The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

shadows of nights

imagine the amniotic universal fluid

holding everything in its courses

planets all spinning and moving and turning

everything racing forward with everything else

we are not where we were 5 years ago my friends

those cosmic rays have filled my head with their blaze

the stars are not fixed

feel us hurtle along

careening into song

i float through seaside night a white film

my senses dimmed i saw the moon rimmed by the sea

i saw the gardens miraculous in crimson green

i feel the tide change down by the shore

i am now alone more and i paw the air

i take off my clothes and slunk through a dark

the memories of these roads cloaks me in its glow

the refrain from the drains as if singing swollen with the rains

at the cafe today i realise with dismay i’m already losing my way

like a moebius strip my mind was ripped and reassembled with a twist

my skull which contains everything withins its corridors

decorated with eyes and mouths the fetish at the crossroads of Desire

i remain at the entrance tapping a wire

Sycorax the witch seized me by the chin and she look in

good boy… she says with her  sexy old grin

and then

good boy..!

again

colourfaster

soft grey day

sleepy sleepy man i sleep all day man

it says its raining i whisper to a black pillowcase

i am still alive somewhere my friends

the dreams pour out of me in my pleasant room

(where am i?)

my heart has slowed down to a distant drum

i hear the blood pound lazily in my ears

as it sloshes through the machine that holds my soul in

i am enamoured of the haze settled in the green back garden

i sit up in bed it is every morning like this ever

i sit up in bed with my grey eyes open

i am alone it is silent

i dont remember my name or why i am here

i am out of context

it is lovely not to remember it all

how it all went so wrong and so wrong

wagging tongues and fingers gone

i awoke to a new eden of amnesia

i was adam in a bed in a pleasant room

trying to name all my dreams

i have been sleeping for year it seems

so much had transpired but it was all quickly evaporating

my heart broken cursive script upon the pages of dust

mirrored the looming morning glow like a hovering cotton wool bandage

the blood was the red rays of an alien sun

yes i sat up in bed and i looked at the trees

decked with leaves and lanterns

last nights revels now muted in morning

yes i sat in bed and i forget what i was saying

i looked in a mirror someone once put there

i sit looking at a me they have thrown together somewhere

some delicate thought has vanished on my tongues tip

the insurgent day has lost its way and everything has halted

a plane freezes in the sky

the birds have all gone so quiet as if in anticipation

but

i have accelerated through

bang bang bang the frames come down

behind the brain somewhere i sit and move faster

freedom in the greying day

freedom in the soft rainy night

i sit in near silence typing in the little apt in which i live

type type type

the stuff comes out of nowhere

thunder mooted clad in big old boom boom boom

lightning flash down and strike these southern seas

i drink lychee juice and smoke the fucking herb

as sleep approaches in the humid gloom

i am living in this weird future now

i need sleep in this deep warm night

out there people are getting into some real bad scenes

not this little boy tucked up listening to the rain

hoping for more and more rain

willing it urging it causing it bringing it

in the darkness i am no one

warm and safe and anonymous within the soft night

somewhere out there

the ambulances rush through the cloudy streets

the policemen with sirens blazing

the dealers and wheelers whirl into action

in my tidy pleasant room

my shirts hanging up

asleep to it all

i am dead to that world

mired in maya

conundrums paradoxes and maya rain down on me in an unbelievable way

moral dilemmas and quadralemmas

man i got them lemmas everywhere i go

i gotta laugh at this universe who aches to see me solve the curly ones

rolled at me

every fucking thing i do is involved in so much argy bargy

everyone oh no… being disappointed again

i move into a new place in another eastern suburb

a woman comes up to me

oh youre our new neighbour she says and seems nice

how you liking it so far? she says

its pretty good and pretty quiet i says

attempting to make some small talk

i says except for the guy with the fucking guitar and the PA

(some of the readers will understand how i dismayed i am

to find next door to the right is a geeza who every saturday night

gives the whole neighbourhood the privilege of listening in

on his very loud performances of a bunch of songs from now

and “favourites” from yesteryear

all rendered in a pearl jammy reedy nasally affectation

that really gets my gander after awhile

wondering why he is not just happy like most of us musicians

to keep it to ourselves and if we annoy the neighbours it is never our intention

i could not even begin to make music if it was pissing someone off

therefore i dont see why the whole neighbourhood should be subjected to it

esp. as it is cover versions and not something brilliantly original

which demands to be heard

rather it is proficient busker churning thru a dull old bunch of numbers

ie it would not surprise me to hear milky way trotted out ha ha)

the woman says dont you like it?

nah i says i dont wanna hear it at all

why do you actually like it? i says increduously

oh i love it! she says and walks off angrily to you guessed it next door right

the next performances have come with a new element

a hearty cheering and clapping by about 5 people to let me know i was wrong i presume

damn me and my big mouth1

i am australias larry david stumbling from one thing to the next

a cynical sucker fumbling the ball

its all maya

its all an illusion

i am writing these words to myself

whoever maybe reading this now exists out there

and understands this or not

but i hereby sternly remind myself that this is all maya

i am an eternal spirit who has fallen for some reason into this material nature

in the kali yuga which is the age of quarrel

quarrel it certainly is

as nations go to war for slight theological differences

in some old myth from a bunch of guys in the desert

aggrandising themselves with stories about their own big strong daddy god

that they write themselves justifying their atrocities because their god okayed it

and ever since the butchery has continued over these tent god tales

it is patently obvious that the creator of this universe

was no chump acting like some angry patriarch

blasting cities and having silly little favourites

check this universe out you fools it does not work like that!

all these words are the words of writers and editors and publishers and translators

why would a god who can create the moon and stars need some boffin sitting in a tent

to write it all down for him?

anyway i aint part of of any of the peoples of the books

i aint with ya

i aint with the unswerving self righteousness of you and your books

i now anticipate with some trepidation

our lovely christian lady commenter who faithfully chimes in

with her get thee behind me satans and all that baloney

it used to amuse me now it fills me with inertia

to read the inane parrotting of some old testicle fire n brimstone

lady this is not salem in them good old witchburning days

no lady witches aint causing my problems…

its fucking old age believe it or not!

just like the stupidest savage you see some supernatural reason in everything

something bad its the naughty old devil

something good its good jehovah big daddy saving your day

cos you “believe” in him

dont that ever strike you as a strange fucking bargain right there?

i will save your neck (for a while) if you “believe” in me

except for poor old fucking job

he “believed” and daddy jehovahpants did not save his neck

and then  instructed some tent bound boffin to brag about it in a book

lady no one thinks the old testament is literal truth

anyone can see it is a collection of rules and regulations and myths and allegories

borrowing freely from civilisations that proceeded it

ie the garden of eden etc etc

theyre not even the guy in the tents own stories

they are fragments of folklore from bygone eras

dont quote that tiresome bullshit to me!

as far as st paul i say again jesus christ would have hated him

he was a murdering self righteous ugly son of a bitch

a pox on his interpretations of JC

who forgave him for the people he murdered ?

jehovah pants according to…him..well thats convenient..

jesus “appeared” to him and said

its ok you killed all those people

change your name by one letter

and your exonerated

then go out and twist my words to make people feel guilty and miserable

yes a murderer and persecutor is a good man for my message of peace

etc etc

please desist with the christian comments already!

or go away and write on bonos page if you want to

i aint printing anymore because its my blog and its irking me

just like our own anonymous friend who still fires off the odd nasty comment

that is eaten up by my spam filter before its hopelessly vapid negativity boreth me

yet he persists boy its a fine line between love and hate

but yet he surely persisteth

go for it son

congratulations! your asinine dribblings go straight into the void you ninny ha ha!

well thats about it whoevers out there

this is all maya

i am a spirit soul moving between lives as i pick up enough oomph

to leave this universe and go onto whatever is next

until a billion years hence

i am walking by a lovely lake in summer with my sweet lord

and hes saying to me:

boy i betcha glad thats all over!

my brain hurt like a wherehouse

i had breakfast with my eldest daughter miranda today

(granola with soy milk and berry compote)

we sat looking out at the sea

its a given that all fathers love their daughters

but this one is the most airy and evanescent of them all

at once she is a stunning beauty and an overgrown child full of enthusiasm

i have been lucky with my daughters

and i thank my god for them

yes they are my wealth

my positive contribution to this world

i have the new lou lou record in my possession

i’m giving it a good flogging in my headphones and while i paint

wow some aching heartbreaking songs right there

i am impressed

their lyrics are mostly impeccable

clever mercurial and with ambiguous little twists

music flows through my family

everyone plays and writes

my grandmother and great uncle joe played the piano

my dad and even aunty lou lou herself could play

music in our blood

the girls carry it on

with a double talent whammy of karin their mother  and her brothers

all players singers actors writers

with this impressive genetic musical pool to pull from

it should be easy and they make it look easy

its like they sprang into this world fully formed as SLL

for their first record there is some impressive stuff

haunting longing and sometimes exuberant songs

gorgeous songs with unusual melodies

torch songs and the like

its called lucid dreaming and its out on 23 feb i believe

bravo twillies this is an auspicious start

very very nice

life and death

valdaree valdarah man

i love to go a’wandering

the aether always beckoning

in darkness and solitude a white hot night

sitting here sweating it out in moonburn

all of that led up to this

every fucking struggle left me here in quiet black humidity

my summer smashes me about

at mina wylies the snails glow silver under the sea

a black bird with a snakelike neck shoots beneath me

jellyfish suspended in the cosmos of the pool

will my burdens be washed away in this holy cold water..?

my kitchen feels like africa with its sultriness and fruit flies

the bathroom is a dull fawn colour in the dim light

what else can i do except type type type..?

the cream living room walls like the 1950s

a calico drop protects the carpet from the flakes of the pastels

chintzy curtains are still; there is no breeze whatsoever

the heat is full of desire and disgust

typically i am fascinated and repulsed by it

i feel like sponge picking up on all of sydneys sins

in furtive deals i am blown shot fucked and murdered

i crash cars drunkenly laughing as i go down

some womans husband beats me up but it was years ago

nursing a black eye and broken arm i stole a yacht

which sank in the harbour as i leapt to safety on a handy gangplank

playing cards with the boys the deck is marked the game is rigged

a stripper has turned up with the stuff and is waiting in reception

the lies i wrote down and sent out to my people

i invented a god who was angry with everybody except my little stupid crowd

we went around in the suburbs burning the witches and the promoters

as i sit here alone and still i hear the shrill cry of the gulls

i am some englishman transplanted

my thin freckled skin admits everything

i perceive the brief reprieve of evil against love

i should know good but i’m no good at should

i pick up the villains guffaw before it is deplored

the candy and cash i keep for the inevitable crash

a roll of green hundreds gets me everything else

a roll of khaki fifties to pay for the taxis and sundries

my horse comes in somewhere a hundred to one

i put my hand through a thousand doors and jimmy the latch

stolen guitars untraceable through my fence

i poach protected species and fly to asia

i do jobs and i go on sprees and take part in capers

i make the headlines in the papers

its all floating out there

and the conduits are pulling stuff in

then i go for a spin in my new red jam jar

ha ha!

bernini crumble

i murdered a million words

and perverted the course of sentences

i bang on about silences until i am shouting at nothing

i hold my tongue and bite my lip where i should be aloud

i terrify myself in the darkness where i begin to vibrate

i forget whoever i was

it really is the most inconsequential thing

nullification seems like a dream to me now

the bleakest shore at dusk a boat leaves in the mist

the crew row and groan as the lash finds their back

i am oblivious

i am gone

i am nowhere

i am no more

in my anonymous niche in a warm stillness

turned into energy that bolted instantly away

turned into finest ash a solemn vase

turned into memories that immediately start to fade

turned into a dead end off a lonely street

youre not alone says a voice beside me somewhere

a comforting voice a soothing voice

a voice that speaks without any words

a voice you needed no ears to hear

i look around wildly theres nobody there

this is a trick hisses my old broken heart

and i walk on forever before the voice speaks again

saying my name with such a collective sigh

like a hundred women in stygian tragedy ululate me gently

the coils of the snakes

the legs of the ladders

i plummet clutching 1000 pound notes

yet the earth does not rise up

i yearn for some clean warm creature to take me in

something bigger and softer than me

something kinder and better that i cant see

something to nourish me with nepenthe

and sing me to sleep

i want to sleep

let me go to sleep

yes yes says the voice again so close to your ear

go to sleep my little darling 

a warm gentle hand on your forehead smooths back your hair

ssshhh says the voice with the sweetest breath

like summer evening in a vanilla chalet

like hay in the sunshine

like the mouth of a river

sleep sleep sleep urges that faraway voice

and finally

you are safe from everything

and then

you feel yourself expand

dizzy spell

she said its the same night over and over

the colours oh everything

everything is the same

soft sea croon breeze purrs like an a/c unit

the fridge starts up again it runs too cold

it releases noble gases that drift up to the very stars

the strip light throb of my old life leaves me aching and quaking

under these majestic palms which sway along the ocean way

i was running for a bus that never came carrying my guitar

i was jostling in a fish and chip shop trying to find some salt

suddenly i was among the throng where my song was extinguished

in anguish i fled to a room i had taken

on sullen evenings they all ignore me

alone as a child alone as a man

the mirror is full of pits and dents

the awnings over the shops gently rocked by summers zephyrs

the sound of the surf sublimated in traffic

the automatic transmission of day into day

the relativity of goody good and naughty evil

neon night weighed against the unlaid day

i am a white old blues man only i do not sing the blues

the days that intervene do so of their own accord

but the night has returned the same

with  a reddish quality to it

with a worn out familiar slipper feeling the same night again

on a jetty someone caught a little monster in the dark

the blue sirens saturate my frame changing the game

the same kids with the same fucking tattoos

the cigarette the same bottle of booze

my eyes wander over a desert of talent in awe

seems i been thru all this before and

before

jim jim

my everlasting soul suddenly weary of the fork tongue world

i took sanctuary in a dream that seemed like a room

oh steven someone was saying now you got it all mixed up

some urban thoth weighing up my accomplishments

complete bird brain head machine man will match competitors offer

wild- party i was a child among such people

sydney: insistent rain and crack of thunder in limo with spirit

i alight on the reddest carpet dyed in the blood of poor soldiers no one remembers

i dressed in the warmest wooly suit of clubs of which tonight i am king

men and women come and go at my black and call

i snap my fingers impatiently

and i am attended and given advice etcetera

my marker is graduating purple window you see over my shoulder

i frown for all the poems that didnt consider me to write them down

someone offers me a drink no thanks i am straight i think

i announce to another empty room

under a single spotlight i cogitate and calculate something i cant remember

the answer is crucial to humanity now i wish i hadnt forgotten

you let us down! cries a voice from the darkness

oh leave him alone hes nearly finished anyway shouted an unseen mosquito

i really liked that song you know that one said a voice in my head

which one ? i asked the voice

come with me said a hand and i followed her name to the edge of the land

miraculous angel carved in a cemetery there

i shudder  in all my many lonelinesses

i cower from all possible futures

in some cheap hotel room i materialise with life in a suitcase

gosh suddenly i feel so tired i cant focus on the small prince

none of the numbers i know can ever reach anyone outside in the rain

i turn to my companions who have all (sadly) gone down the drain

well thats no good!  bellows my sergeant major out there imagined

day-mare what you have dreamt is that not what you meant..!

this christmas weather sultrier than any blonde dawn

the factories and chimneys outlined in haloes of flare

we were there

sister brother

we were there

oranges in lemons

a poet i hallucinate words

a mystic therefore i get glimpses of good

a fool that is why i talk to the sea

a man but first a human

spirit in flame  never burning

layman i lay out your memory

player i play for your love

singer a bringer of a sad song

maker make of it what you will kilbey

a fuckwit meddling in the puddle

prophet in the margins between column spaces

soother the holiday man and the crooner

a soul trapped in this body i crave and fear release

region a grey area a season in some heaven

insignificant which is why ive beaten my own drum

so fucking humble oh hear me shout it

so funny almost make myself say ha ha ha

vicious fox dog and i growl in my muzzle

a liquidator of luxury sweets

mover of mountains unseen in some cloud

every black cat go on pretend it is me

an echo on the line lets you hear yourselves again a second time

builder  executing labyrinthine grotesque and uneven lines

an architect who designs the invisible that will never be seen

napoleon in my front tiered room i have conquered 2 chairs

am noah on this sea of existence carrying with him a much reduced zoo

nemesis dawn in opal vienna i carve and i carry and i swerve and i sway

hopkins himself i have come back to work thru this medium rare

stone alone on a hillside singing a silence song

present when beasts materialise they must think i’m matter

so this while it lasts and then must on to next thing

i never stop i hurtle headlong blurting something

i am an ordinary joe

i’ll be blowed if it isnt good

by tomorrow

red my book

trippers i am the freak

am he who am she who am you and me

bangers i am the transubstantial poet in black velvet and grey chord

dazed by a fever i bear down on these keys full of a glorious madness

let a museum of memories explode over  les folies 

old theatre hound bound down before you everyday in anyway you want me

i peddle these thoughts some which i bought with my own blood

i hum the drumming thumbs that rolling sound when tambourine mountain

hurls back the deluge at the boiling ocean sky

girls approach me from out of a forest i almost know why

i summon the glum lord slum lord of storm and steel

but why would anything listen to me..?

strung out in a web of lows

struggling for the sure

nevertheless i am no less clever than your average fool

for the ghoulish a pool of bleach and wheres my kohl

older times in sepia soft glow

spin that wheel upon the bumpy airspeed tho

everything you think you know is tray faux

i dont need to take any dope

for fucks sake cant he be the great white hopeless ?

i am the in to the inner

i am the sin after dinner

i am the crook old fox

the thud within your heart box

i slide down any madness in freefall

this is why i get paid the (gulp) big bucks

that is why

that dark matter sucks