The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

crystal gazer

on a summer night

i saw you there

the taste of tequila

your cut off jeans

the stones rattled in the ditches

the comets shot in the sky

the frogs warbling in the darkness

the hedges lined the green stormy streets

i touched your neck as you were driving

dont stop you said smiling in a headlight

oh your house is incredible said a voice in another room

the furniture on all its different levels

at the top of the stairs a darkening bedroom as thunder rumbling

an immaculate selection of drinks fruits and teas

all kinds of other interesting things

the blue cats approach

all the stuff hanging on the walls

gods and stuff like that i guess

we sit and talk

i dont listen but i touch like its the most natural thing

stroking her like you would stroke a fawn

softly and with good intent the evening is laid on

oh my little empath feeling her way forward in a harsh world

she loves the creatures amassing much credit

she could harm nothing in her dimmest dream

shes a genie with her obsidian black eyes with the crescent iris

with the deep vaulted heavens above revolving the stars

andromeda titania virgo swept by and the storm abated to leave glorious clarity

in the city where she lived a holiday was to be declared henceforth someday i suppose

the arbours of her cactus gardens emerging from the rain like visitors

the sway and sweep of her tide the warp and woof of her fabric

the impending sentences as she spoke and her characteristic lilt

long black hair pulled back she was so fucking languid

lets go upstairs whispers a voice from another life

follow me whispered the soft stars

take my hand the sky tried to imply somehow

my hand breaks upon her wheels

my head revolves like  her hidden planet in symmetry-less arcs

my brave soldiers are defeated

cruel barbs deflected

arrows of outrageous fortune turn aside

some things well you will just never forget them

other things you will always remember and theres a difference

sorry ive digressed or have been drifting off

little empath says Im a witch dont you know

and she turns into the angel riding wormwood down

the heavenly host trumpet her coming with lightning so they say

with her pharmaceuticals and her tinctures of olde

and her low key glow that illuminates my mind

when i wake up and she is gone tomorrow into her fog

left me with my handful of nuthin’ and my fading dirge

stranded at low ebb in a dream of glittering water

outside the thunder hammered her eaves

her electric car shuddered in its stable

the hours ripped in half and then thrown to the wind

mozart composing the music of the celestial beings now

Klimt dressing the trees in gold

Nero burning the cities on the horizon

the crackle of an electrical disturbance

the past sucked time down into her whirlpool

fleeting pleasure races by and leaves deep ruts of pain

my still heart pounds and shillings

the abject dread of solitude

the voyage begins with a single sail

tap tap tap

doing yoga in my little shared courtyard

doing garudasana blah blah blah

im standing there quite stoned on weed and yoga

the voice says enter the stillpoint and remain there

so i do

the feeling persists even after a day

the stillpoint

easy to say enter the stillpoint 

hard to fucking enter the stillpoint

yet miraculously i do

in the stillpoint its marvellously calm

all that thrashing around

what does it add up to?

i go to a party

the praises and blames roll off my back

impervious still in the stillpoint

i float away on a cloud of detachment

i just smile like a vacancy sign on the edge of town

all that fucking music i wrote let it speak for itself

tomorrow i will write more its gonna be alright

my thoughts collide and collect in my empty head

i listen to a bit of the new church album

and i put it into an order and listen to em together

yeah wow golly gee its sounded pretty good but what else would i say..?

theres some strange and weird stuff on this one

beautiful stuff too like another century

if that aint one of the best songs ive ever been involved in i dont know what

its a little masterpiece lush and romantic and ra ra ra

i gotta toot this horn no one else is ha ha ha

yeah man our new album oh god you gonna love this

you gotta love this please dont let me down oh no

i’m playing a thousand gigs i pop up everywhere

i’m out there being a travelling minstrel and i burn down the road

i duck n i weave and steve you know you deceive and are deceived

i am high and low i am wise and so slow

my eyes see right through the fields

my voice is so familiar to you who are reading this now

you can almost hear me saying these words

and smell my neck which is warm and pleasant

and up close you notice i fidget and move nervously

clutching myself as if some great chill is sweeping over me

you think its a smile but its my aching mouth as a grimace

a skull a jaw a brain turning over

now my heart beats out of time with every lie

any lie at all

and it palpitates to the awful truth

and my hands never shake

but my feet tap tap tap nevertheless to an inaudible tune

im writing my lyrics all over your face

my words decorate your army

my songs that no one hears except my dismal pillow

in the hollow of night a phantasm arriving slow

the church songs go on n on in the back of my dreams now

stuff we ripped from the void from the stillpoint

music music music i know sweet music

go on go on go on

slim biosis

my flat is freezing

its winter in all my dreams here

its winter in and out

tricked n fooled n frozen n burnt

my old skin stretched taut by the coldness of the sea pool

and the dry electric poison heat from the fire 

its very quiet

i am quite alone with myself

dark corridors flung open within my brilliant mind

and the inky blacknesses spill out and i withdraw

down in the fainting whirl oblivion at the other end

in the darkest darkness where its so still

there i lie awhile

everywhere and nowhere

i travelled out and above the city

i flew up against the softly spitting cold rain

i moved like a jealous thought thru the greenish light

elementals are following me

the word cackling comes to mind although they are making no sound

oh there is so much going on you really wouldnt believe it

i saw everything

now i know everything

everything i never wanted to know but there you go

i want to fade away to rippling white

my mind thinks too much i cant switch it off

i am trapped in here with all these thoughts

it feels unbearable from second to long second

and yet i still endure it

this machine needs to be switched off now

its burning out against itself

i lose chunks of my self ripped off by friction

in my bed i groan no doubt but no one to hear me

i lie shivering in my new black sheets

curled up like a broken eel in a black creek

i twitch and i talk as slumber in the umbrae

all my little baby girls are in pain

i gotta fix everything again

its impossible but i gotta make everything right

even sisyphus would  laugh

a hundred people are shaking me

steve steve steve steve

i am drowning under all the emails

im winning the lottery inheriting fortunes

one thousand i phones are about to be delivered

russian women are willing to marry me now!

as smart as i am i’m as stupid as fuck

and i lead in with my pretty face getting smashed by time

and i bleed all over the floor sending the blue carpet purple

suddenly without the fix of an audience everynight i am  deflated tired

i dont blame all you idiots i only blame myself

and i flog me forward towards tomorrow like a penitent monk

my blood curdles my heart pumps that sludge into my fingers

my toes like ice my burning ears hear your bitching

the worms in the earth turn

the birds in the skeletal tree clack click clack

lonesome whistle of a far off train

in miladys bedroom on the third floor where i should have alighted

in her mirrors i caught sight of myself so furtive and deluded

is that really me looking like that in the impenetrable gloom

through bottles of lickers and bitterest tastes

the sting the bite the claw the talon the jaw the unholy strength

the creatures who appear in my room by just arriving smile

lie down little steven they think

then im seven again and theyre opening up my back

taking something out

putting something in

no no no no no

it hurts so much i cant feel a thing

i scream for mum and dad but theyre on another earth

the smiles  follow me when i run away in my mind

they chase me down wherever i turn

and they always will find me now forever

this is my sorrow but also my joy

i fear the night i fear the silence of this room

i fear the shapes that slide down my walls

i fear to sleep i fear to be awake

so i lie curled up with one eye open

listening to a stuck record of regrets

and waiting patiently for the astral dawn to arrive