The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

the children in the present moment unending

the summer condenses into a solid day

overcast the threat of rain that never comes

i get some last minute things for the doodles n woofles imminent arrival

the house is immaculately tidy now tidier than ever

i swim my laps i do my yoga

the heat is omnipresent

i feel strange

but dont i always

have i ever felt just normal ever the answer is no

so here i am in another strange place in a strange time

an old man picking up his young kids

flown out to australia by karin mother of my eldest girls

4 days to get to know em again

4 days to make them feel at home again before i take off

4 days to catch up on the 60 odd days ive missed out on

i feel anxious i feel sad i feel a feeling i cannot name

home home home

there is no place like home thats for sure

i love my girls so much

yes i will try to be my best for them

reassuring solid cheerful dad

that everybody knows i am not

yet i must be for them

and you only get one childhood

and i want to spend some time making theirs special

they went thru a bit of turbulence last year

i pray to lord vishnu and jesus christ

that this year will only bring peace and calm and many childrens adventures

of course

what we all want for our kids

thanks folks

be back with photos n updates tomorrow

same time being channel

sk

lets meet our next contestant

i’m all thumbs

walk round my old neighbourhood awash in nostalgia

wheres my dirty old rozelle gone

all done up with a new coat of paint and bmws

i used to have a house n a studio here

but i frittered it all away

some fatal flaw that fucks it all up over n over

ah baby thats life yes it is

this pain must refine us

this grief must knock off those rough edges

this hurt must improve our chances on karmas wheel

my children on the plane now

oh God deliver them safely unto me!

because i love em of course because they are such good girls

please a smooth flight and a nice landing

those lovely children bring them home

i realise now how much i miss them

such a short time and then i am away

although it is the last thing i wanted to do

never kept my eye on the ball

never noticed the time or the season

you cant really escape time

doesnt matter what you do

the meter is on and its ticking hard

summer nights will turn into autumn days

children become young people as you turn around

your latest record is some fossil in a museum

everything changing all over the place

and you keep losing stuff

loss loss loss

some feeble gains maybe

just to keep ya interested

but eventually……

ah you get the picture anyway i know

its hard to let it all go

its hard to take it all in

its hard to watch it all pass and passover

its tricky isnt it

life and all that

will we ever learn?

aye eye i

go to the optometrists to get some new glasses

the bad news

1. joe the optometrist died a year ago and i didnt know

he was a bit of a friend being a fan of david lane i’d met him heaps of times

i was quite shocked and i kept crying thru my eye exam

2. i have a cataract in my right eye due to the damage i did it with the cork

jesus life seems in the raw sometimes

i walk home

bondi looks the same but different

the cheerful veneer lifted

it seems cold and hard and merciless

it wont care when i am finally gone i realise

anyway i had a nice swim n did me yoga n no naughty drugs

i spoke to my girls in sweden for the last time before they come home

monday night i cant wait yet its also the end of my freedom

of course i didnt get anything done that i thought i would

ive just procrastinated

a whole lot

and then some ….

still its saturday night n some ninny across the road

has got the worst doof doof music BLARING out

n i already wanna go to bed n sleep

ha ha

not with this FUCKING RACKET!

thats life

thats love

thats the time being baby

see ya soon!

Lou Pole

you always know where to find me

hidden behind these shabby doors on some suburban street

through the dirty windows on the first floor

thats me sitting at a big glass table under the red clock

sorry cant seem to focus my thoughts

i listen to some lazy music that drifts in the air like a smokey dream

its friday night its summer

the birds coo and call

the blinds gently knock against the wood in the breeze

american tour coming up soon

it seems a galaxy away from where i am here

wasting my precious time doing nothing as evening falls

children come back monday yes i have missed them

they come back in time for me to leave

yes its a bit of a wrench

my brothers will watch them for me while i’m away

theyre in good hands

after 2 weeks rehearsal my ears are ringing like all fuck

i can only imagine what this tour will do to them

if you ever meet me you will find out that i’m now quite deaf

my eyesight is shot too

i feel increasingly isolated from the world of sight and sound

i encounter it now dimly

i still cant get over everything that happened

my creativity has shrunk to a pea

i squeeze out my blogs on sheer willpower not inspiration

yes thanks you can give me a few weeks off

but maybe i need this more than you do

i eat a muffin with jam for tea mmm mmm

the truth is i dont give a fuck about food

im happy to have cornflakes for  dinner everynight

the gourmets on tv and their gluttony leave me cold

so i sit here at 616  precisely typing to you out there

my mood is bitter sad tired anxious

my body is rundown achey listless restless

my spirit is silent buried somewhere within me

it says nothing

it offers no guidance

my past stretches out behind me oh what a life i led

the wheels turn round

money women success come and go

children suddenly grown up and distant

yes this great song i wrote it really meant something to ya didnt it

time charges ahead at one minute per minute

but its all so relative

lie in bed enervated watching that hand go round

old pleasures come back as new pains

those perfect white scars on my back

what did they do to me?

maybe i been tampered with

maybe i just aint been tampered with enough

well 2012 is approaching like some rough beast

slouching towards bondi to be reborn

things seem awfully raw these days

things seem like we’re braking metal on metal

i am my own worst enemy that i never seem to overcome

i dig the pitfalls i tumble headlong

my holiday left without me some time ago

it booked itself into a little room

and it  played cards with shadows of departed guests

its very quiet right now

only the sizzling wind thru the treetops

only the faintest sound of the traffic on old south head road

only the ringing ears which have finally drowned out that clock

only the lapping sea which i cant hear but it can hear me

yeah an american tour uh wheres that….?

oh i forgot for a moment where i was

yeah i’m here in the kitchen

its 6 38 now how about that

i gotta get off the computer

i gotta rest my poor eyes

maybe i’ll go for a walk

down by the shore

its summer

there’ll be lots of people about

and everything

geosyncline

the evening is indeed beautiful

but fleeting as night follows as close as this…..

a distant storm rumbles somewhere out there

the old windows in this house rattle in their frames

the trees all  in flower  shake and swoop in the freshening winds

summer came and i hardly even noticed it

afterglow of our love

the air stuffed with fish

evening heralded by a thousand breezes

coloured stones in a riverbed

fractured basalt relief

continuum interference

the way it was the way it will always be

the way it always would have been

i’m walking away  from it in my heart

everything forgotten

everything not swept away by death

empires beautiful women great fortunes

no you did not know me in your last life

i have never been anyone remotely glamourous

caught between today and tomorrow

i excavate the ruins finding memories still intact

i translate into my own language the murmuring past

its natural to make some mistakes

its normal to undergo frequent changes

frauds and charlatans have desecrated this temple

the work has just crumbled in my hands

some artisan speaking through the years

on a cracked vase or a vinyl recording

overmind undermind

in this life an unbearable mixture of naivete and cynicism

deep in a kings tomb an indecipherable warning

and in the sky

an old star fades up from the blackness

imaginator

remade remodelled into someone elses image

the final dissolving stitches have gone

then the sky is let loose from the land

and the moon has escaped the sun

and woman completely separated beyond man

one minute a crocodile next minute a wolf

in the heat of summer days drowning in my own saltless sweat

i dont care for reason or duty or logic or order

i am the poet unhinged on whatever is necessary

i dont write it but i live it

not the great beast only a lesser one perhaps

pacing up n down n his cage of furniture and knick-knacks

i live my poetry aloud but it is unspeakable

no head should contain such opposites of good n evil

i unleash the mangy panther and he slinks off through the trees

the jungle is in my head of course

the future contains the past

and night turning into morning

a friend comes over but my friend is a 2 faced black cat

unlucky herself to ever cross my garden path i was leading her down

oh i see we’re alone so i can completely relax

oh i can just say or do whatever i like

because at this time of day the jungle is all encompassing

and i hunt through these rooms snarling under my silent breath

and i take whole sentences from poems i have not yet written

and chunks of instructions that i cannot follow

and messages from a nonexistent outside world

that is now only darkness and green leaves

is that ache in my chest where my music escaped

is that fog in my head where the ghosts have all gathered

the panther slides off of his tree

yes he is a panther yes he is mangy but a panther nonetheless

wild cruel selfish remorseless quite stupid in some ways

passing into penumbra shadow

at the junction of night and day

a thorn in one paw

the greediest bite

the animal has no manners

no conscience in this cat

only need for more

only restless hurting numbing need

only satisfaction of desire

only sleep which is black like death

the speed seems to have slowed me down

in the calm of an imaginary velocity

in the warm richness of a terrible energy

in the jungle fertile illusory chemical dangerous quiet

in the rooms neither empty nor full

i hear some prey escaping

and i’m off again

in an awful pursuit

gather round all you clowns

in the middle of the night we hit the streets in the car

the world is quiet so quiet

we cruise and cruise  the empty streets

we get to the place and wait

eventually he appears looking shifty

he jumps in the car

transaction is made

a bit of small talk n hes off n away

we go home

we take off our clothes and start to touch each other

we kiss for hours it seems

we walk about the house interacting

i heat up and i have a cold shower to cool down

but the cold water is still luke warm

you float about in some heavy lidded dream

i say come here

i say show me everything

i say tell me everything

i say give me everything

i sit back in the soft furniture in the warm soft remnant of night

dawn is coming again

rosy fingered dawn in the eastern sky

the clouds are spread thick on the night

we fool around languidly almost absent mindedly

whispering things we never will remember

oh well youre quite unashamed arent you

i ask you to look me in the eyes

but you keep averting your gaze

moving in and out of focus

but your hands are everywhere at once

setting things straight and putting things away

i have forgotten most of it

my mind contains a lovely space full of potential

everything is suspended in mid air

time moves like treacle oozing off a spoon

white sweet smoke

i sip some water my throat is so dry

you are  nicely compliant like youre just a part of my dream

do this i say

ok you say

do that i say

ok you say

voices on the street outside

the dawn birds begin to twitter in their feather lined nests

my head hits the pillow

my mind never turns off

i am living in the margins slipping through the cracks

i become even thinner than before

my face has taken on new hollows new lines new character

my eyes stare through my closed lids

i look into souls i look into darknesses

you seem to be asleep immediately

lying limbs akimbo your mouth open slightly

your spirit is out there in the ether now

you are inaccessible to me for a while

i just lie there waiting for blessed sleep

when it comes it comes deep n black like a void like a nothing

nothing really you could know

the summer falls down drunken on the longest of the days

hot and overcast

the air weighs a million tons and its all on my shoulders

the traffic is snarled

the jets overhead roar terribly

the pool twitches in the quickening air

ants and mosquitoes attack

the tiny white scars on my back glow translucent

at 3 am i sat on my balcony unclothed hidden in darkness

there was no sound but the pink glow of half a moon

a cockroach scuttles across the kitchen floor

i look listlessly at the screen in front of me

how did i ever live without it?

see whos waking up

see whos breaking up

see whos making up

i drink rice milk n eat some toast

think about yesterday

learning songs

driving around

doing a photoshoot

doing interviews

it all seems so distant now

it all just seems so impermanent

my head is full of female voices talking to me

some are coming on to me

some are imploring me

some are condemning me

some are neutral as if they were just sad

children chime in

daughters out there i turn to their thoughts

do this

dont do that

i am angry with everyone

everyones angry with me

nice breeze ruffles my freckly back

the darkness is so small and empty

so hungry that it feels sick

the fridge is making a struggling sound

clock tick but never tock

i pace around

i plot up schemes for  hours on end but they evaporate pitifully

i sit in the sun room watching the green leaves against the black sky

i make up lists of men and women

i suddenly remember details i forgot to follow up

i look at all my paints lying in the next room

all that potential unrealised

something about the night has gone wrong

aftershocks of pleasure have faded into past

we hoped we thought it never would end

my friend is becalmed

sleep has been merciful and flown down from its lovely warm place

not for me tho not that i care

i walk around the kitchen searching for something to prolong the night

morning is coming and it will find me wanting

lay down on a bed

my ears ring ring in the silence but i dont listen anymore

behind my closed eyelids vivid colours flash

i think of every thing ive done

and all thats still left to do

it never ends

then one day

it just does