i am he
here i am
in the west
get here
and we’ll do the rest
steve kilbey awoke before dawn
and he walked on down the hall
he took another face from the ancient gallery
and he walked on down the hall
i look in the mirror
see multiple mes
i hear my brain at work
calculating
subtracting its cut
i see my eyes watching me
i see the night has one thousand eyes
i see vishnu has one thousand names
i see there are one thousand ways to die
i see the fragile future tottering on an iffy past
i see moths turning into caterpillars
i see my ghost that haunts me down
i see radha walking away into the jungle
oh that sweet gopi lope
krishna waits in the darkness for his love
he feels the tingle of anticipation
he stands there a blue glow in the night
meanwhile in perth at the end of the earth
i guess i gotta sing for all i’m worth
voice from another room : not much….
yeah
i’m a singer…what the fuck does that mean?
you tell me
cos i dunno
i just ramble on n on
like a rambling rose
i just me with my constant fucking dialogue with myself
i sucked off into my brain
with my god given freckles n my wispy hair
crammed in here with my thousand other selves
i thrash around like a nasty eel
i smoke dope and its money for olde rope
i talk about marco bolan and king solomon
i revere the great masters and i disdain the vulgar hoi polloi
i walk thru my kingdom disguised as a medium man
i solve disputes and have villains beheaded
i go off to jerusalem and i go off to earlwood
i go off to north bondi and i go off to subiaco
i sing songs
i hammer them hard
i climb aboard them like ships
and crash down from the mast
i write the most beautiful songs about ugly things
i reconcile opposites
the way other people write shopping lists
i move amongst humanity practically unnoticed
i gimble and i gyre in the wabe
kiss my asana satan
i am everyman
i am earth
i am virgin
i am mother/father
i am since forever
never was a time you and i did not exist
the fourth of never…and thats a long long time
tonight i will walk on that stage
and out of my throat will fly seven larks
and out of each larks throat will fly seven songs
and from each song
seven notes in an octave
seven stars in seven skies
take the t outta steven n its seven
so i stand in my room in apt 7
and i ask myself seven times who i am
first
my reflection says
you are kilbey
second
you are man
third
you are spirit
fourth
you are almost outta time
fifth
you brought it all on
sixth
you are ordinary
seventh
you must be crazy talking to yourself in a mirror
i touch my reflections skin
i caress my own face
i recoil from my gaze
i touch my scars
i finger my wrinkles
i see death all over me like a monkey
i scratch my head
i hesitantly sing
to see if i still have a voice
my olde dried up dusty words
my ancient song of song of songs
(neil diamond : sing it out sing it strong)
oberon n titania sit in their bower cooing n oohing
poor lonely calypso down by the shore
stupid paris checking into to the sparta hilton
stupid helen running off in the night
stupid olde zeus fucking some swan
stupid olde world going round its stupid olde sun
we killed jesus
we killed king
we killed the baptist
we killed jfk n fucking bobby n marilyn
we killed time
we killed lilith
we killed al crowley
we killed steve kilbey
kill that character off they screamed
i turn to ricky
hes standing up the back playing guitar
boy im really proud of him
hes playing lead hes playing rhythm hes playing drums
hes playing with the triffids
i step up to fucking mike
i inhale deeply
i open my throat
i let the words come
i sing with my body
my mind tees it all up
my hands fly about like small fat birds
my vocal cords vibrate and rub
i enter my trance
i heat up
so hot in here
here in kilbeys body
im steaming up
i erupt in sweat
just like them jazz cats
them olde black jazz cats
sweating up a fucking storm
because of concentration
because they love music
and they love life
and it pours out of every pore
I AM
I AM
I AM!