The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

king n Eye

in the depths of this dank bar

where the morning never comes

the unimpressionist with my insta memories

knockin’ back a stiff fucken drink

love to hear that ice tinkling against the glass

love to see those dice rolling across years

love to all those people I left behind back there…

little Stella from the tiki lounge

come over here we just gonna get something together

she both exorbitant and free oh boy she looking at me

I reach into my wallet oh no how quick those euros fly

you know me I got friends in all the low places with brutal faces

my city fly by

my universal card admit one free

my smart ticket reduces waiting around

my crumpled white shirt the collars always hurt my soft tan neck

my boots scuffed and scarred

I hit the pavement hard

the ocean has sucked out low

the green moss in the moonlight an iridescent lime

I walk Neptune Street for awhile and then I knock at a door

I go inside and I hand over the cash and I argue with some prick there

he goes away and comes back with it and chucks it at me

we get in Tonys car and drive for awhile

cemeteries and liquor barns and pines and palms

and girls with blonde blonde hair

hey I love this song playing there

Tony is laughing and shrugging

wasn’t that singer the guy Loreen was fucking…?

everybody laughs as we jump out at Tonys flat

Tonys latest flame opens the door and she’s burning hot alright

I sift thru his album collection watching her out the corner of your eye

she’s gliding around the evening like an insolent cygnet on troubled waters

I choose a record by Johnny Consort its as rare as buggery

the songs sound like they’re being played sideways

another smoke another drink another groan

I nearly swoon when I check the messages on my phone

the police found the Golden Fleece and about three keys

I was running a book but they took it with em and had a look

now that they know all the names of the games  its a shame to blame myself

Tonys got nice furniture with its real wooden arms

his fishing rods and his tool kit in the hall

you could envy him this domesticity

his girlfriend and his goldfish

a fridge full of exotic booze

an ashtray from a Melbourne casino and some unusual tongs

his computers screen saver is a still from that film we saw

its the aliens and the earth and the only gun that can kill em

my green drink swims before my eyes in between gulps

I get out the stuff and we all make a dive

little Stella is pretty greedy as she takes it all in at once

tonys more experienced and careful

his gaze never wavers as he figures it all out

the other 2 whose names I don’t know show up

and Tony lets em in and they got gossip and vicodin

the guy used to play guitar on a stage

the woman was lovely before age froze her down to her toes

she used to strip n play bongoes

in the long ago

I step outside into the garden for a breather

either you can hear the sea from here

or that shell im holding to my ear is well ringing

someone inside is singing that song again as little Stella cried

Tony comes outside

and says give us a hand

he shook his head n said the internet just died

I sit there staring at the grass pushing up through the sand

a block of land for sale next door

nah not me mate i’m too fucken poor

still it’d be nice to live next to Tony down by the shore…

his girlfriend comes out and lights up a cig

in the glow of the mosquito coils her nose looks kinda big

she says tonys crashed out for the night do ya wanna bet

and she changes the for sale sign

to

to let 

I coulda been a rhythm guitarist (sigh!)

true believers will already know

ramp speed 25

begat

precious little

and precious little

begat

baby grande

and baby grande

just begat an album out soon on ho-zac records

an American company specialising in stuff like this

whatever baby grande actually is

well its me singing n writing all the songs

Peter Koppes is on some of these tracks but not all

I sometimes play a bit of guitar n synth

but mainly I just sing…although thats using the word sing rather loosely

I imitate a load of other singers in my outta tune flat manner

the lyrics are a fucking giggle

ie the very inexperienced me singing about things I knew very little about

ie drugs women touring show biz dominatrices money stardom scandal booze life

for christ sake I still have never visited a dominatrix in all these years

(although I had one living in my house with the studio in Surry Hills in the nineties)

all delivered in a glam affected sneery silly manner

the guitars chug along and solo like fuck

look theres one good thing about this record

hats off to the geeza who did the mastering job

cos these songs come from a bunch of cassettes from 1974 75 76

different sessions some in big studios

some in Canberra in a 4 track home made jobby studio

and it lo, sounds ok

you’ll find glimpses of yer future humble hero

in songs like as

As Above So Below

god never looked so lovely

on such a moonlit day

all milky incandescence 

all girlish gaunt and grey

other lyrics will have you squirming with embarrassment

the inanity is not hard to find

I didn’t turn into myself until 1977 when I got the 4 track

at my leisure and playing everything then…

you can hear some fragments that remain of my 77 to 80 period

it was the diametric opposite of baby grande

more like an Eno early solo album or something

here I turned into me

some of this music is available on artefacts 

and freaky conclusions and even bits on unearthed

meanwhile someone out there is gonna fuckin’ love baby grande

some wag will pronounce it my finest work

and look it certainly rocks in its own relentless thrust

you know ya gonna have to buy it now ha ha

a true completist gotta have this

its hilarious its stupid its wilfully stupid in fact

its that awful must -have you simply must have

I did write one good song for baby grande

bel air

Peter suggested we do it when we put the church together

we also played around with as above so below

anyway coming soon

whether you want it

baby grande

and yes I give this record my blessing

I think you’ll get a kick out of it

ha ha ha

haz/chem

how stupid I look at 4 am when the light comes on in my dream

a hand touches my eyes to stop me seeing

a winged creature seems to leave the room

disapproving mirror swirling like a silvered sea

how abruptly and subtly it confronts me

a shunt for my girls spines

and all the uncollected fines

signs of earlier civilisations lately vanished

crooked wicked blinded deafened

struggle to recognise the eyes misprinted in typeface

ink pours outta a printers mouth

my brushes and my crayons

lay on a lushes ray on a ruin

the Demi gods tower: lemme get back t’ya in an hour

the marble hall of Jupiter: loop it a bit better

make it wetter

better get a sweater

Juno she is Hera

accepts anything as an offering

g

within the hour

upon your return

I have fallen asleep

in some kinda hypnagogue

colder than fire

the stories of your earth

the many meanings of each word you ever uttered

the singing of the spear through my ears

the trident in the sea

my brown arms on your white sands

a shadow blots out a sun

a minute becomes a day

a fortune turns into a debt

a night in each life

a life in each night

star fragments

the illusion of the universe in a dirty puddle

the memory of another mind

the taste of another tongue

another god to worship

another slave to admonish

I walk through brilliant nights and stupid days

too good for this hell

but

too bad for that heaven

you never get used to the black sea and the black sky

wherever it is they meet I wish I now was

they will meet me there

surely to be waiting for me

nothing left to take

nothing left on offer

and when you’ve suffered sufficiently

and when you’re largely forgotten

and your flowers wash into the pool

then spirit  I will envy you

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

fool of fools hill

meandering narcissistic introspection

the story so far

I am in London guv’nor where it all fucking started

when my dad met my mum

both working class cannon fodder for the empire as it has been forever

go back on both sides

yep my dad as a royal marine in ww2

both grandads in ww1 one half blinded the other gassed

further back you got the Boer war and the crimean war and all the other fucking wars

some bastard dreamt up who was never gonna fight in them himself

the English…I mean what do you make of em?

well…they (we) gave you the Beatles and the stones and bowie n bolan

so I guess I can forgive em for all the other nasty stuff that happened

(like um America n India n Australia etc)

and so here I am just one more tiny troubadour

your favourite foppish minstrel still wandering the globe

man I sing I play I travel I write I stay in hotels

I tread the boards me n my trusty bass

I am in fucking love with that thing

that thing is my flesh and we do stuff together without thinking

when I play it I am on the verge of some cosmic orgasm that I ride and I surf

yes I feel just like Jesus son

my brilliant words come rushing out my pommy throat

I have written these songs for you

you who truly love me and understand me

you who know the weight on my back and my tragedies and triumphs

these songs I dragged screaming and teaming from my English head

yeah my dad played the piano

yeah my mum would have liked poetry if she coulda got her hands on any

after she was bombed her whole childhood and then sent to work

after looking after a load of snotty nosed little brothers

my mum n dad had no pretension to arty stuff

my mum had to cook n clean n work

and my dad had to work 6 days a week to put bread on the table

outta that arises me

a freak an anomaly a rebel an idiot a cheeky naughty little boy

thanks dad I’ll have the music from you

thanks mum for reading me Robert Louis Stevenson n Lewis Carroll

thanks beatles for inventing rock music

thanks bolan n bowie for showing me how it could be done

and then I am fucking off n running

just like my dad I taught myself everything I fucking know about music

fuck your stupid rocknroll universities they will produce no Bob Dylans anytime soon

I stood back and I grokked it baby

I grokked it for myself

and only a very few could see my manifest destiny

that I was gonna write a thousand beautiful songs

and the rest of the world can go to hell

let em eat mcdonalds n fried chicken

let em listen to axle fucking rose and whoever the fuck is number one now

im Kilbey and I write the stuff. you gonna listen to all your life

right from for a moment we’re strangers on

you will listen and keep loving this stuff for the rest of your life

people will ask : who’s that yer listening to..?

they won’t understand

they don’t understand vegetarianism

they don’t understand magic

they don’t understand peace n love n understanding

why would they understand me?

what the fuck am I singing about if not your life?

yeah you never met me or you shook my sweaty hand once somewhere

still I sing your life to you

I sing if you but have the ears to hear it

I surround myself with my merry men

the guys in this band man they are the best

Jeffrey fucking Cain our latest member

can you dig how brilliant he is as a songwriter and player?

Ian haug is rocknroll with an Aussie accent

he surfs he rocks he has given this band new vital life

Peter koppes now an undisputed absolute master of music

on every level he is across this shit

he doesn’t merely play a guitar he coaxes beauty forth

Tim on drums solid inventive exciting precise musical innovative

we are ready London and anywhere else

we are inexorably good

we slay every audience we play to

we don’t care if we do or we dont

we are cocky confident and we deliver

and then theres me

an enigma to myself

some lovely god has blessed me with a new beginning

onstage I am charged with an impossible energy

an energy that hurls my voice from my mouth

an energy that fucks me like a female muse

and whispers obscenities to me as i pound that magic bass

its sex its mind its spirit its god its devil its from one thousand lifetimes

I can’t wait to get loose on wherever the fuck we are going

I don’t care

I get on the plane or the train or the bus

I check into the hotels and I check back out

let me at the fucking audiences..!

I don’t wanna see yer stupid palaces or museums or towers or shopping malls

man im here with my four string axe and I want to cut off some new heads

so they understand that now I truly sing the body electric

look at me wracked with spirit as the music makes me writhe

I fucking licked heroin and I licked apathy and I licked ungratefulness

I still lick fucking booze

it can never imprison me but fuck I enjoy a glass of absinthe before I strap on my axe

I licked writing lyrics too and now its all just raining down

its a nice day here in london

gotta do some rehearsal which I hate

bobby smith invited us to his festival

didn’t he?

how can ya say no to that geeza ?

even I think he’s fucking good!

can he play ye olde six string bass..? hell yeah!

for that reason alone I am here

London England

2 more days and they set me free upon that stage

have you ever plucked a fucking bass guitar thats turned up really loud in a big room..?

have ya ever sung into a mic and heard yer voice reverberate round around

carrying your words to every corner and crevice..?

have ya ever stood on stage and felt that sheer racket as it all takes off..?

I have

and I never get sick of it

and I can’t wait to give London a good dose of the Church

(and all the other places but I especially have a feeling about Glasgow!!)

we are a great little combo

hey

thats all I wanted to say

Stevie K in a tiny Fulham hotel room

feeling very very good

darkening elliptic

the weather had penetrated my dream

some impossible task

im a fish in a jungle

mescal has blown open the door

a female voice : oh I love it when its blurry

you and me are six again sister

they’re having a party downstairs and they think its funny to drag us out of bed

oh see the children perform…

me with my stupid poems ha ha ha they all go

you with your little dance aww ha ha ha they all go

they sent us back to bed but we grew up and we went our own ways

I delved  in the darkness of a nightclub into my own enveloping racket

oh the vortex was sucking me off baby and nihilism astride

my eyes and ears shot I resorted to telepathy

a velvet death enveloped me

wake up she said its not funny anymore

and here was my mother

you’re that nice man that singer

voice in another room : you wrote that song

doctor with accent : look I won’t bullshit you maybe a year

a year later I was playing poker

2 one eyed jacks and my colt 47 cocked

I got myself in the arm and the game folded

I walked outside and it was tonight

the rain the sea the fishnchip shops

the beach is deserted and the sea is sullen

probably none of this even happened darling

I’m just imagining something because I’m so stoned and tired

all those groaning shells all those swooping gulls all those green n red lights

yeah all it all went so blurry

oh cook me some more of those biscuits and a cuppa tea

im an English king from the olden days sitting on the floor

im mad as the maddest lake

strangers walk up n shake my hand

I can’t remember passwords and the pins

no attachment the blank screen of memory

the pool is a viscous maw

the cafe is a zoo full of primates

the car is a travelling side show

the night is another night is an other night

I type like an imprisoned marquis within a cell

I add jam to the biscuits

the tea is warm and milky

oh boy now its so cosy

its so quiet except for the sound of the rain n distant traffic

somewhere out there terrible things are happening

I keep my head low in soft darkness

every future open ups

the courtyard and the plants

the painting on the easel unfinished

cat asleep under table

music from some time that never came