saturday night i sit by the open window
the banished poet at summers long end
lights of the city say twinkle twinkle
its quiet tonight
somewhere out there may rage wild festivities
but not up this street
the wind blows lonely
it whispers wickedly of winter
it implies some sad finality without saying a thing
doors rattle n bang in its wake
the curtains are blind
the windows see nothing
the palms nod out in the orange crescent moon
the clock becomes loud
oh god my pulse is racing away
i feel cold despite the balminess
my head feels heavy
anxiety and anger fuck with me
i have exacerbated my fieriness
i have energy yes
but sometimes it whips me on before it
today i sat for my portrait for the archibald prize
australias big portrait prize
andrew h is doing this 2 metres high painting of moi
i try to pick his brains about art
i ask him many complicated questions
i must have been distracting him
he is a truly lovely man
a gentleman in the real sense of the word
a proper artist who sells paintings in galleries
6 years of art school
but today he couldnt get me
he couldnt nail me in that painting
im going back next week
i believe in this man
i believe he will paint a marvellous picture of me
i know my face so well
because i have done so many self portraits
and because i’m a narcissistic fool
i can see where andrews going wrong
and then i do what i joked early i would never do
i offered suggestions
my nose isnt that long etc
i’m supposed to keep shut up
but i talked the whole fucking time
i realized today that picasso was the only major painter
who switched genres or created new genres all the time
i mean most guys from rembrandt down to rousseau
they get their trip n then spend their lives improving on it
but picasso was like the beatles
he invent a thing
play around with it for a little while
then get a new trip
leaving all the second tier guys to forever remain
in that one new thing he’d figured out
eg career cubists….
wow i really like andrew
softly spoken and humble to a tee
i ask him curly questions as hes trying to grok
the proportions of my face
dragging him out of the spatial n into the verbal
finally i say to him
do you ever think youre a genius ?
and he finally laughs n shakes his head
its a release for us both
i point out to him the idiosyncrasies of my face
he keeps saying
youre very chiselled
now that i’ve been a vegan
my face has become angular again
andrew said
is it that you look young
or are all the people your age looking old?
yes the latter it is
i do not look young
i have the wear n tear of 55 years on my old dial
but guess what
i finally feel happy with my face
i feel at home in it
what you see is what you get
you can have a look at me n see the kinda geezer i am
i’m quick
i ‘m sharp
i’m a bit proud n cruel
but i’m a bit sympathetic and naive too
i am an old boy
you see the discipline of yoga has somehow
done something to my face
time and drugs have fucked it up in one way
and yoga n veganism n swimming
have altered it another
sometimes i am surprised to see myself
sometimes i look so goddamn old
its ok fuck i’m coming on 56
i become old with a naive wonder
and if i continue to grow old like this well i dont mind
i put a lot into yoga and i reap the rewards of long hours
when other people are watching tv or sleeping in
or down the bloody pub
i’m on my balcony whether its hot or cold
i’m out there doing my practice
and if you did something as much as i do yoga
youd expect some results wouldnt you
its a fucking ongoing experiment to see where it could take me
its a miraculous process
it is a type of magic
the transformation of the regular old geezer
into something a bit more souped up
so now i really contain visual contradictions
someone wrote of one our shows
that i oscillate onstage between ancient and youthful
i reckon i got a bit of female mojo in me too
i aint no fucking clown drinking beer n watching tv
i’m the sensitive bloke
i got 5 daughters remember
so there you go
you paint me
you gotta get the young n the old
the masculine n the feminine
the genius n the fool
the rockstar n the nobody
the saint n the sinner
the ascetic n the hedonist
yeah i fucking fascinate myself dont i?
its understandable but its unforgivable
believe me i have more contempt than admiration
i been lucky
n most of my wounds have been self inflicted
if i ever suffered it was me who did it to me
i never been abused
i never been abandoned
i never been really sick
i been undeservedly lucky
especially in the last year
3 good men who are good at what they do
have stepped in n helped me out
i guess they like my music enough
to understand me n see
that i could certainly use some guidance
that when it comes to business n stuff
i am a bit hopeless
i want those gentlemen to know
i am very very grateful
and a fourth gentleman too
whose been helping the cause a long long time
i cant believe that our fans are often
doctors pilots scientists lawyers teachers professors
i’m glad that at the end of a long day
they can lose their brilliant minds in my work
i put a lot of secret compartments in my songs
and these guys enjoy finding them
i try my hardest to avoid cliche
i write songs for clever people
if you really like my music you must be pretty clever
otherwise you wouldnt dig it
thats why i can never be hugely popular
i yearn for great popularity n money
but in truth i knew that by doing what i do
by having my ridiculous ideals
by working with the other guys in the church
who can be scathing with criticism if i fuck up
so i….. yeah…. yeah….
more about kilbey by kilbey
nebulous flimsy
nonsense n whimsy
simultaneously important n utterly irrelevant
my songs will not change your life
they will enhance it
i have some good records waiting in the wings
i got an angular face
i’m getting some new teeth
i got some good friends
with whom i get by with a little help
i got a beautiful bass
i can speak a bit of swedish
i got tv appearances lined up
i get in the newspaper
i made over 50 records
i written a million songs
i did a million gigs
i been everywhere
i tried every drug
i been rich n poor
fuck it
i still aint happy though……
go n fuckin’ figure….