The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

crystal gazer

on a summer night

i saw you there

the taste of tequila

your cut off jeans

the stones rattled in the ditches

the comets shot in the sky

the frogs warbling in the darkness

the hedges lined the green stormy streets

i touched your neck as you were driving

dont stop you said smiling in a headlight

oh your house is incredible said a voice in another room

the furniture on all its different levels

at the top of the stairs a darkening bedroom as thunder rumbling

an immaculate selection of drinks fruits and teas

all kinds of other interesting things

the blue cats approach

all the stuff hanging on the walls

gods and stuff like that i guess

we sit and talk

i dont listen but i touch like its the most natural thing

stroking her like you would stroke a fawn

softly and with good intent the evening is laid on

oh my little empath feeling her way forward in a harsh world

she loves the creatures amassing much credit

she could harm nothing in her dimmest dream

shes a genie with her obsidian black eyes with the crescent iris

with the deep vaulted heavens above revolving the stars

andromeda titania virgo swept by and the storm abated to leave glorious clarity

in the city where she lived a holiday was to be declared henceforth someday i suppose

the arbours of her cactus gardens emerging from the rain like visitors

the sway and sweep of her tide the warp and woof of her fabric

the impending sentences as she spoke and her characteristic lilt

long black hair pulled back she was so fucking languid

lets go upstairs whispers a voice from another life

follow me whispered the soft stars

take my hand the sky tried to imply somehow

my hand breaks upon her wheels

my head revolves like  her hidden planet in symmetry-less arcs

my brave soldiers are defeated

cruel barbs deflected

arrows of outrageous fortune turn aside

some things well you will just never forget them

other things you will always remember and theres a difference

sorry ive digressed or have been drifting off

little empath says Im a witch dont you know

and she turns into the angel riding wormwood down

the heavenly host trumpet her coming with lightning so they say

with her pharmaceuticals and her tinctures of olde

and her low key glow that illuminates my mind

when i wake up and she is gone tomorrow into her fog

left me with my handful of nuthin’ and my fading dirge

stranded at low ebb in a dream of glittering water

outside the thunder hammered her eaves

her electric car shuddered in its stable

the hours ripped in half and then thrown to the wind

mozart composing the music of the celestial beings now

Klimt dressing the trees in gold

Nero burning the cities on the horizon

the crackle of an electrical disturbance

the past sucked time down into her whirlpool

fleeting pleasure races by and leaves deep ruts of pain

my still heart pounds and shillings

the abject dread of solitude

the voyage begins with a single sail

tap tap tap

doing yoga in my little shared courtyard

doing garudasana blah blah blah

im standing there quite stoned on weed and yoga

the voice says enter the stillpoint and remain there

so i do

the feeling persists even after a day

the stillpoint

easy to say enter the stillpoint 

hard to fucking enter the stillpoint

yet miraculously i do

in the stillpoint its marvellously calm

all that thrashing around

what does it add up to?

i go to a party

the praises and blames roll off my back

impervious still in the stillpoint

i float away on a cloud of detachment

i just smile like a vacancy sign on the edge of town

all that fucking music i wrote let it speak for itself

tomorrow i will write more its gonna be alright

my thoughts collide and collect in my empty head

i listen to a bit of the new church album

and i put it into an order and listen to em together

yeah wow golly gee its sounded pretty good but what else would i say..?

theres some strange and weird stuff on this one

beautiful stuff too like another century

if that aint one of the best songs ive ever been involved in i dont know what

its a little masterpiece lush and romantic and ra ra ra

i gotta toot this horn no one else is ha ha ha

yeah man our new album oh god you gonna love this

you gotta love this please dont let me down oh no

i’m playing a thousand gigs i pop up everywhere

i’m out there being a travelling minstrel and i burn down the road

i duck n i weave and steve you know you deceive and are deceived

i am high and low i am wise and so slow

my eyes see right through the fields

my voice is so familiar to you who are reading this now

you can almost hear me saying these words

and smell my neck which is warm and pleasant

and up close you notice i fidget and move nervously

clutching myself as if some great chill is sweeping over me

you think its a smile but its my aching mouth as a grimace

a skull a jaw a brain turning over

now my heart beats out of time with every lie

any lie at all

and it palpitates to the awful truth

and my hands never shake

but my feet tap tap tap nevertheless to an inaudible tune

im writing my lyrics all over your face

my words decorate your army

my songs that no one hears except my dismal pillow

in the hollow of night a phantasm arriving slow

the church songs go on n on in the back of my dreams now

stuff we ripped from the void from the stillpoint

music music music i know sweet music

go on go on go on

slim biosis

my flat is freezing

its winter in all my dreams here

its winter in and out

tricked n fooled n frozen n burnt

my old skin stretched taut by the coldness of the sea pool

and the dry electric poison heat from the fire 

its very quiet

i am quite alone with myself

dark corridors flung open within my brilliant mind

and the inky blacknesses spill out and i withdraw

down in the fainting whirl oblivion at the other end

in the darkest darkness where its so still

there i lie awhile

everywhere and nowhere

i travelled out and above the city

i flew up against the softly spitting cold rain

i moved like a jealous thought thru the greenish light

elementals are following me

the word cackling comes to mind although they are making no sound

oh there is so much going on you really wouldnt believe it

i saw everything

now i know everything

everything i never wanted to know but there you go

i want to fade away to rippling white

my mind thinks too much i cant switch it off

i am trapped in here with all these thoughts

it feels unbearable from second to long second

and yet i still endure it

this machine needs to be switched off now

its burning out against itself

i lose chunks of my self ripped off by friction

in my bed i groan no doubt but no one to hear me

i lie shivering in my new black sheets

curled up like a broken eel in a black creek

i twitch and i talk as slumber in the umbrae

all my little baby girls are in pain

i gotta fix everything again

its impossible but i gotta make everything right

even sisyphus would  laugh

a hundred people are shaking me

steve steve steve steve

i am drowning under all the emails

im winning the lottery inheriting fortunes

one thousand i phones are about to be delivered

russian women are willing to marry me now!

as smart as i am i’m as stupid as fuck

and i lead in with my pretty face getting smashed by time

and i bleed all over the floor sending the blue carpet purple

suddenly without the fix of an audience everynight i am  deflated tired

i dont blame all you idiots i only blame myself

and i flog me forward towards tomorrow like a penitent monk

my blood curdles my heart pumps that sludge into my fingers

my toes like ice my burning ears hear your bitching

the worms in the earth turn

the birds in the skeletal tree clack click clack

lonesome whistle of a far off train

in miladys bedroom on the third floor where i should have alighted

in her mirrors i caught sight of myself so furtive and deluded

is that really me looking like that in the impenetrable gloom

through bottles of lickers and bitterest tastes

the sting the bite the claw the talon the jaw the unholy strength

the creatures who appear in my room by just arriving smile

lie down little steven they think

then im seven again and theyre opening up my back

taking something out

putting something in

no no no no no

it hurts so much i cant feel a thing

i scream for mum and dad but theyre on another earth

the smiles  follow me when i run away in my mind

they chase me down wherever i turn

and they always will find me now forever

this is my sorrow but also my joy

i fear the night i fear the silence of this room

i fear the shapes that slide down my walls

i fear to sleep i fear to be awake

so i lie curled up with one eye open

listening to a stuck record of regrets

and waiting patiently for the astral dawn to arrive

Conversations With Kilbey Part Two: Lying For Love

When did you first take heroin?

Nineteeen-ninety.

What was happening in your life that led you to heroin?

Nothing really. A friend of mine offered it to me one night, took me unawares, and I had a snort, liked it, and became addicted. For ten years.

Were you trying to quit during that period, or only towards the end?

I was always plotting to get off, but not trying. You always heard that at the dealer’s house – I’m stopping next Tuesday! I’m stopping tomorrow! This is the last time! We all had plans for going cold turkey and being locked in our room. But you would never hear a sick junkie saying he was going to stop. The only junkies who promised they were stopping were those who had just scored or were about to score. Very occasionally you’d meet someone who’d say, I’m never stopping. I know someone like that. Thirty years later, they’re still on it. But that’s rare. Most of them are planning to stop, because life becomes a misery.

At what point did you become aware that it was more of a misery than a joy?

It’s a bit like meeting someone for the first time and being knocked out by them. This is the best person I ever met in my life! I love everything about them! Then you start noticing things. They’re a bit of a bully. Or a bit of a thief. And eventually one day you realise you hate everything about them. I remember the first time I decided to stop to see what would happen. It was terrible, agony, miserable. And I began to fear withdrawals more than anything else. More than being arrested. Withdrawal from heroin is so awful, so unbearable, you do anything to avoid it. It’s like nothing else you could imagine. Nothing alleviates it except for very strong sedatives.

How did you quit, finally?

I was living in Sweden at the time. A woman I knew in the US said come over. I knew it meant going cold turkey. So I went. I had a small bottle of methadone, and after that was gone I went through about six weeks of hell, but I did eventually stop thinking about it. When I went back to Sweden, I tried it again, but something had changed. It did the very opposite of everything I ever wanted it to do. It was awful. It was like it had quit me, not like I’d finished with it. There are many addicts out there who would do anything for a fix but know they mustn’t, but I’m not one of them. I don’t have to go somewhere every day and talk about it. It’s a clean break, history. I haven’t used heroin for seventeen years. These days I drink a little [raises Margherita], smoke a little. Moderation.

What about your creativity during those years? Did heroin help or hinder it?

In the beginning, the honeymoon period, it’s inspiring. I imagine if I wasn’t such a pig and did a little occasionally it would have been different, but I had to do it all the time. I got a lot out of it, a lot of inspiration, ideas, feelings. That incredible feeling it gave me, of warm, soft, sexy, caressing, slippery, nebulous, elusive … whatever that feeling was, I tried to capture it in music and lyrics. I made two records which I love, two of my favourite records. Priest = Aura, and my solo record Narcosis. On that album the drugs had set in a little more and I was starting to come undone. It’s a little bit harrowing in places maybe.

Was anyone else in the band doing heroin?

No. It was just me. The others would smoke pot, take a little LSD, mushrooms. When we got to America, it was cocaine. But the Church was never a huge drugs band by any means. Pot was our main vice. When we’re on the road I have a good stiff drink and a good stiff smoke before I go on stage, gives it a fresh perspective, helps to reinterpret the songs. Bit of bravado, bit of energy. Alcohol and weed are great if you use them with respect, ritualistically, not out of habit. At home it’s different. There’ll be alcohol in the kitchen but I won’t touch it.

You don’t hang out with the band, do you?

Not at all, and they don’t hang out with each other.

What’s happening?

We just made an album, and we’re touring the new single in America at the end of this month. I don’t know what the rest of the set will be. We’ve got like thirty albums to choose from. It’s like an election process for what songs get played, such a joke! We can’t do that song, it’s too popular! We can’t do that song, no-one’s ever heard of it! We can’t do that song it’s too fast! Too slow! In the wrong key! Everyone’s got a veto. You can suggest a song, and if one of the band says no, that’s the end of it. The idea that I’m like this mastermind, this Svengali controlling the group, telling them what to do … it’s so wrong! I go along with it, I want a quiet life.

Does Further/Deeper seem like a long time ago already?

Oh yeah, it does. It really really does. I thought it was the best thing we could have done at the time. I didn’t think it was a masterpiece but it had some pretty good moments.

It’s a deep and complex album – was there a lot of preparation before you went into the studio?

No – we just switched on the tape recorder and knocked out the songs. But then people would add overdubs, spend two or three days or whatever adding ornamentation, levels, tightening it up. Like if you’re writing, you go back and polish and edit, that would be an analogy.

Are you writing?

I’m working on a complete collection of my lyrics. It’s going to be a huge book, about a thousand pages. The last great project of my life.

I like the vagueness of your writing. I enjoy not understanding it literally.

Yes! I agree! I’m with you. A lot of records you hear on the radio – you don’t know what the fucking lyrics are. Doesn’t matter. Sometimes the words you think they’re singing are better than the true words.

Is the truth important to you? Do you ever lie?

If it’s to do with matters of the heart, I can tell some terrible lies. But anything else, I usually tell the truth.

You seem very unpretentious. You undersell yourself and underestimate your own achievements.

No. Sometimes I’m absolutely full of myself. I’m a genius! Who else could do this? Mine is a high and lonely destiny! If only they could understand! I do get carried away with myself. But I’m always self-aware, even when I’m being my most egotistical, insufferable self.

Conversations With Kilbey Part One: “Once I’ve Started I Don’t Stop”

Tim Earnshaw 2017

Steve Kilbey. A man out of time and place. He should be strolling with J-K Huysmans in turn-of-the-century Paris, twirling a cane. Flat on his back in an opium haze next to Coleridge. Posing as Jupiter for Gustave Moreau in a Haussmann salon. Punching Aleister Crowley on the jaw in the Himalayas. Not in Australia, not here, not now. He’s a bohemian, a true bohemian, a hothouse flower on the outskirts of the back of beyond. A dandy and a rake. Ageless – the cheekbones, the hair, the sharp good looks and skinny shirts. What’s he on? His room is cluttered with books and pictures. A portrait of a High Court Judge he’s working on (it’s beautiful, she’s beautiful). It’s an artist’s home, full of life and work. And that’s his secret; the work, the Great Work. He never stops. The music and the writing and the painting, he’s burning up with it.

Do you remember your dreams?

“I carry vague impressions of them around. I smoke dope every night, so I usually forget them in the morning. The details vanish. Ninety per cent of my dreams are unpleasant. They’re often of regret, searching, trying to achieve an impossible task, Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill. Time’s running out, pressure and anxiety. Wake up in the morning like I haven’t had any rest at all.”

Do you hear music in your dreams?

“I’ve woken up with songs in my head but I’m not quick enough to jump up and catch them. I think I’ve dreamed some great songs but they’ve evaporated.”

When you’re composing, do you think you might be drawing on this forgotten material?

“No. It’s gone. I had a toy as a kid, you drew on this sheet of clear plastic with a stylus, and lifted it and it disappeared? That’s what inspiration can be like. You can be on the verge of a magnificent idea and bang! It just goes. Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, when he was writing Kubla Khan. Man knocked on the door and it was gone.”

Do you ever dream you’re playing an instrument?

“Yes, but it always goes wrong. I’m on stage, but my guitar is moving, the frets are warping, the stage is sinking and I’m playing really hard but the rest of the band can’t hear me. Never like a great Wembley Arena gig.”

[A dog barks on the banks of the Mekong River – we’re distracted. It’s like our Man From Porlock.]

When did you first feel you were making your own music?

“Not until Heyday. Our first record was a good example of the New Wave genre. Still a hodge-podge of influences, you can hear a bit of Bowie, a bit of Beatles. On Heyday, the songs were mostly written as jams, the guitarists turned into themselves, I turned into myself as a singer and a lyricist. I’d written the words to Myrrh, and the music came together, and I knew we’d completely transcended all our influences. The words I’d written, the way I was singing, it could only be me. Even though I’m made up of all these influences they were finally put to bed. It was like a huge door had opened. I can do anything! Freedom!”

[I’ve never heard The Beatles in The Church’s music. Maybe a bit of Bowie in the singing, but at a so-what level. To me they’ve always been their own band with their own sound. A sound that’s changed, sometimes before I was ready, but always carrying their own signature. I’m much fonder of the first album than Steve is.]

Can you talk about the change in tone from the first to the second album, The Blurred Crusade? That was a major shift – what happened?

“On that first album I was fighting with the producer, who thought he’d discovered us, the engineer, who was always turning the rhythm guitar down, and the horrible drummer. All that went for the second album. We got rid of the drummer. He was a real rock-head, a traditionalist AC/DC Rose Tattoo chug-chug-chug drummer. The new drummer was into The Beatles, psychedelia. One of the best producers in the world, Bob Clearmountain, was somehow persuaded to do this album with us, and he indulged me with all the things I wanted to do. I told him I wanted a harpsichord on one track, just to play these little lines, and this guy turned up and assembled a harpsichord in the studio, a whole day, and in the evening I played my lines, and the next day he took it away. Bob encouraged me and the band to do whatever we wanted. Which was more acoustic guitars, no more chug-chug-chug rhythms. Embracing a bit of The Byrds, walking away from New Wave and going back to what we really were at heart – classicists. We didn’t want anything from the eighties. We wanted to sound like a real band playing together. The bass to be warm and round and melodic. Crisp acoustic guitars. Bob Clearmountain brought that all out. We weren’t groundbreaking in any way at all, but we were saying if you like the values and aesthetics of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Bowie, here’s our take on that.”

You’ve always been very strong on image. Projecting the band by album sleeves, the way you dress …

“When I was growing up, I was planning this all along. Looking at Bolan and Bowie, I could see you had to have the total package. I didn’t want to be just a songwriter. I wanted an image, a philosophy, a look, a manifesto, I wanted my henchmen to be fucking good-looking skinny guys with great hair. I couldn’t have some fat old ugly bloke in my band! We all picked up on it. I wasn’t masterminding it that much, we were all heading towards that look.”

Where did you get your clothes?

“We got them from Opportunity Shops, because we were driving all round the country, playing little towns where the sixties had not yet been plundered. One day this old lady who knew us called us over and said Steve! Come out the back and have a look! There were like thirty unopened packets of Nehru shirts from the sixties complete with medallions. Three dollars each. Nobody wanted paisley clothes in Australia then – we got them all. We had three-quarter length coats, cravats. The look is important initially, until the music becomes so strong it doesn’t matter. When Brian Eno started he was all image and swagger, and now he’s all kind of theory and science, become a real academic. That’s sort of what I’ve done, started out as a sort of ponce, and I’ve become more authentic.”

When you were picking up those clothes, it was a retro thing, but you were around for them the first time, right?

“I was very young, but I was sucking it all in. It seemed to me the best thing you could be when you grew up was a dandy rock star – skinny, pale and wasted, in velvet and paisley.”

You’ve used artworks on your album sleeves, paintings, and you’re an artist yourself. Who was the first painter whose work you noticed and thought was special?

“That’s where I’m really deficient … I don’t have any influences in my painting. I never was really interested in painting. Didn’t go to museums and art shows. My brother said I should do an album cover for him, so I sort of stumbled into it. I got a good response and a demand for more, so I kept painting. I’ve done about five hundred paintings, sold four hundred of them. But I’m not even proficient enough to be influenced by someone. I wish people would look at my work and see a Dali influence, but I’m not good enough technically to be influenced by Dali. I’m just making something up. I’m a naive artist. Fuck it, I’m going to paint even if I don’t know how. There’s a naive energy to my lofty ambitions I wouldn’t have if I’d been to art school for four years. I paint all the time.”

Is there any similarity for you between the creative processes of painting and making music?

“There are some meta principles that are applicable. One of them is trusting the process, never giving up, never stopping. Having the audacity to put your personality on a piece of paper or a piece of silence – I’m going to fill this up with what I am. Then when this process has started, to get out of the way and let it do it’s own thing. Letting it become something else than what you intended. I persevere with a painting as I do with a song. I don’t give up if it’s not immediately right. I keep working at it, knowing that having trust in the process, something will come out of it. Building up layers until something great jumps out. I don’t have any projects I started and didn’t finish. If I didn’t think it had potential I wouldn’t start it, and once I’ve started I don’t stop.”

zeitgeist #82/83

(blog commissioned by KN)

boy in 1982 i was somebody else

and i was making my third album

i was a confused little pouting ninny

our 2nd album had done pretty good

but an EP called sing-songs had kinda bombed

so here we are

late 1982 after a tour taking in sweden where i met karin jansson

in australia i was dating that glamorous newsreader

yeah you know who i mean

the heroin years still 8 years ahead of me

angular blah blah blah

living in terrace house with russell in rozelle

lots of people sitting around taking drugs

scruffy young art college types

bonging on and smoking cigs

white wine and negative photos and clothes patterns and demo tapes

open fire me and russell both slightly pyro playing around with it

the phone rings with girls asking for russell

our voices are similar

sometimes they think i am him and its embarrassing

when i say no actually thats my brother...

i got my studio in the front room

i gotta 4 track tape recorder

and im knocking out tunes by the dozen

i go in there and i fire up the equipment

i gotta tr808 drum machine

which is responsible for a lot of the drum patterns on seance

unfortunately

demo-itis had gripped the recording of seance by the balls

the demo versions were too closely adhered to and it was my fault

the songs never got to really blossom and flow like on blurred crusade

and again on heyday

they remain kinda rigid

lyrically i seem to be playing the part of some Byron-esque melancholia addict

reaching through a medium to find my dead fiancee or whatever the fuck its supposed to be

the agony of separation

the romance of death

the triumph of love

puh-lease! spare me…

anyway back in 1982/3 this is where my head was at

total demos

every song sounds just like a well recorded demo

i have 2 great guitarists and a great drummer

but they ended up mostly playing the stuff from the demos

i dunno if i intended it to be this way

but i can see now what a bad idea it actually was

the songs never breathe

locked into these formats i have devised

every instrument plays its counterpoint pattern

everything is made up of little patterns

the drums the bass the guitars the tinkly keyboard bells things

listen to one day made up of interlocking riffs

only at the end of the guitar solo does any freedom happen

the whole thing was totally compounded

when EMI in their wisdom insisted on hot shot wunderkind Nick Launay mixing it

Launay had done some great work with midnight oil and rejuvenated their sound

but his early eighties box of electronica tricks makes the church sound merely dated

i dont blame him

he had his one special sound at that stage and thats what you got him in for

anyway seance ended up sounding boxy and tinny and flat instead of big and soft

i couldnt do anything about it

it was beyond my power to stop it

the whole album is a weird proposition i think

its always the album those old style church fans like

we rarely play anything off it either

its got that great cover picture taken by russells girlfriend kim

its got that ridiculous track travel by thought

‘a stoned jam that never should have made it into the studio let alone out again’

(said someone in melody maker i think)

its got that great joy division influenced track it doesnt change

its got that great opener fly

(the girl dies in the first song so bloody miserable is seance)

theres a few flashes of sunlight but mostly its sad doomed love stuff

4th form poetry and slightly clunky songs

i dunno now its so long ago

i listened to it last night before i wrote this

its ok i guess but a feeling that the bands wings are clipped often pervades

this was the album where i was at the height of my control freak period

i had it all figured out exactly how it should be and i oversaw the whole thing

we were victims of the zeitgeist and there is definitely some dated ideas in there

some underdone songs

and a load of flat singing

flat as a freaking tack jack

one review said that my voice made the one note samba look tuneful

it was a hugely pretentious affair but so fucking what?

i wanted to make a sad but triumphant album

i wanted seance to be a gambit

i knew that somewhere some people in the future would totally dig it

i knew it would probably not do that well at the time of its release

for one glorious week it entered the charts at 13 in australia before falling like lead

in england it managed to go in for one week at 42

its incredible to think it was 35 years ago that we did this record and that people still like it

if you have listened to seance recently please give it a review in the comments

(if you’d care to)

yeah seance 

as one  nasty review said:

close but no sugar lamp

(a commissioned blog for BC)

yeah as you all know i became a veg around 17 years of age

it seemed like good idea at the time and it still does

if i am at all youthful and a survivor of the scourges of drugs

surely it can only be my vegetarianism at the bottom of it all

because vegetarianism is just the right thing to do all the time

dont kill things dont eat their flesh

man its the most lose/lose scenario you can imagine

a devils deal: murder begetting misery

its only obvious

if you humiliate and torture some creature its whole life

if you kill an innocent beast with an axe or a bolt

how can it be that this will not come back upon you?

on every single level that something can affect you

spirit

body

mind

chemical

karma

meat is bad medicine my friends

that decaying flesh decomposing from the minute that creature dies

chopped up in some nightmarish gory filthy abattoir

its grisly remains are hacked into bits and packaged up

the ugly work of a world gone wrong

it is perversion to eat this rotten rubbish when its unnecessary

people wake up to the fucking truth

meat is killing our planet along with a few other stupid things

that carcass hitting your guts and travelling round in your intestines

your intestines long n winding road

and with weak digestive juice

that bit of corpse in your guts for up to three days going off

your stomach aint no freezer

put a piece of meat in a glass on a table with some weak acid

see what happens

the things we are meant to eat dont rot in the same way

veggies and fruit dont rot like meat

nothing rots like meat

this flesh full of adrenaline and fear

are we not men so high and moral

with all our art and medicine and science and all the rest?

so how come we are butchering and shooting and trapping and murdering

all the other residents of this planet

torturing em

testing soap and cigarette smoke on em

sawing their heads off

skinning em alive

tell me my friend

how would you like to be strapped down

and some bastard cut off your ears

and pull out your teeth or your nails with pliers

put ya in a cage where cannae fucking even move

if you have children they are dragged from you screaming at birth

youre stuck in a black stinking place

surrounded by other wretched beasts each unmoving in their pen

all you know is hatred and scorn and pain and savagery

didnt your god who made you make that pig or that chicken too?

news flash tho

scientists only a few years back are saying hello! animals have feelings now

that they feel pain and love their young

well no fucking kidding thank god for that

gee here i was all these years thinking its fucking obvious that of course they do

of course they dont wanna be treated how we are treating them

we are idiots with cunning brains and opposable thumbs

and we have made everything elses life on this earth a fucking misery

humanity ruining things as usual

not to mention what humanity does to humans

who cares

at least thats our business more than this huge evil conspiracy of killing

imagine explaining it to some aliens who turn up here

yeah well yeah we kill those creatures and eat them

we breed them in squalor and agony

and at the end of their pathetic existences

they are cruelly despatched by some cruel numbzombie who gets paid to kill em

yeah hell on earth

could hell even rival the slaughterhouse and its hidden pain and horrors..?

the blood and the shit and the piss and the guts

the disembodied heads

the hides and skin ripped off

the eyes and the feet and the torsos

jesus christ oh my people wake up to ya selves

do not ever eat this foul poison again

eat vegetarian for everythings sake

youll be healthier better cooler nicer

you’ll be a real man or real woman

a real human

raise your kids as vegetarians i did

they are all vegetarian

refuse it

abhor it

take to the streets and social media and declaim it

study the animal men who eat lots and lots of meat

coarsened and ugly and becoming animals themselves

their hideous carnivorous aura radiating bad fucking vibes

what do you expect?

you are what you eat

you eat bacon and pork no wonder youre a repulsive pig yourself

your mind unable to perceive subtle vibrations and the earths emanations

becoming what you hate because surely you must hate animals to be part of this killing

the pig eater becomes the pig why its as plain as the handsome nose on my face!

dont eat meat you selfish greedy idiots full of bloodlust

do something for this planet and all your co inhabitants

and get off the evil excuse for food that meat is!

evil rotten stupid habit

oh my doctor says i need vitamin b 13

where the fuck are the elephants and gorillas getting their b 13 from, i ask you?

they live on grass and fruits

why dont you ever meet an anaemic gorilla who needs some sirloin to rescue it..?

its all bullshit!

the proof is in the pudding

despite all the stupid things i have prevailed only because of vegetarianism

my songs are vegetarian songs

my words are vegetarian words

my mind and body are vegetarian

i pity the carnivores

they are taking on so much cosmic sludge and so much death

with every nasty little bite

instant karma as yer blood pressure goes up

your chance of heart attack and stroke and cancer

im sure at the bottom of almost every disease there is something to do with meat

think about it for one minute

the amount of unnecessary killing going on every day

all those souls in torment

that cloud of negativity surrounding our planet like a dirty smog

people join with me now in a vegetarian league

dont eat meat

dont be part of it

become cleansed of the muck

and tell everyone you meet

DONT EAT MEAT!

oh and enjoy yer prosciutto you hypocrite!

hope

WARning : this blog has been commissioned 

it is about heroin and it is a fictionalised account 

of lives lived in a day

So i’m riding the train to the vietnamese part of town

and its taking forever

yeah i am riding along

maybe you dont recognise me

i was hurled into this world with enough past life baggage

to check into the white hotel for evermore

how the hell would i know what it was..?

but it was something that was a big hassle

i had no screaming esteem

i could not dig myself at all for sure

as the slow old train wound its way to my destination

my self esteem was not picking up any steam

i sat there attacked from all sides by pain ache despair and anxiety

and thats just the stuff you can give names to…

there are the other formless nameless horrors

bearing down on me and it felt like the whole world

finally we get there and i wander around trying to make eye contact with someone

sometimes the dealers actually greeted ya as you got off the train

today they werent there so i walked through the shops

i make eye contact with a vietnamese guy about the same age as me

ie early forties

he sidles over to me gracefully

what you want ? he smiles

i do only hundreds. this is the best stuff you ever had in your life. i promise you!

i nod my head.

i heard that best stuff line a thousand times before

hissed in swedish

guffawed by an irish guy

sneered to me in cockney english

in matter of fact american

an enthusiastic old mexican guy whose stuff actually had been the best

but i am conflicted because this guy looks like he wouldnt have said it

if he didnt mean it

because yeah

he said it with the pride of merchant who knows he has the best fucking merch

i follow him to a restaurant and he bids me wait and pulls up a table and chair

he disappears out the back into the kitchen

the people in the restaurant all watch me sadly as they eat their noodles and chilli

its seems like an eternity that i sit there

the people go on with their low drone of conversation

i guess they all know why i’m here

eventually he comes out and puts down a little square object on the table

two? i say…

he nods and puts another little package down

i give him 200 bucks and i walk back and get on a train home which is even more agonisingly slow

somehow those 2 little packets sitting in the change pocket in my jeans are keeping the lid on things

i take a bus and eventually i get into my empty and neglected house

where children had once played was now only dust and a sullen darkness

my friends never liked me enough and they were gone

the wives and girlfriends had never loved me enough and they were gone

the music had been too loud and my hearing was gone

the sweets had been too sweet and some of my teeth were gone

the money in the bank had been too easy and now it had mostly gone too

still i didnt care

i had snuck a peak at my packets and i knew i was holding the real deal

after crumbling off a bit and tasting it

yeah there was that familiar old bitter taste

up in my room i got the ritual ready

a silver spoon still with this mornings cotton filter in it

i pulled a needle out of the large family sized pack of needles

gotten from the pharmacy up the snobby road

where the pharmacist had visibly winced as he took my cash

because dope users had all kinds of diseases…

anyway i take out the packet and examine my dope

its in this aluminium wrap and it looks like a small caramel  square

it is extremely yellow

the most yellow dope i have ever seen in my life

like yellow ochre i want to say from my paint set as a child

yeah definitely yellow ochre

i take about one third of the block and put it in the spoon

it has the consistency of some soft sweet or something

then i draw up half a needle full of water and squirt it into the spoon

then i pull the plunger out of the needle

and with the small black spongy tip

i mix up the yellow dope into the water

until the solid dope is disappeared into the now thick yellowy water

putting the plunger back into the syringe

i throw a tiny cotton wool ball into the spoon

the cotton wool absorbed most of the mixture and turned yellow

i apply the needle to the cotton wool

and from it i suck up all the yellow solution of dope in the spoon

then i fish around in my arm for a vein

there a still a few ok veins left to hit but its getting trickier and trickier

it takes about 5 or 6 long sweaty minutes

before a small flash of blood appears in the chamber of the needle

i carefully suck up some more blood

which swirls through the yellow dope creating horrifically beautiful shapes

then i push down ever so gently with my thumb as the stuff drains into my vein

a direct injection into my living mainframe

the feeling is overwhelming an exciting rush

it instantly erases every single worry doubt ache cramp nausea anxiety and nightmare

then

you stagger back and sit on the bed

you dont care that youre alone and unshaven and shabby in this dim messy room

you dont care that tomorrow was another day you gotta somehow find another hundred bucks at least

the  rush brings the taste of the dope into the back of your throat

its a bitter medicinal taste but now youve grown to love it

you sit there and in the wake of the rush comes the calm

wow! things arent too bad…i guess…are they..?

oh boy youre so serene and wise and detached and beyond it all

the whispering of the empty house silenced

the murmuring of the voices in your head is gone

your dismal room seems cheery and muted

you just sit there happy content warm and comfortable

you just sit there quiet easy nice soothing

everything is just so cool actually

youve scored some nice dope so fuck the bills and the work and the gossip and all the rest

once you were doing ok and now youre plainly not but fuck all that!

who cares about all that stuff anyway?

and then your head starts to slump and your eyes are starting to close

your nodding and then catching yourself you snap out of it

and yeah youre still sitting on the bed in the dim old room

a stupefaction has come down upon you now

you enter these realms of pure fantasy which last for one millisecond only

but during that millisecond in the dope world time is passing at another rate

you keep snapping out of it and blinking your eyes and youre still sitting on the bed

its 630 pm and its raining outside but outside no longer exists for you

your head falls forward again on your chest

and then you nod right out and curl up on the bed

behind your eyes are a million dreams

you seem to walk along this corridor sampling every dream

and every dream is unbelievably fantastic and more real than real

eventually you are dreaming you are this man

and youre married to this beautiful woman

oh boy what a wonderful marriage you have

oh man that woman of your dreams here in your dream and yeah she loves you

well you are a good man and you live your life here in this dream

and you and your wife have one two three handsome sons

and you watch them grow up

and you walk through the snow with them in winter

and through the soft warm sunlight of the dreampt summer

and the boys grow

and your wife loves you

and you fix up your house in the country

hey tho…

maybe its like a hundred years ago or something…

theres even some horses and animals and a war

but you go and fight in the war and you are triumphant and your side always win

when you come home the beautiful wife who youve been married to for like 30 years now

she is still young

the weather is always nice

the daughters in law and grandchildren all love you

everything in your life is happy and righteous and good

friends come over and you sit long into the nights

laughing and eating and drinking and being satisfied

youve been living here in these lovely woods for so long

youve planted all the trees and seen them all grow

you and that lovely wife whose name is always on the tip of your tongue

the fish in the river they are so silvery

the birdsong in the air is glorious

the crowds fluffy on water colour skies and the warming sun

the cooling white moon of the long perfect evenings

the mornings in bed with that gorgeous wonderful obliging wife

man she loves ya all up!

the white sheets the soft eiderdown the moving curtains in the zephyrs of spring

those sweet kisses those lovely sleeps when its all over

yeah you roll out of bed ready for breakfast have a look in the mirror

yeah age has not wearied you brother

you are strong and firm and decent and handsome and popular and kind and good

so many days stretch behind you

so many days stretch away ahead

days full of doing wonderful things

days full of wonder and light and peace and love

the whole world swings through space and the whole universe is in accord

problems you just laugh away

your 3 fine sons and your most gorgeous wife who loves you so much

youve worked so hard for all of this although it seems effortless

on a day like this so perfectly crisp and so immediate and new

if there is a more happy satiated contented man on this earth he would be hard to find

man this goes on for even more years and years and years…

what? click!

suddenly i open your eyes to find its 6.34 on a rainy evening in winter

and im lying on a bed in a cold dim room and theres no one else is home

and theres the needle and theres the spoon and theres the cotton

and a small drop of blood coagulated on my arm

and that whole life i just led is cruelly snatched away

that glorious world where i was a king

and that lovely wife you had and family…

im nothing here just a shabby hopeless dodgy dope fiend and a wretch

bang! its all taken away from ya just like that…

and then just as im thinking about it all i nod off again

and that pleasant memory is nearly almost totally erased

but even through all the next series of dreams

that i will have before the next shot in a few hours time

the incandescent memory of that world burns bright

in some harsh contrast between that world of wonder

and the darkened sad empty dusty rainy evening

which is enveloping us right now

as i lie in the room upstairs in the lonely house

and i start to dream it all again

for JB

look downward angel

all those magic books making me longing for something quite marvellous

all the times in the caravan by the black lake with the blue cranes

all those tiny red sweets your lovely sister sucked on

all those planes at night in the sydney sky

yeah i am coming home laughing up the drive

the drizzling warm wind turning my umbrella mind into a wand

wandering aimlessly i come to the seapool and dove in

in the middle of the night i was alone in the water except for the rain

as i swam around weightlessly my breath escaped in silver wriggling bursts

thirsty for your fathoms down father i sank in disappearing circles

underwater the clouds held me down by my toes

my unstitched shadow was violently thrown against the sand

drowning in bed where absence has unmade it

up and above it all my angel protects and guides me like a weapon

in all spheres we are each represented by another spirit

in water air fire and earth am i put together

in gold love hate and evil pulled apart

in the loneliness of a crowded hotel the noise killed my ear

in the embrace of a memory the drink had dulled my mind

in the hand you offered a strong suit a firm shake

the new car slipped through the rain like Vsnu’s disc

i forgot to mention how warm i was feeling now safely falling home

a streetwalker a roadworker an old timer a 2 timer

tell her you do yoga says a voice in another room

you already said it grumbled the horizon which was dividing the elements

in the reflection in the mirror on the table in the corner

in the room inside the house in the quietest night imaginable

in the silence that comes into the night leaked from another world

in the things in themselves without their shells and their shields

like a sword apprehension cuts through the sway

under the green sea light i dont look like anything

under the nets and the buoys and the place where they tie the sea up

under the canopy of the surface of the very sea itself

i look like anybody else just slipping into inkiness

just a white flash of flesh in the eel filled murk

in the loneliness of a gethsemene sold for silver

in the horror of golgotha place of skulls

an echo of the groaning slaves seem to come from the sea caves

i escape with a rap on the knuckles but reality still buckles

i dream up the man i am but i slam into concrete discretion

still i’m laughing and singing and beginning that long walk to you

the tide is like the seas hide or the seas side

where land ends i should have pretended to sleep

instead some mimic in me mocks the coincidences and the stimuli

the connections between the nodes motherlode of overload

i jammed up a storm in a chinashop i couldnt stop the bull

my hands shook as i played but it was not the music it was reading your book

lofty words in a stack on the floor

i am complete i am completely complete said a voice in another room

you are the dawn mentioned paul eluard to his companion

we are there announced the voice that comes through sometimes

when youre collecting for rushes by the side of the sea

when your friend says suddenly stand beside me

when your mind has been fucked by this and by that

still i’m laughing and singing and floating in this flat

as the blue night turns to musk

i trust in slumber my reverie will be of all of thee

dead mans dream

when i was a young man death seemed like an obscenity to me

but now i am old and growing weary it seems like a friend waiting down the end of the track

maybe holding out some sweet oblivion

a well deserved rest from all this strife and quarrel

all this desire and struggle

a chance to meet my people who gone on before

to prepare me a room in its great mansions

like an arrow i will fly into that bardo

like a bolt my shining imperishable soul will leap forth from this dreary casing

like a javelin lancing the sky i will shoot away from this plane

veil of tears wrenched away

O let there be reunion in the glow of krsnaloka

O let me go there to paradise to nirvana to heaven

body of light

hands of the stars

eyes piercing maya

perceiving for the first time how fucking magnificent it all is

as a thinking man knowing energy never disappears it only changes form

as a knowing man thinking all of us kings will return

yes i believe some jesus will be meeting me there

some incorporeal angel with soothing fingers of forgetfulness

some valkyrie lifting me out of my battle unto valhalla

some electric female spirit charging me double

yeah forefathers and dead friends

yeah weep no more O my brother why these tears..?

i am returned to you

reintegration of loveliness now i am no more

a whispering wind over the dunes and dark rippling sea

a song you half remembered from so long ago before yourself

baby light bringer

song of the morning star

the lingering fading smell of distant perfume in the soft rain

man i love you all

woman i love you all

lets all get together people in the house of the lord

we will walk through the gentle vales and marvel at the swans

the sound of the flute deep in the jungle

krsna and radha together again love

mum and dad and girls and boys and all the dogs and all the cats

what more could you ever want

after life will be more life love

this blog for AC