The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

just let them try to stitch that shadow back that i stole from you

its one of those white days

suddenly a sweet aching deep sadness sweeps down around us

so many of these white days

walking round a sandbar lagoon with karin in 1986

up near my mothers old place

an endless white day we felt lonely together then

the rocks the gulls the absence of wind or temperature

eventually a fine mist filled the air

i talked my head off about nothing as usual

she said very little at all

there was no one else for miles

i was still quite young then accelerating towards now

the years disappear….well what else could they fucking do….?

a black cat crossed my broken mirror

yeah as i begin to pick up speed

you see i wanna have my life and live it too

at the back of my mothers old house at smiths lake

you walked down a hill said to be crawling with snakes

until you came to a little creek at the bottom

and a log to cross the creek to a sandy little lagoon beach

or a small lake fed by the tide that broke through and filled it up

and so you walked round the side of the lake

until you came to a caravan park quite empty most the year

and beyond that some abandoned equipment n empty workers cabins

then you go through a small car park into dense cool jungle

the brown roots writhe about

the sharp branches scratch your legs

suddenly youre through and youre on a windswept dune

and the green pacific ocean hammers an endless white beach

white like today is white

warm white still

the music is a distant saw or hammer and the drone of traffic

sadness grief  helplessness hopelessness

worst of all emptiness

an empty day in an empty life

it aint no bed of roses

it aint all dancing on clouds

its just a white day and then its quite quiet

you sit at the table

out one window its white

out another the white has melted in to yellow and grey shapes

i shake like an earthquake

stop must be a sugar drop

keep thinking about margot smith

i bet shes enjoying it

if anyone can margot can

leaving this white day far behind

i bet shes enjoying it

you imagine her now free spirit soaring

you see her in some happy place

and we’re young and its summer and its a white day

margot walking down the street in surry hills after recording a vocal

1991 and its fading into white

on soft nights you ride a white horse in complex dreams

starboard under green leaves it motionless

the white day of this one life

a sadness you should have healed

a brief roman candle

hotels loom and disappear

unending check-in in miami or helsinki or bologna

on a white day aslan created narnia

and he sang it all into being

but always some evil has entered the world

and the white days become cold

and winter waiting for you at the end of the line

and magic fades from the earth

on white still days at airports where you cry and cry

on white still days at appointments in the city

on white still days watching someone getting married by the harbour

on white still days with your twins in rockpools and motels

on white still days with your brothers n father in batehaven

dad buy us some chips dad buy us some fizzy drinks

dad his ice cream is bigger than mine

dad can i have a comic as well

dad can i have a yo yo

white still day

still white

still still

a grey dirty smear towards the north

i start to fear all possible futures

i start to cling to the present but god its so slippery

white still day still slipping by 3 oclock 4 oclock 5 oclock

i cant hold on the day falls headlong into afternoon and evening

it gets darker quicker

i’m lost in there somewhere

unable to explain myself or my deeds

waking up groggy missing my plane

my money i used up just writing this line

still white day

white it all out

whiter than the whitest white

crank hall

the waning moon sinks into my little poem here

gloria warm nocturne

the street is decorated like a play

all the troupes of actors jostle through the emptiness

the tents fluttering pennants heralding the crests of dragon and beast

the mountains around decked in flower and bloom

magnificent cloud flies like a slow arrow piercing the skies reality

the drum of yesterday still faint on the horizon

with everso sleepy eyes i regard oncoming darkening days

but tonight my cocoon holds me numbish warm

a light comes on

a door opens in a house

somebody stands there

my mind is pleasantly blank

except for this blurb which oozes out of my thoughts

this one broken thread derailed train of thought

i dont like the moving shadow says scarlet the human creature

outside the air has gone balmy

some bird still sings in the background

the purple glow of someones tv somewhere

a car drives off

a silvery blur on a quiet street

oh my quickening brain hastens for a feed

in the central block of darkness

yes……. a shadow moves …….

oh those white frangipanis their perfume rides the zephyr astride

my mind shivers in its box

everyone inside i hear a voice say in my heartless heart

its just an echo from a dawn

its just a dash down a wire

i shake my head

what was that?

the human creature laughs

i told you already! she says in a gurgling voice

so

i dont ask again

margot died yesterday

i guess it had to happen

fucking alcohol claims another victim

destroyed her god given talent

fucked her liver up nice and good

fucked her voice and fucked her mind

yeah and me

always too busy to talk

she’d ring me up

not now margot im so fucking bizzy havin’ an argument

not now margot i’m so fucking preoccupied with my own bullshit

margot came down to our last rehearsal with the orch

a skinny figure down the back dancing n singing along

swaying in her blitzed out way

all pale n gaunt like a weird woman

like someone from the middle ages she looked that last n final day

yeah we’ll catch up soon i said as i rushed off to the next important thing….

we were organising a gig for her may 22

she was gonna have a superstar band n everything

but i was always too busy to talk tho i had pledged my time to the project

anyway life finished her off

they say she may have died relatively peacefully relatively quickly

watch that word “relatively” tho

when your liver is packing it in after years of alcohol abuse

relatively is a relative term

i hope she didnt feel no fucken pain

i hope she drifted out of this sad n rotten world on a soft breeze

this vale of tears

this veil of tears

she called herself my sister

i wasnt much of a brother tho

bizzy busy bizzy i was always so busy bizzy

yeah i’ll catch up with ya soon little sister i’d say

now shes gone

did she know how much i couldnt bear to see what she’d done to herself

with the fuckin’ booze with the fuckin’ cigs…?

mind you she was elegantly wasted

a real damsel in distress

she was gutsy she was feisty she was a real fighter

but the filthy rotten poisonous grog killed her slow

she went down in agony over  decades

as it stripped her first

everytime you say you want to die i cant remember what you said

of one thing n another

i hate alcohol

i hate what it does

this woman shoulda been singing for another 3 decades

sad day

sad song

sad man

sad tragic inevitable useless pointless waste of a rare and fabulous gift

margot i’m sorry i was so fucking hectically impossibly busy

too busy to chat to ya for ten minutes

i hope heaven treats ya better than earth

if you come back again bring that lovely voice to this earth

margot you were one hell of a singer n writer

why did it have to fucking well end like this?

rode rage

my mind is a seething lava lover

i’m on the boil

dreaming up fresh mischief

cruel coz i cant abide cruelty

everyone is in my sights bang bang bang

a world wore one ace

i strode this old stage before they assembled you from new atoms

i was here before you and without you

in this asphalt eden in this hour of scraper tower

these mean average streets

i was snorting hook and shooting up a river

while your universe still in its infancy

drifted around your mother stars inchoately free

(you had not yet met me )

and delighting comets shot thru your sky

and terrible devils delved in your earth

i heard you howl once from these one score years

i put it down to morpheus

my misguiding light the white lady

all those promises had me jagged

when all she really wanted was to get me by the balls

nevertheless i seem to digress

i cant do 18th century quite like byron shelley

remember him i think you had him once

i’m sure he writhed in loves embrace with some ridiculous face

ah men and the women who love ’em

if i was women i wouldnt love me

i’d love some rich apollo from galilee

i’d love some gorgeous fucking hunk oooh what a chunk…!

i wouldnt love me or most of them jerks that work the bars

hearing that same old slop

some beer swilling clown shouting at a screen

some ignorant oik some philistine prick

some tattooed musclebound macho dick

crinkly greasy little blond curls

his nostrils hideously spread from sniffin’ the air for gurls

his narrow parochial middling world

yeah chug it darlin’ chug your ale

you brain of  snail

you door nail

meanwhile somewhere else

(that counts)

life is haywire for your reception

everything is wrong

a bad forgery of reality you thought

stay untuned it can always get worse

i lash out against violence

i only want peace i moan as i trample on a treaty

yeah war will break out like some teenage kids forehead

love sister its just a shot away

my anchor is embedded in the sea

the wind like those vicious idiots that extrude into my life

like expecting sense from a poet

like a silverfish in a gold glut

i am the master of all these words i juggle

i am sent here on some unknown mission

i am obsessive furtive secretive almost obsolete

i am seldom sweet i am rarely discreet i have cold feet

i am easily beat

my events are influenced by the stupid stars

and some script that shoulda been ripped up n chucked on a tip

fuck that ship

the full moon has calmed my outrageous rage

and fuck this crush as i try to jimmy open this page

oh i wanna read what they all write to you

yes i do

i wanna hear their abysmal excuse for a bribe

their loveletters are wetter and no better than any other g’rillas

all foam and filler not like the killers

the killers loose in the ancient gallery again

walks on down the haul

until he comes to the room of his baby

baby?

yes killer?

i want to………

the red room

april showers while i wait inside

the water is so warm

i see fish i see stars i see tiny glowing points

drowned and drunk

i search through stones and weeds and thorns

my memory is forever but my fuse is short

i am angry with everybody whoever lived my life

my anger lives in my head like an opportunistic virus

it comes out of my spine and travels up the past

my anger is red and hot and exhausting

my anger burns like icing in a dead rivers mouth

it accuses me of neglect and regret and petty cash

it demands more time and space so out goes mercy

it needs to feed so out goes my last shred of decency

my anger puts on a suit and goes to a bar

it picks up drunken bints and has its stupid way

it drinks the wine made from grapes of wrath

it lashes out at the rain and the pain and the mainline

it fixes itself deep with pins and needless

my anger drips vanity # 7

it silences lambs

out on the kings highway baby where you lied to me

i feel you going home with low-life

i feel you in broad daylight on your knees

i feel you descending down down down

anger and i come looking for you

we arrive too late but anger has an idea

it sets fire to my writhing ego that wears its freudian slip

an explosion of days

a plethora of ugly sins

sheer murder

deceitful theft

necessary torture

we are always at war

everything is permissable

i shoot into the darkness of the enemy

i hear a faint scream and i grin in your cockpit

my anger flies beside me

we bomb london we bomb berlin we bomb the open sea

only blood assuages my fuselage

i crash in a field hopelessly wrecked

i have nothing to eat so i swallow my pride

anger is rising up into nightsky on some thermal

everything is wrong in this century of moths

one day i will find out the truth

and anger will again fly to my side

and it will kill me

this time

for sure

subroutine

the four winds

the seven seas

the three norns who weave our one destiny

the two heads of dilemma

the 31 days of may

i follow my life down this one way dead end street

i see pretty sights

all those things that money can buy

but my pockets are emptier than my head

and my head is a head ahead of itself

my neck cant hold it up

i rolled it through the aching night

and the music was lovely

it was something i never wrote in this universe

something impure that had been drained of all sourness

something soft and warm and all encompassing

the evening itself surrounds me it holds me here

like gravity the darkness pinned to the floor

i am in free fall

at least its cheap

the motion of headlong tumble is mind nausea

i vomit up words on a forlorn shore

the orchestra all floating in the icy northern waters

fiddle splinters all bobbing on that silent sea

the first man to go down swallowed by a greenish night

the light slipped in the sky

my oh my

and then as the engine begins to die

we get a retry

ray

ok

it was a huge undertaking

it could have gone horribly wrong

but it didnt

i wont bore you or myself with all that

all i know is i walked onstage at the oh and things went mostly right

we had a 67 piece orchestra

we had special guests as follows

patti hood on harp, a longstanding friend of the church n world class harpist

jonathan zwartz on double bass , one of australias very best

sophie collings on cello whos featured on a few of our discs

tiare helberg and  shelley  harland on backing vox

and of course craig wilson on guitar, bass and vox…our utility man

the band played well

the arrangements were just right

the orch played with verve and elan

we nailed it

they nailed it

it was nailed

the audience were fantastic

i believe the sound was good too

it was a task to get it all right

best gig of my life i guess

whens the next one…..?

theres a 90 minute tv special in works

theres a 2 hour dvd in works

theres talk of taking the orch idea to different cities round the world

i hope so

it was some night!

SK n sk

songs music kisses

my child my human child

shes a dreamy one that one

such a kind little heart

but cruel to the kitten

today i been in one newspaper and television twice

swam in the sea walked upon this earth

i bought a new shirt to replace one i lost

ears ring eyes blurry and hurting

my brain is full

my stomach empty

my feet are cold

my hair is fine

it just floats there

a toothache in the new choppers

dont get one thing done

just hang about on the balcony waiting waiting waiting

waiting for a sign

waiting for a reason

waiting for a pause in time

do yoga yeah yeah

tomorrow more rehearsals

sing bang pluck more waiting

steve steve steve

maybe i went missing

the moon is a yellow crescent

my heart beats on within my chest

the lights of sydney twinkle on n on

having an early night i’m so tired

wake up in the early morning refreshed

and find everything is miraculously perfect

worst person unimaginable

drive drive drive

red light green light

words actions events

happenings in the photosphere

disturbance in the electric ether

temple in the jungle

monkeys chatter in the lightnin’ flash

peruvian fake a tiny sample of  oofle dust

our plain has crashed we lying smash in these strange ruins

my head hurts i said my bed hurts in my red shirts romance blurts

i’m breathing somewhere in the under carriage

my fave transaction with the atm at the garage

i freak out when i hear myself speak i cant bear to peak

i remember the first time and how after i slept

in my deepest dreams i climbed the steps windswept

it was desolate desperate soul destroying unalloying

i hesitated before many brinks eventually i knew i must fall

i plunged and plunged an abyss of unmade bliss

mecca is better in retrospect

i detect a tremor in the earths mother

brother to the other world where i am in action n good

should you see me on stage singing i’m really thinking of  sinking

thank you all for tuning in

thanking you all for turning up

at all

energy transfer

onyx like protuberance

unbeared agonic triumphant fix

the violins pierce my ears with sweetness

the music is sadly driftwood on winter beach

the planets circle in independent unawareness

the swamps buckle green marsh mellow

my brain drains the universe on some planes

white planes where tenderness reigns

in xerox do

in the silvered shafts the silent sentinals

golden horn and wooden fiddle

the kids will laugh as they  gambol  thru the woods

grapes actors music

bring on the titan

i am so longer afraid

smoking shadow jumping atom

nothing is there holy hell

it ends so soon it takes forever to begin

theyve unbottled the magical water

tremendous deluge of dragon blood

in lizard part of the brain

vultures on voicemail waiting in their wings

dressed in gifts and dismal promise

to give ya their dull surprise

my hammer pounds my temple resounds

somewhere outta bounds