The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

weed of mirth and wisdom

at an impasse non-plussed

unfabricated i write:

wading through the shallow warm sea toward home

the evening is my girl and she is soft towards me which is all i ever asked

evening arranging herself on the horizon

evening in my head all darkness and twinkle

man i must be getting on

all the street lamps in their pink aura quietly fizzing and crackle

come on evening i say coaxing her up the street

older than the hills yet as new as you like…lovely evening

if people stare at me it seems it is that the evening is on my mind

(some idiot has stolen the moon for crying out loud..!)

man you should slow down with that moon shine 

says a voice in another room

the palm trees career by you know

and luxury cars hover in auto-drive

you just felt them whoosh away

tomorrow is the first day of some new summer

whispers a secret voice inside us

the wah wah guitars chatter like bird women

the rumbling thunder almost erased by the sound of distant merriment

evening stumbles through the door all over your floor

evening at the club with her girlfriends

evening in the murk of midnight stagger lonely

evening furious and silent and out to sea

evening lost and lingering in fairy dust

evening in baubles and bright shiny beads

well out in the kitchen i fixing evening a drink

theres syrupy booze and effervescent zing

theres the strong stuff i gave to the weather

theres a bit left from the bottle of optimistic muscat

evening oh evening where are you now baby evening..?

lying low in a graveyard… she answers as if from afar

and i feel a shiver run through the air

fuck it i think now i will never get any softness from her 

(oh being this selfish really wears you out though you know)

instead i waltz into the room with my macedonian macadamias

my maple neck is studded with golden frets

and a solemn bridge of a nose which unites left and right face

evening sit down on my rug from Dalmatia

evening listen to the music i have slaved over for you

no wait right there… says the evening

because maybe i am just another night to you…

with that, a mournful cello sings out its descending figure

inside my fugue evening is a bach flower symphony

the evening with her black velvet cloak behind which is sleep

mmm evening with her strange accent please ask her to be soft with me

we look at the view of the ferns and the pines and the palms and the washing lines

in the cradle of renovation the fertile crescent of the ladies only pool

a hodgepodge of eras

the anterior decorator is baffled

all styles are contained or merge

the stained glass tattoo of your jesus advertised in the windows

the steel columns support floors up to the clouds

the old time cottage developed now as silver thermal whirlpool

evening in her headrest of flowers with her head dress on the plain

evening i know you can be soft some other time i suppose when you really feel like it

evening all

how is everyones evening

out there..?

linger on

our silence shot with silk shrieks of birds

which tear across azure days like gold leaf

lost in a turner fog i see shapes appear out of sea mists

a great fleet lost in those clouds

my little boat is full of warm rain

sunshine we drift down the river sane

the soul directing the brain

everything for me is now grey

wonderful afternoon the tiny creaking sounds

the sun broke through like a white point

row row row your boat little sisters merrily

because life is such a dream

the rushes and the lily

the graveyard and the swans

everything flows past us

we’re just drifting along in one of daddy’s songs

i will flame on for you

its 100 degrees outside and inside

this world with all its incredible lies

humanity with all its incredible cruelties

i feel like its all coming down on me

nothing can change while this system is in place

it hurts to see what they are doing

but fuck this fever feels like i’m on a bad trip man

this fucking heat this fucking sickness this fucking world

all this ratbag scum killing everything and everyone

we have enjoyed unsustainable privilege oh my friends

my stupid poetical mind loves to go haywire so i rage on

in the silence of my messy flat and my ringing ears

only one thing left and thats the sea

i will pull on my crumpled shorts and an old tshirt

i will find my hat and my keys

and my mobile phone which i hate but fuck it

and drag a toothbrush over my piano teeth

and drag a brush over my march hair

and slosh some almond milk unsweetened down my throat

and finally breaking free of this flats orbit..

sail across carrington sail down dolphin

its one hundred fucking degrees!

what with the fever and the weed and the flowers

the beautiful trees that line our fair streets

their glorious leaves that bring to cool this arbour like street

after all these years i still dont feel comfortable in this kilbey mansuit

my allegiance is elsewhere

this is just a vehicle i drive somewhere

today to the ocean swimming pool

cut up and onto the bay road

where all the shops are cool under the awnings

while the ocean now so close sends lovely zephyrs up the street

oh man i might feel suddenly week

as i loiter around buying a fucking smoothie and a shot of wheat grass

my feet sweating out in my boots

under the hat i’m soaking wet too and quite delirious

sometimes i see right into peoples souls and sometimes they see right into mine

wow thats disturbing you gotta admit i say to myself

but i cant linger on nothing

i lose interest in everything in an enveloping emptiness

the shoppers and the teenyboppers and the crooks and the cops

man they all recede away

while my legs just keep walking walking walking

over arden st to the green billowing pulsating sea

its one hundred fucking degree

and i just dont fucking care

about any of it or any of ’em anymore

what a day what a life what a blog

ha ha

bye

6×6

the numb still contain pain

man i am so fucking sick and its weird here

bad thoughts assail vivid reveries of worlds gone wrong

my guitar done come to life and its throbbing in my hands

all my songs sound like they are coming from the whirlwind

i go in a door like a dream

but the dream also has a door

baby its the path to ruin

the air full with unholy vibration

snapping flash a camera records the deep bass

my dissolving eyes like being underwater

women with children swim by

yeah i’m walking down bream street breathing with my new gills

in an uber on a way to a gig booked one million years ago

one minute the blackest alleys

then noise and colour explodes as we are born into a room of  creatures

someone pushes you forward to meet the queen of all rocknroll

but when you open your eyes…look at you up on that stage..!

here are the guys in another band

a deer a horse a mouse and a crafty fox

octopus manager with a tentacle in every deal

no fuck it but the drums have started up

boom boom bompitty boom boom crash wallop thump boom boom

the wrangler who is the ghost of a girl in a painting

yeah youre on

she smiles and points to the wings and beyond that the dull red lights of the stage

the orchestra hit their stride and the strings give out the smell of sweeping late spring

the thought splinters into inklings running parallel to each other

all outcomes play simultaneously yes its quite maddening

still you take the mic and sing some distant meaningless words that enchant the evening

but its all sucked through times funnel elongating and accelerating into past

i’m slapping an old friend on the back

outside in the carpark daylight threatens to be rubbed back to night

in black drips the twilight paint comes running down a sky

the show is over i been standing here forever feeling sick

a cold thrill travels along inside my spine

my aching axe will not go into its case

i start trying to force it in

and it starts fighting back

oh but where was i..?

doing an interview on a phone

i listen to myself raving on and i plan a revolution

the white screen irradiates its silent scream

i sneeze and i sneeze

and i sneeze up fucked up universes

i dream and out of my pores flows globes of dismal worlds

today all my possibilities are cancelled or put on hold

i have no ins and hardly any outs

temples burning with fever

shadows moving of their own accord

TOTB ETA TBA

i wrote a stupid jokey thing about TOTB some time ago

i dont pretend to know a real lot about tarot really

its out there on the outer edges of my vision alongside astrology

but i believe the cards are getting some good results with people

the cards represent archetypes and/ or symbolise certain attributes

they are always totally interpretable

the man behind this project( is he MEM or the little sighted KP Buk?)

has conceived this deck from a position of real love and enthusiasm

the cards are my paintings and lyrics to go with each card

plus commentary by MEM/Buk

the cards are totally free from avaricious stain

they are purely the wonderful brainchild of MEM

who has judiciously reassembled bits of my stuff

in a way i never would have foreseen

the cards and the lyrics and the commentary

are potentiate signifiers of unconscious or subconscious events

you can possibly probably use them to communicate with the deep you

as well as skilfully applying the symbology to negotiate the universe

the cards are what you make them

if you have faith

if you use them often

if you believe in them and yourself

and you take it all in

i think there will be some very good insight for you

although i myself do not read tarot cards

i enjoy having a deck of them even if just to gawk at some nice objets d’art

you can get a feel

you can learn to jam with the deck

you can play them any old way

like a guitar they can be approached from many angles

individual interpretation is encouraged

there is no right or wrong

MEM has invented many of his own cards

which will not be found in a regular tarot deck

and he has reached back through 35 years of lyrics and hundreds of paintings

and he has felt it out that this is how it would be

his commentary is the binding article that puts it together

some of the meanings of various cards are obvious

others are buried in obscure esoterica

abstract paintings with abstract snatches of lyrics

there is humour too

this is no jumped up high falutin’ be all and end all of tarot

it is an individualistic deck for individualist individuals…

being attracted to it at all is a sign that it would be of use to you

if you just like my work with painting and lyrics

then it is an instant kilbey fix i would have thought

you can dive into that world on a grey day at your desk

or sitting in a park in autumn feeling somethings coming

or on an aeroplane wondering about your destination

pull a card and see what you think

somehow there may be a connection

somehow through a system unbeknownst to me at least

you can figure stuff out that has/is/might be happening

but you gotta put something in

TOTB aint gonna wallop you round with meaning and facts

its gonna insinuate the answers perhaps in your heart of hearts you already know

and so in doing help you actualise the present and future

by giving you confidence in your most secret but judicious decisions

the world works on many levels

i’m in a business where with the aid of wood wires skins and metal

we create music from man made instruments that draw music from the air

it therefore is perfectly coherent to me

that tarot decks can hint of many possibilities to the skilled practitioner

or the maverick geniuses who perceive poetic truths with a little stimulation

for the empath who feels this world thru a thin skin

these cards may speak

to the curious whose ears have been pricked up by this blog

check this stuff out perhaps you have a leaning towards this kind of thing

the deck is constantly evolving and mutating

just like a song changes over a course of performances

the latest deck now contains one of my favourite paintings

which is now recontextualized as the star

it actually is a painting commissioned by ernst kok

and is a painting of neuman from my poetry book earthed

yes neuman is a kind of blond young germanic me

he is holding his syllable gun (whatever the fuck that is)

so you get this card

if you already have the old deck and desire this card

contact MEM and he’ll fix you up with one

so there you kind of have it

its pretty damn special and its very very well done

MEM has paid for and produced the final item himself

an act of faith and putting his money where his mouth is

we split proceedings 50/50

this deck has my blessing 100%

there is no right or wrong here

just an infinite realm of probabilities for you to explore

so it really is whatever you wanna make of it

groove on groovers!

trip toe thru the tudors

in total darkness shadows hover on the bay road

air conditioners  groaning like trapped female spirits

they seem to me  to hum and scream through the metal meat thin strips

they seem to come alive in our head and above in the trees

whispering please dont go away so urgently

yeah our heart breaks and mends as the road bends to the sea

old white and green sports cars flash past

their dashboard glow a sheen on some rich man show

come on you cant be serious this is obviously a dream..!

says a voice in another room

although our hair is full of salt spray and sand

we followed the laneways down to the ocean

under palms and great pines we sit divining the time

where the beautiful shells groan in the tides

and the great silver mackerel on the breakers he rides

in the darkness the sharks smell us even in our dreams

underwater we flounder  around but on dry dream ground

we are only walking along in a dark night thats all

the traffic lights blurred as though in a cyclone

the rain drop tears hit our lenses like a kiss

a stranger then is at the rail as i stand before the greatest ocean

the deepest the bluest most roiling green and boiling sea

hello you say are you a man or a woman?

well we cant tell we say because i think i am blind

but we sense certain that softness before they step into the lamplit beam

in milky incandescence the effervescing sea sways incessantly

against the sides of our dream

come on follow me it will be too late tomorrow

but we cant even see the moon as it ascends over west endings

a hand in our hand tho down an aromatic path to the cliff tops

a gate leads to the dunes and then the open water

there are rockpools and caves and vague shapes in the waves

here here as you slip into the brine

deliciously cold we are rolled and flung with the surf

later near the trees we light a fire and dry off by a river

traffic slurs over the bridge the red and white lights piercing me

the sultry night begins again to ooze tears of rain

that streak across some thoughtless thoughts we have thought

and your brown limbs grow just a like a tree like a lebanon cedar from distant history

and the stars echo and murmur in the effulgence around your aura

a weird stabbing pain in the head which will come to fill us with dread

mercurial planets hurl themselves around our worlds

when we kiss the dirty feet of the eel we reeled in

pressed against your burning un-human skin

we feel a vibration in the air above begin

the whisky taste of a fiery tongue lightning peels back the sky

my empty pockets are full of the phone numbers of forests

oh baby! we all said as the thunder boom a tremolo doom

its only you and me… we said at the same time

struggling to see yet perceiving still

i will my eyes open

hopelessly unable to filter the dazzling luminescence

back on Patmos… somebody mutters

in an atmosphere of sudden quiescence

what message crackles down the lines overhead..?