Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  The written word intimidates the hell out of me and I’ve studied post-graduate poetics. What must it be like for people who’ve dropped out of school and get put in a position where they must write for their lives. Like an appeal for release from prison. Or a protection visa application in another language, the language of the privileged. Oh Mediterranean! Oh Indo-Pacific!... What must it be like to write for a living, no matter whether one believes in what one writes? People have to stay in the public eye and so inflate and conflate and conflagrate or else not get paid /as much. The written word is owned by the pros. Those who write with expertise in persuasion, not with heart and soul (and THEIR lives at stake). “I don’t like English,” is what Peter Tosh, the Wailer who taught Bob Marley how to play guitar, said, “because it make my tongue all complicated,… I can feel something else trying to come out.” At times I like English, certain words. But the spoken word over the...

  Is there a difference between something not meaning anything and it meaning nothing? Even in shared silence or activity – even if they become unconscious of ideas – can 2 or more people talking/listening/or just being together escape meaning being exchanged? Why does this prospect tantalise? A decompress…   ©Malachi Doyle 2022.

 I have your best interests at heart my lark I love you I miss you too mum and did you hear Mikey’s guitar this morning. I guess you are in the same realm or not perhaps even in death there are different countries for want of a better word more like the magic faraway tree flying over the desert or trekking through the Amazon Bombe Alaska was a good dessert I think is it possible to write without seeking to persuade even involuntarily? it’s tedious.  Words don’t exist was an invitation to telepathy but impossibility was the focus. The miracle of sharing a moment with someone. But can you do that with the written or recorded/broadcasted word or does it inevitably come to stand for something. It’s exhausting & tedious. The tyranny of things meaning ‘bigger’ things. If only words sometimes didn’t sound like words but sounded like Rice Bubbles – snap crackle & pop. Xx   © Malachi Doyle 2022.

Jane Austen had a problem in not having a quiet place to write   Jane Austen had a problem in not having a quiet place to write. She did ok, but really she had to continually pick up and leave off. Additionally, she had a limited palette of social situations to take inspiration from. The affairs of the masculine world of world political power were off limits, and so she was forced into the role of being an ironist. I would dearly love to write something me and my readers could sink my/their teeth into, but due to Economics and social surroundings, and being mired in the world of children and goody two shoes as a school teacher what can I do? Additionally, of course, there is living in the postmodern world where one is continually distracted and frankly my concentration span is not that good. Not to mention the weakness of my will. Nietzsche would’ve found a way, but even he chose the aphorism. So what? I guess the problem is me and me in this time and me in this place. Addition...

I    need to read more and be silent but my soul's on fire like a burning man. I sound political when basically I think it’s hokum. Really what I’m saying is that I think Politics is a con, in a world that demands we take it seriously. What my supposedly political writing is really saying is “SHUT UP everybody, you’re talking shite.” The world is owned by multinationals with the media it sponsors determining the governments it allows. As for us peasants, this media and these multinational owned institutions are hell bent on dividing us along class and race lines, with gender thrown in for good measure. But I am sick of hearing about it. Leave me out of it I don’t want to hear it, I’ve just lost all my picnic spirit, to borrow from Bob Dylan. I would rather focus on colours, nature and Turner and flavours of food, wine, whiskey & water. Leave me out of so-called serious talk. It’s a trick. Eat love and be merry. And no more guilt trips, else you fall for the same trick the ...

Sometimes I travel   Sometimes I travel between spiritual planes and collide with malicious intentions. I should say malicious intentions rather than malicious spirits, because a spirit need not be one thing exclusively. Spirits can contain diverse intentions. Particularly in a multifaith, coloniser/colonised world. Of course, it might also be conjectured that reality doesn’t offer itself to direct interrogation? And so, we tell one another stories about miscellany. And these divertimenti entertain. And in our mutual captivations, intimacies and deep communications proceed. Remember, we don’t directly detail our feelings when we give voice to things. "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."  Talking and listening is healing and it's good to journey through another’s tales. We go beyond ourselves, into the All. We love and we realise it's not necessary for another to measure up to our expectations. It's often quite mysterious why we like who we like.    ©...