The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

the underworld

sing now muses

sing of forever but sing now

sing of Persephone and her time in the gloom

Look Zeus

is taking the sky

Poseidon the sea

but everything else comes down underground

Hades to thee

Pluto with his gold in the coldest room

there is no breath no life

the king of shades took his wife from a billowing earth

he took her down black corridors

showed her exactly what she was worth

grim son of a titan him

with all this wealth you sat there with her beside you

and winter wracked our dreams

and soot blackened our hands as we put things back

the treasure you will never now spend

trinkets from some Etruscans tomb

the skull of a deer dipped in silver

basalt vases of dead flowers by the still black marble pool

a spear from Abyssinia  feathered and lethal

the dead need no armour

we shadows can never be cut

in a place with no morning

we fade into nothing

spirit = breath

penumbral music oozing from a cracked day

the frogs and the crickets

wade through my life as a marsh

the cranes and egrets

lost by the sea me as a boy

oh its getting so dark so quickly

oh my sinking spirits

the emptiness at my very heart

from where the night seems to spring forth along with little stars

someone has to take it all away

they call you in for dinner somewhere

but you aint there

the islands against the evening

the glittering ships out to sea full of wild eyed sailors

the silver jets flown through the Sydney skies in some stratosphere

their suave pilots who navigate the thin air

I have heard its so cold up there without their suits

still I am lost on this wild cliff and I can’t get home

still I don’t seem to understand any of it at all

because it all seemed mad right from the very start

the whole history of everything

one stupid blunder after another

the villains prosper and the good guys strung out and wired

my god I am tired and lost in this dismal fog

oh I bet they must wonder where I am tonight

and yet sadly I think they might not wonder at all

a voice next to me says: no wonder at all

when I walk out of the trees on a strange avenue I never saw before

the lamplight in the wind blowing about the light

my cold hands in icy pockets and cool rays emanating from the moon

the cars are all so indistinguishable just black blurs in my blind spot

the numbers are all mixed up on the darkened houses

the vegetation all writhing in the blue light of my eyes

the voice beside me: you’re lost ha..!

all the terrible things I have done have surely caused this I reason

all of it led me here to this street with its undulating weeds

and the bats overhead chattering their fucking heads off oblivious to my peril

im just another stupid boy lost on Sunday night on some oceanic boulevard

yeah the palms and the pines that line our fair streets stretch on into distance

the gates are all locked the windows are all barred

no one is home in all the world

they’re all lost out there

I inhale my night back into my lungs

revealing a vivid soft tender morning so new and unintimidated

and a new song which was home

for awhile

you are my sunshine

absolution.com

I was colonel light

baptised in a rushing sea

the fish beneath me

the clouds above me

the silver shells that lose their shine in the air

the aquatics that populate colder southern waters

the marine creatures I had imagined would be there

I could breathe under that water

and I spoke to eels and the snakes

as I raced towards the surface my gills bursting with air

the sails were filled and we skimmed

the watery drops sang in my earrings

my fingers caught in their own webbing

and I went smashing across the waves

as the sea poured into my throat

and the salt entered my eyes

a delicious dimness then filled me

numb and alone

I saw a grey bird fly overhead

up in a sky that was stretched canvas across a horizon

the fishermen and the rocks

then something has hooked me and im being pulled along

you struggle against the hurt but the barb in your mouth

they let me run then they jerk me back

im being played on my own line

I land in the sand at the foot of the bed

the rain is inside and I sit up laughing

the watercolours are running down the wall

words are leaping out of the typewriter

the bass guitar is vibrating in its case angrily

a plane flies right over Coogee in the darkness

in my drowning dream where I struggle against the torrent

the backlash of a dam

the northwind tore the songs from my hand and cast them swirling away

a net contains me

I cannot save the whole world from sinking

they try to make me but I cannot go on

thats enough then they say

let him wake up they say

I look in the mirror but you never do

you never really wake up

you never really want to

I shrug my shoulders down on earth

I pull on an old coat like a ripple at a jetty

I see almost eternity in the dawn of another night

in the stones by the pools

in the song of the seal

in the memory of a lock

in the clutch of flowers

in some other language

some other sunday

where men wonder

and there is no release

turn off

night does its merger with day

i’m on tv no i’m in a cold room

no I’m in a car being driven somewhere

a plane lands

the turbulence shakes me awake

someone asks me a question

someone offers me a drink

someone proffers me a microphone

I can’t remember I seem to be saying

no I can’t seem to remember thats what I can’t say

the time concertina

the audience I mumble

they were animals…

the camera zooms in on my face

but thats not me surely: a voice in another room

my handle on a situation

my guitar has become detached in some space

I reach out to it from this dimension

yet it all slips from your hands

we were rehearsing  I say looking at the lens

I recoil from the memory of the noises

the hard wound strings rip my finger to pieces

I stare at someone in the crowd they are singing along

until a bird hit our windscreen

I jumped out and strolled around my England

I sighed and I acquiesced to the castles and the rivers and the pounds

on the tv show they have a lovely backdrop

I wish I lived in there instead of out here

I was shaking someones hand and kissing a baby

the absinthe made it foggy I couldn’t see more than 2 inches

the taxi was cold at 4 am as I huddled against my guitar case

the line was long in the draughty fluro

the queue stretched across the isles

as I walked out on an encore

a floozy hurling insults

the plane shakes above the cold atlantic

my confidence is suddenly diminished in a white dawn

I feel sick I say to someone who probably didn’t even listen

drink some water Steven says my friend

I got that weird fainting feeling again mummy

thats the aliens son she says but her gaze is now unfocussed

I love you mum I’m waving from the window of this plane

im sitting next to Tim in 13K

in the middle of a song the turbulence again

a tiny warm hotel room where my suitcase erupts no pyjamas

in the lift with the others we talk about someone elses music

someone is enthusing about something

the others are bored and quiet

the cafe was about to close I sat near the window

the soundcheck had dragged on until my bass complained in huge moans and groans

suddenly I snap fuck off and leave me alone

the hostess sticks my veg breakfast in front of the screen

its the story of my life

I’m young me for a moment no whoops its gone

its him doing an impression of me

its me trying to be him

he remains elusive

the blokes in the crowd cheer

I try to remember to smile

no seriously I must be dreaming this part

a guy and his wife at the airport

can we get a photo

but I’m late and supposed to be on stage

theres your dream says a voice going round on the luggage carousel

another sleeping pill fuck I must be hooked

but I can’t stay awake at the wheel of fortune

karma dictates

dharma demands

in my cold blue pool I freeze the ache out

I climb up the ladder and I’m free