27 Degrees

 27 Degrees

By Malachi Doyle

 

27 Degrees

--

Sunny – Stormy – Repeat – December

--

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2022.

 

Most pages are single-sided

Some are double

& some are backwards

With a space

On the front side

& words on the back

(strange).

 

Haiku:

 

Issa^ by Hass

No word of STC*

Mindfulness sometimes jars

 

(^ Kobayashi Issa – legendary Japanese Zen haiku poet who celebrated insects “Beasties” to borrow from Robbie Burns

Hass translated and edited my Issa haiku selections. In the introduction he named Wordsworth the sole author of the book Lyrical Ballads, omitting the name of the other author, my preferred, Coleridge)

(* poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

--

 

Drinking in Issa’s name –

‘Cup of Tea’

By the cupful

 

--

 

Even translated –

Issa’s humour

Smiles me to tears

 

--

 

 

(charcoal trouble portrait)

Cup of tea

Issa loves Gillian Welsh

 

--

 

Year’s end exhaustion

A baptismal swim

(Th’antipodes)

 

--

 

Is Issa condescending to

The mosquito he questions

Or the snail he advises?

 

--

 

‘After Beefheart’^

Fuck I’ve had

Too much to think!

 

(^ Captain Beefheart – expressionist blues singer)

 

--

 

The other thing I missed when I was overthinking though, was…

 

(WOULD THIS COME AFTER MY TREATISE/MEDITATION OR BEFORE & AFTER:

I can’t speak for Issa, but I didn’t consider threats from the wild in my fear of threats from censure or the law/lock up.)

 

… What is the distinction between the reverence Issa feels amongst nature in a poem emotionally/spiritually attuned to his immediate surroundings

(what the English call “affectively”)

& a Dreaming, initiated Indigenous seer?

 

I would say in the former, humanity & the divine,

Locality is also present

There is pathos

As well as bathos

… sympathy

 

The conventions language & socialization create, place us in Western & Eastern societies

In an individual relationality to ‘others’ (a

Product of the former).

 

Is it different in those moments of absolute ‘identification’

& feeling of oneness?

(what some call the ‘transcendental’ moment)?

 

--

As much as I feel this analytical approach to ‘explain’

FOREIGN to the moment of wonder

Inevitable

Uttered post fact

Under the lesson learned

& even in those

Miraculous moments,

 

There is a self-consciousness

One may practice

If studied

In Epistemologies (fields of Knowledge)

 

In order that

One avoids punishment or censure –

 

Living as we do

Amongst others

& the paradigm

Of mental illness/derangement

Versus ‘sanity’ –

 

Norms

In other words;

 

Are they different

From a Dreaming

Informed by tribal law?

 

In that

Even in that moment

Of identicalness with life

 

When living

In anticipation

Of the feeling of being at odds with laws/consensus/others/the self –

(madness)

 

In short,

Fear & Loathing.

 

Not sure how Hunter S. Thompson

Got in there? This is meant to be ‘esoteria’ innit?

 

Sorry,

It HAS

To have a joke attached!

 

Blessings.

 

--

 

In short,

Further that alienation will eventually follow,

 

Transcendence

Or those who ‘fly’

Must at some point

COME DOWN!

 

Hence, an irony of the hubris

Of self,

 

As self must have an irony in it,

 

To allow for compassion,

 

Lest one become

Pol Pot.

 

Sorry/(,) I went there.

Blessings on those killed

Or left to grieve

 

A grief beyond

My understanding.

 

In short

I am arrogant to assume the right to speak.

 

Hence I am a bad person

 

As much as I am a good one –

 

Intentions aside.

 

COMEDY/TRAGEDY/ABSURDITY/PROFUNDITY

 

The impossibility

& yet the miraculous moment of communication

 

& thus LOVE.

 

--

 

Stop it mind

Turn off –

It DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!

 

--

 

2.

 

& then some say it’s all an accident of the brain. The making of meaning from the chemical. As the Buddhist mantra goes “Life is uncertain, Death is certain.” That all is illusion.

That violence is neither natural or unnatural. It just is. That morality therefore is a game. All is illusion. Not a popular theory with someone being tortured, but who knows, it’s a view. Or as Dylan says “it is true sometimes, you could see it that way.”

It being YOU only because of culture and convention, which is neither natural nor unnatural. It just is.

Life IS uncertain. Receptors. Time appearing slower for pain, faster for pleasure. We have NO IDEA & knowing is an illusion.

Like this poem. Seems a bit TOO COOL FOR SKOOL for this fiery redhead, made different – like you – from everyone else. But I reckon we all one organism. And I have moments when I’m TURNED ON – NO SEPARATION OF BEING AND ‘CREATION’, like some might say – really good sex. Fuck the complications before & after, some mental pictures persist.

 

3.

 

The title of this meditation could be thought of as ‘What does ‘time off’ actually refer to?’

 

& what I don’t know about

& what I don’t think about

Or am the majority of the time

& forget/decide to not tell anyone about

 

Like the storm patterns

& calms

Through the years & years

& like what I know NOTHING about:

 

WAR

 

& it’s years, months, days, minutes

& repetitions

Of all the above

 

& what is out BEYOND

GALILEO’S EARTH

 

Even if you could argue for the Indigenous

IT IS

ALL PLANET EARTH

ALL UNIVERSE

ALL OTHERS

ALL SELF

BEING & NON BEING

ALL.

 

--

 

My question remains: are our mystics as good as theirs? & by extension,

Are they the SAME INDENTICAL or DIFFERENT IDENTICAL?

Like a One & a One

Not in a sum

Multiplied &/or divided.

 

--

 

In answer: I have NO IDEA.

But I live in hope that one does know/has known/will know.

 

My tradition says Jesus

& I guess

Despite my protestations,

He helps me renew –

When least expected, selflessly & without signing His signature.

 

For me,

Simpler than an OM

A Yes

A No

A Breath…

 

& that’s JUST ME

& the transcendent

& Wow!

& I have to laugh

& cry

Ecstatically & invisibly

With others & indivisible,

 

I am the Dreaming

As much

As a mind like mine

Can

Dream.

 

--

 

And I don’t trust the written word.

 

--

 

But in those transcendental moments

I am alive

 

& something unable to be put into words

 

& Kev Carmody said it in Dajarra Night Wind better…

 

& feel deeply

 

--

 

But I have a RIGID INTELLECT

& this is where I’ll STOP.

 

& go on LIVING

For as long as I do.

 

--

 

Which is absurd because how can English claim “I do” when it’s not up to me to DO anything. I don’t think I DO live or DO die,

 

(more there’s Life & Death)

 

I’m just a guy in a t-shirt

& shorts

 

Looking at a tree frog

 

In a hotel xxx

 

In the tropics

 

Raised in a semi-temperate land

& way

& suburbs of Melbourne,

Much of the Kulin Nation,

Non-Indigenous

But I only

Really

BLAH BLAH BLAH…

 

--

 

But I care

 

--

 

& while I’ll never work it out

It’s nice trying

& maybe not always awful to try.

 

--

 

4.

Once at a bbq in the country, I spoke with a psychologist – as a friend – & he said how people only hear what reinforces themselves.

But Question: if this happens, need it necessarily be a bad thing?, can’t it just BE? (Both Good & Bad if you need value qualifiers).

This Hermeneutics of Suspicion has its limits.

The bloke might have had a point but is doubt really more enlightened than faith & isn’t a kind of non-credulous credulity of Enreasoned Faith a good balance?

 

& Fuck we was just here? This English & its inability to explain or do justice to the ineffable, the spiritual as the Indigenous see it. They’re good. They might just be the best of the whole bloody lot. Or at least the missing link in the Western/Eastern Hegemony & burning up of the planet.

5.

I’m talking to the red bellied snake dreaming. It follows my thoughts & dreams, being & non being.

I met a man, (Shaun Creek), red bellied snake an ancestor, but not his dominant identity, he didn’t really make much fuss of it.

But it’s all I’ve heard or seen since –

I’m talking inside my mind

& longing & loving heart

Through the red bellied snake

Dreaming.

 

I only exist

Because of it

Her

I feel

My mother

Raised a child

Who knew

Another

Man.

 

--

 

6.

 

Francis Waga, Fijian Bete (pronounced mBeté) – traditional Priest or Shaman, who became a snake when he journeyed through the Otherworld. And as a 20^th Century Fijian named after St Francis, his “key back” was the name “Jesus.”

 

But that’s HIS JOURNEY…

 

--

 

“Jesus” is still my key back,

 

But the Aboriginal winds

Bring me ‘back’ to the beginning

Are my launching ‘agents.’ (used as in chemistry, I hope but one never knows) ,

How did I become ‘a spy’?

 

The whole thing is becoming

Broccoli

Cauliflower

I haven’t eaten in a while

 

But much purple red speckled dragonfruit

Local here –

 

Like the red bellied snake

 

--

 

REST…

REST

NOW

 

--

 

 

7.

 

BACK TO HAIKU (Da Da!):

 

Tree Frog

It’s been 2 nights

I miss you¹

 

--

 

A shaman

Can’t drink booze –

Why I drink wine

 

--

 

I am frightened of seeing more –

Starry night

 

--

 

 

 

 

--

 

St Patrick didn’t get rid

Of all the Irish² snakes

(You’d be surprised((…!...

 

 

--

 

Footnote:

¹ I’m just thinking now as I’m typing up my notebook, Was the tree frog scared of the red bellied snake thing?

² I am predominantly Irish Australian, my father’s Irish, plus others on my mum’s side.

 

‘Palm Cove’

Christmas 2022.

 

Signed: Malachi

 

Yirrganydji Country/People

Woree / Pukul

‘Queensland’

Australia.