciendas with metallic shutters

the drugs are kicking in all over sydney right now

as an empath to the stuff i am drowned in somebody elses rush

like it or not my heartbeat increases in the rushes own hush

i reach for a light in the dark

our hands touch for a moment

but then youre in another room

gossipping loudly with the indian major and the lady from greece

i could hear their stupid laughter after all the noise ceased

on the balcony with a cocktail with a funny name like total control

it had 8 white spirits rolled in the punch bowl

the sea fog rolls in drawn upon by the expiring heat of the day

saturday night rapidly eroded as sunday morning wilfully extrudes

in the mirror on the deck i am looking at the ruin of my face

the city in the distance one way

and out to sea a few odd lights

the air is so delicious you are drunk on your third breath

the night promises forever as it hurtles to its midnight

3 hours only remaining in your game that you play with someone elses name

in the park by the boardwalk we stopped and talked above the rain

i turned and said goodbye it was quicker than having to lie again

you stood there as if for good there

in the coolness of the sand

the sea begins to understand the land

azimuth velocities

hazy azure pool in evening garden

we dip below the surface far down there thinking

impressions of other summers

come rushing into ending

chlorine nighted cloak

power of invisibility

the slam of the wave you caught goodbye

motels courtyards with statues of the david you said

the palms are almost royal said somebody else

in a fish n chip shop standing in the queue

a former mermaid before myrrh made her see

she saw our land before we set foot on this shore

the pavilion like an colonial indian palace

history on the ocean that laps rocks into sand

the crabs run into green crevices waving their claws

the windows of houses you have never entered

amidst the debris a fortune never claimed

among all that wreckage one thing to remember

i started to say it yet then i forgot

one thing to take with you

but it fell by some wayside

in a chasm one day i’ll stumble upon it

i’m sure

dope vignette

i hang out my clothes on the line

on a still grey day

it is exactly the right temperature according to my skin

some soft summer i move in

garfish swim through the sea pool

then raspberries and banana

coffee no sugar

smoke the good bush

lovely music from somewhere

drifting through the universes

beyond all chagrin

the clouds are white and curling about

they billow above the billows below

life is quiet in the empty communal garden

the bees half asleep even as they hum through the air

the pollen guiding them everywhere

i go inside so dark and cool

i lay on a bed of dreams and wait

beautiful dreamer a wake unto me

the pleasant fall into the mind

yeah take me somewhere else for a while

i am out of ideas

and its time to take time

jaundiced singer

roses the smell of attar

statuettes of beautiful saints

a yacht appears on a painted horizon

tiny box containing heart

figurine of exalted god in pranayama

the delicate taste of the rain

the morning i will return again

the rivulet floods feeding the roots of an oak

bespoke reeds complete with a swan

a signet asleep in the cloak of the lake

shadows of nights

imagine the amniotic universal fluid

holding everything in its courses

planets all spinning and moving and turning

everything racing forward with everything else

we are not where we were 5 years ago my friends

those cosmic rays have filled my head with their blaze

the stars are not fixed

feel us hurtle along

careening into song

i float through seaside night a white film

my senses dimmed i saw the moon rimmed by the sea

i saw the gardens miraculous in crimson green

i feel the tide change down by the shore

i am now alone more and i paw the air

i take off my clothes and slunk through a dark

the memories of these roads cloaks me in its glow

the refrain from the drains as if singing swollen with the rains

at the cafe today i realise with dismay i’m already losing my way

like a moebius strip my mind was ripped and reassembled with a twist

my skull which contains everything withins its corridors

decorated with eyes and mouths the fetish at the crossroads of Desire

i remain at the entrance tapping a wire

Sycorax the witch seized me by the chin and she look in

good boy… she says with her  sexy old grin

and then

good boy..!

again

colourfaster

soft grey day

sleepy sleepy man i sleep all day man

it says its raining i whisper to a black pillowcase

i am still alive somewhere my friends

the dreams pour out of me in my pleasant room

(where am i?)

my heart has slowed down to a distant drum

i hear the blood pound lazily in my ears

as it sloshes through the machine that holds my soul in

i am enamoured of the haze settled in the green back garden

i sit up in bed it is every morning like this ever

i sit up in bed with my grey eyes open

i am alone it is silent

i dont remember my name or why i am here

i am out of context

it is lovely not to remember it all

how it all went so wrong and so wrong

wagging tongues and fingers gone

i awoke to a new eden of amnesia

i was adam in a bed in a pleasant room

trying to name all my dreams

i have been sleeping for year it seems

so much had transpired but it was all quickly evaporating

my heart broken cursive script upon the pages of dust

mirrored the looming morning glow like a hovering cotton wool bandage

the blood was the red rays of an alien sun

yes i sat up in bed and i looked at the trees

decked with leaves and lanterns

last nights revels now muted in morning

yes i sat in bed and i forget what i was saying

i looked in a mirror someone once put there

i sit looking at a me they have thrown together somewhere

some delicate thought has vanished on my tongues tip

the insurgent day has lost its way and everything has halted

a plane freezes in the sky

the birds have all gone so quiet as if in anticipation

but

i have accelerated through

bang bang bang the frames come down

behind the brain somewhere i sit and move faster

freedom in the greying day

freedom in the soft rainy night

i sit in near silence typing in the little apt in which i live

type type type

the stuff comes out of nowhere

thunder mooted clad in big old boom boom boom

lightning flash down and strike these southern seas

i drink lychee juice and smoke the fucking herb

as sleep approaches in the humid gloom

i am living in this weird future now

i need sleep in this deep warm night

out there people are getting into some real bad scenes

not this little boy tucked up listening to the rain

hoping for more and more rain

willing it urging it causing it bringing it

in the darkness i am no one

warm and safe and anonymous within the soft night

somewhere out there

the ambulances rush through the cloudy streets

the policemen with sirens blazing

the dealers and wheelers whirl into action

in my tidy pleasant room

my shirts hanging up

asleep to it all

i am dead to that world