Mel From Melbourne
Poems & Essays & Back & Forth
Or is it Essays & Poems & Back & Forth?
By Malachi Doyle
Most works taken from https://melfrommelbournemusicwords.blogspot.com/
2019-2023.
Published & Copyright Malachi
Doyle 2023.
Email: malachijdoyle@gmail.com
Foreward:
Go well my friends.
This work is a bit of an ungainly thing
As life is, I guess.
A mirror or a hall of mirrors
In a mirror.
Or vice versa.
Some are too didactic for mine.
I’m bored reading them. (Still I’ve read em a lot).
You can always skip sections if ur bored.
There’ll be sweeter pickings further up the road.
(now I’m mixing metaphors! (eyeroll))
The rhetorical has come to me more in my middle years.
I used to be more carefree, when my life was more inconsequential.
The 8 years I’ve spent as a teacher of young minds.
Lotta pressure there.
The stakes are high.
Now it’s time to be free as the breeze and drink from the cup of Coleridge’s
milk of Paradise.
Many herein are prayers.
Meditations too.
Some are funny.
Some are playful.
& some,
Like the interview,
Are really beautiful.
Note to self:
Be more attentive to others and life.
Oh yes, and some are crude and rude.
Can’t do much about that.
Sometimes nothing else keeps the devil at bay.
That’s right:
FUCK OFF mate! Cunt!
Jesus got ur measure.
P.S There might be some typos in the mix. Tolerate them. I edited the
piece during the blog stages & have only really glanced at them once in
final form. I don’t believe in editors. Editing is little different to botox or
boob jobs. Sorry ladies, some of you were meant to have smaller breasts. That’s
ok. I’ve found many small breasted women very sexy. Breasts are wonderful in
all their varieties. Big boobs are really only for wanking to. Don’t take it
personally. Guys’ masturbation rarely lasts long and is invariably
unsatisfactory. Not a blip. Lovemaking is where it’s at. Relax. Breathe.
The
Naigani Serenaders – Volume 1
Recorded
live in the lounge-room ‘studio’ of the Koroi family home, Vuci Road, Nausori,
Fiji by Dr Robert Wolfgramm – former Lecturer at Monash University, Editor of
the Fiji Daily Post newspaper and Editor of the New Fijian Translation of the
Holy Bible.
In the early 1990s, this sheltered white
boy from Beaumaris undertook studies through the Department of Anthropology and
Sociology at Monash University, Frankston. In my second year I met and was
taught by the amazing Fijian Sociologist Dr Robert Wolfgramm. From him I
learned fundamentals in the Sociology of Indigenous and Ethnic Relations, the
Sociology of Religions and the Sociology of Popular Music. Robert changed the
course of my life. We became close friends, he invited me to stay for a couple
of months with him in his ancestral village of Qamea in group of small, remote
islands north of Taveuni.
As our friendship progressed I served as
Best Man at his wedding to Lupe Koroi and when we returned to Australia, Robert
suggested that me and steel guitarist Terry McCarthy (now with The Special)
join with members of the local Frankston Fijian community Luke Cama (RIP), Male
Lete and George Atu in forming a Fijian-language singing band called ‘The Bula
Brothers’. Recording for SBS radio and playing festivals and community events,
the Bula Brothers stayed together for 6 years, forming life-long friendships
and shared memories.
Fast forward about 10 years, Robert
announced that he was to take over the role of Editor of the only non-Rupert
Murdoch owned daily newspaper in Fiji, the Fiji Daily Post. Robert
stayed in the job for several years, providing the only non-coerced voice in
the island’s political climate, before at gunpoint, the newspaper was shut down
by the military coup government led by Frank Bainimarama.
Despite the stresses and fear for his
life and that of his family that Robert experienced, he chose to remain in Fiji
and do his bit to keep up the spirits of his people. Robert joined the team
tasked with providing the first Fijian translation of the Bible for over 100
years, updating erroneous translations, and correcting out of date historical
and European Colonial oversights inherent in the earlier translation.
Christianity is of course a huge part of life in the Islands.
To lighten his spirits from the heavy
burden of the biblical translation, Robert used his love of music and technical
nouse towards ‘his soul music’, the music of Fijian grog (or kava)
bands. The music unique to the Pacific Islands and he decided to record
it en plein air as best captures the dynamic and soulful
spirit of the singers and instrumentalists of Fiji. Too often a ‘safe’ and
clinical studio-approach has been taken to Developing World musics, so when I
received a CD in the post in 2012, it was so incredibly refreshing to hear the
music as it should be played and heard, live and lively, recording outside on
the porch, kava in reach, long into the night. Cheap instruments sure, but such
raw beauty. The Musicologist in me delights here the absence of standardized
Western tuning, so ingrained in most ‘Folk Musics’ since the invention of the piano-accordion,
that one barely hears diverse cultures anymore, rather merely exhibits of a
homogenous ‘World Music.’ Here is something different; proudly OF its culture,
something you cannot replicate elsewhere.
Anyway, enough about politics; this
music is BEAUTIFUL. Truly SO Beautiful. Play it on a summer’s day when you want
to deeply relax. The voices soaring, the polyrhythms bewitching. True art is
made here. Add kava into the mix and the high is even further
extended, but even with plain water the effect is captivating. Delightful and
beguiling.
The Naigani Serenaders are: Siriaki
Boleasi (guitar, vocals), Dan Johnson (uke, guitar, vocals), Tevita Matakarawa
(uke, guitar, vocals – now deceased), Iowane Salaibula (guitar, vocals), Jone
Soro (uke, guitar, vocals), and Iliesa Tadulala (uke, vocals).
The Naigani Serenaders Vol. 1 is
available through i-Tunes and Spotify
As a footnote, I thought it might be
interesting to add that Robert is a nephew of the legendary steel guitarist
Bill Wolfgramm and father of the vocalists ‘The Wolfgramm Sisters’ who have
worked with everybody from INXS to the Avalanches, to Ed Shearan. And in the
1970s, Robert released his own gospel records on the Galilee label.
Welcome to the Third World, or The Dark Ages, or
Hell(?)
Knoxfield, Vic, Australia
Saturday, 2nd Feb 2019
There are no non-Murdoch owned dailies in the newsagent.
The Age “wasn’t delivered for the second Saturday in two weeks”
– evidence of the new owner’s – the Nine Network, downsizing, and solely financially-interested
acquisition.
And so, rightly, I conclude, the descent of Oz into Third World
status.
30 odd years ago, we had free universities for all and a vibrant
print media. Now 20 years after the internet’s adoption, what...?
In the suburbs...?
The place where the voters live...?
Where a house will cost you a million dollars...?
In supposedly, the most progressive state of the nation…? –
God help us!
And so it is here I find myself with nothing to read and respond
to – no dialogue;
And a writer in a Third World Country, or the New Dark Ages, if
you prefer, can ONLY respond to what he or she sees, hears, feels, experiences
– an ILLITERATE land,
A TRULY PRIMATIVE culture,
Where the only currency in ideas…
Is the dollar.
“God”, the Modernists said, was “…in the SHOUT OF THE STREET!”
What is that shout now? –
The streets are empty.
People HOME-ANAESTHETIZE (they call it “entertain”),
And when they shout it is mainly incoherent swearing
With the $dollar signs blocking out the ‘rude’ letters;
The mind/soul in a Hell on Earth.
One must argue that the only defense that The People
In Third World Countries have on their side has been
COMMUNITIES;
But what do you call this automated/automaton Third World
Country,
Where community is mostly absent?
And why I call it HELL, rather than Purgatory,
In that Purgatory at least has a WAY OUT – as long as SOULS
UNITE…
To lift one out of its dominion…
No, when there is no JOINT CAUSE,
Because we are so IDEAS-POOR,
THERE IS Hell! –
The land from which there is NO WAY out.
'Music
in Fiji Time' with Siriaki Boleasi (interviewed by Malachi Doyle)
Siriaki
Boleasi is lead guitarist of the band, Naigani Serenaders from Naigani Island
Resort Fiji, the very first sigidrigi or ‘classical Fijian
string-band music’ album to be released through iTunes and Spotify.
In
February of 2019 I interviewed Siriaki Boleasi, interested in the question of
how Siriaki learned to play guitar, and the recording of the album, Naigani
Serenaders Volume 1 in 2012.
It
was a thoroughly interesting and relaxing (thanks to the kava imbibed)
afternoon when I interviewed Siri in Boronia, Victoria, Australia at the home
of the album’s producer, Dr Robert Wolfgramm.
When
reading this text, a Fijian ‘reserve’ might be inferred by a Western listener
on the part of Siriaki, but I feel the afternoon might be better understood not
in terms of Western-style interviews but in terms of Fijian conversation, a
talanoa, where there are always multiple foci of attention and people are
patient and considered and it’s as if the group who has the word, rather than
one particular person. I have decided therefore to include an excerpt from the
chat as a group-created interview rather than a One Vs One.
Bula
Siriaki, I thought to start out our little chat, I would ask you about your
earliest memories of music. At what age you started thinking about music, how
you got into it, how did you learn to play and where you played?
Bula
Mal, I learned to play from my elders, when they would sit around at home
playing. I'd watch them play and that's how I got interested in playing.
Did
you learn a particular part that you had to sing?
No,
it’s just come in naturally
And
you’d be singing at church and that?
Yeah,
at Church and around the Kava bowl.
At
what age did you start?
Maybe
10 years old I started, while watching my uncles, my dad singing, and I watched
which chord they put their fingers on. And when they leave one I just grab a
guitar, yeah self-taught, yeah.
So
you knew how to play before you’d ever picked up a guitar, yeah?
That’s
how I learned to play. I didn’t go to like a school where they teach music. I
just taught myself by looking, listening.
Do
you remember how you got your hands on your first guitar or did you play
ukulele first?
No
I played guitar. Back when I was 10 years old. That’s when my mum bought me my
first guitar. & I still remember the brand.
Where
did she buy the guitar?
In
Levuka, yeah, that’s where I grew up.
Where
did you grow up? Was it a village or a town?
A
little town. It used to be the capital. On a hill, yeah, overlooking the
harbour.
Lovely,
so you have early memories of the sea? And the sea is important to you?
Yeah.
I’m
interested in this question about not going to music lessons, just kind of
picking it up. Would that be a similar experience for the rest of the guys in
the band?
Yeah.
Have
you spoken to them about their early memories of music?
We
all came through the same thing.
You
grew up in the same town?
Yeah.
So
you knew each other as kids?
Yeah.
And
there are/were some brothers in the band?
There
were two brothers in the band. All of us came from the same town and two were
brothers and there’s another guy who’s from the mainland - Sione Soro who plays
ukulele, myself, and Te (who has since died) play the guitar, and then the
brothers who sing and play as well). And then we all met up at the Naigani
Island Resort
That’s
where you take your band name from?
Yeah.
Can
you describe the resort? Is it locally owned?
Yeah,
it’s locally owned. It’s owned by Sir James Ah Koy.
Does
it feel different to the foreign owned resorts?
Yes,
much, much different.
In
what way?
We
get more privileges than people at overseas owned resorts.
How
do you describe the kind of music you make? What do you call that kind of music
because it’s different to the stuff that’s in the nightclubs isn’t it?
We
play mostly ‘classical string-band music’. If there are Fijians staying in the
resort we’ll play more Fijian songs. If there are guests from Australia, New
Zealand or America, we’ll play mostly their songs.
What
do you prefer to play?
Both
(laughs).
You
can’t lose (laughs).
In
the Western kind of music, who do you play?
We
play like Rock n Roll, Elvis Presley, John Denver, Country songs, Eagles, all
the songs that we know that the guests will know.
Are
there any songs that you feel don’t suit ukulele and guitars?
Yeah
there are some Fijian songs we don’t use ukulele or guitar.
Why
is that?
Coz
it’s sung in a choir.
Is
there a difference in what those songs are about?
Most
of the songs we use ukulele and guitar on are just for guests. And the ones
that the choir do are church songs.
Spiritual
songs?
Yeah.
And
they mean more to you?
Yeah.
(Effect
of the kava we’re drinking hits)
I
feel as a musician the older I get I wanna do a truer kind of music.
Is
there a kind of recording you would like to make?
The
more time I sing and play the more I learn new things and I want to put them
in.
Do
you have a favourite lead guitarist? Or do you have other lead guitarists you
look up to? Both in Fiji and outside of Fiji?
Yeah.
I come from a very musical family from my mum’s side and my dad’s side. All
musicians.
And
was there someone in particular you admired?
One
of my uncles: Wu, He’s still living.
Did
he play in the hotels and resorts?
Yeah
he plays most of the resorts in Fiji. And he’s well known. He made a few tours
overseas.
What
kind of tours did he play?
In
Fiji, he was one of the top guitarists in Fiji.
What
kinds of places did he play overseas?
Doing
concerts.
Venues?
He
toured New Zealand, Vanuatu, That’s the tours I can think about.
So,
is there a rivalry between Fijian and Maori musicians about who plays that
Island music best?
Laughs.
What’s
the difference?
Fijians
used to play mostly acoustic guitars and when new technologies came in like
when Fijians started using electrical guitars things turned out differently.
People started touring all over the Pacific Islands.
What
do you feel is the most important instrument in Fijian music?
I
think the guitar.
What
about the voices?
And
the voices too.
Is
there a pecking order in the band with who wants to play ukulele, who wants to
play guitar, who wants to play lead guitar etc. A kind of competitiveness?
Yeah,
yeah. (Laughs) And really we know who plays each instrument better than us. So
we give each first choice. As for me I don’t wanna play ukulele. I play lead
guitar.
But
Every band member is good at a specialized instrument. We all know. I can’t
play the ukulele because I know there is someone better than me.
I’m
totally in awe of Fijian ukulele playing, when you hear the garbage that
Westerners play jing jingga jing jing jingga jing. The Fijians are going like
jugajinggagagajing jugajinggaggajing… (Both laugh) Do you know how that
happened, how Fijians play that rhythm? Do you know where that would have come
from?
(Plays
a juggajing#@$%!!!!!!!!!!! complex polyrhythm with his voice and laughs)
It
just come up naturally, by playing together more often, we just do new things.
Is
there a culture of wanting to show who can go the best? A competitiveness
between the band members?
When
did you learn your scales or do you think about it in terms of scales?
I
just listen and follow.
What
musical heroes did you have growing up? Both inside Fiji and outside of Fiji?
Inside
Fiji, one is Jese Mocenibitu. He’s a very well-known singer in Fiji and he
sings still today. He sings Fijian and English songs beautifully.
What
is it about him?
He
sings more solo, he plays guitar.
Is
it his singing or his guitar playing?
It’s
both.
Is
there a particular feeling that he can give that no one else can do? What is
it?
He’s
got this special voice that is very different from other singers. He’s a
baritone.
We
in the West hear about Mexican singers, we hear about Brazilian singers we hear
other stuff, why is it that Fijian music doesn’t get the attention?
Maybe
because the music industry is not really that good. Like, in Fiji, once you
record a new song, you sell your CD, that’s it. People will take your CD and
download, burn it and then give it around, and no need for them to buy your CD.
So
if you’re trying to making a living out of it?
Very,
very hard.
So
if you want to make a living out of music, what do you do?
You
just, like me, go to the resorts and… haha (resigned laugh)
Is
it frustrating?
Yeah?
That
was going to be my final question: If you had an unlimited budget and full
artistic control, you could do whatever you wanted, you could choose your
engineers, you could choose your producer, you could choose your musicians –
what kind of music would you make?, how would you record it?, what would it
sound like?, what kind of music would it be?
I
would prefer Fijian music.
Would
it be something similar to what you’ve done with the Naigani Serenaders?
Yeah,
yeah.
“Nai
Vesu ni Bula Vakawati”, is that a...
That’s
a sad song.
It’s
a beautiful song.
Yeah.
That song talks about when one of them was dying and he’s telling her, the wife
what to do when he passes on yeah…
That’s
the single. If I’m biased. That’s the one that gets me. A soaring chorus.
Yes.
Just kinda. Yeah.
Do
you know who wrote that?
Umm,…
no.
Do
you know the composers of many of the songs?
Some,
yeah, some.
Are
they usually local?
Yeah…,
some from the North, near where you went, near Qamea.
What
about the back story? What about the story that’s not in the song? What does it
mean? What does music mean to Fijian people, when they hear Fijian Classical
String-band Music?
In
Fiji, after a day’s work from the plantation, people will just get together
around the Kava bowl and sit down and then play and sing just to like feel
relaxed and wind down.
And
is the idea to just forget about the day?
Yeah.
We
also discussed the diminishing numbers of young Fijians able to play guitar and
ukuleles and the threat to the sigidrigi musical form. This form
gives to Fiji and other Pacific Islands a music culture which connects
generations. With globalization, commodified ‘Youth Culture’ and a
‘programming’ rather than performing approach, many of the traditional or older
ways are lessening in vibrancy and complexity. Siriaki was asked if the women
in Fiji were also abandoning the traditional rug-weaving and fabric dying, but
quietly reassured me that they continued with these older traditions, despite
many changes to Fijian culture. The internet, social media, music streaming
were a direct threat to the ‘Fijian way’ but still the community has more heart
and cohesion than Doomsdayers might fear. It was a real privilege to be with
Siriaki that afternoon and to listen to his feelings behind his group’s
beautiful soulful sounds. I thoroughly recommend checking out Volume 1 by
Naigani Serenaders to ease the mind and spirit. Thank you.
The
‘Roots’ of Racism by Malachi Doyle
‘Race
theory’ was a collection of writings, cartoons and forms of entertainment which
gained popularity with the Political Right in Europe in the late 1700s and
1800s, which built its pseudo-science, adaptating amongst others, Charles
Darwin’s theory of Human Evolution (1858). It painted a view of Humanity as
divided up into more and less ‘advanced’ ‘races’, which was and is often used
since to justify a particular group of people’s belief in ‘racial superiority’
and ‘racial inferiority’. Such a view still persists amongst certain Far Right
Political Organisations today. Without such a view 6,000,000 Jews would not
have been exterminated by Hitler’s Nazi Party during the Second World War
(1939-1945).
‘Race
theory’ was used to Justify the Atlantic Slave Trade (1500s – 1900s) in which
European Countries and Companies stole people from Africa at gunpoint to work
as unpaid and severely tortured labourers and domestic workers in the Americas
and other parts of the world. Race Theory served to justify such inhumane and
brutal exploitation of millions by suggesting that somehow non-European people
were less intelligent and did not understand or feel pain and humiliation.
In
Australia, such a ‘theory’ created a view of Indigenous Peoples in a similar
‘inferior’ light and was used to justify the systematic dispossession and
delegitimization of Indigenous people’s laws, customs and ownership of the land
in the British Government’s definition of First Contact Australia in 1788 as
‘Terra Nullius” (Latin: “the land of no one”).
‘Race
Theory’ finally achieved its admission into the Canon of European literature
with the Publishing of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness (1899)
where racist pseudo-science was received as High Literature by English
Departments throughout the British colonies. It is still taught today in some
schools in Victoria. In the novel, the protagonist-narrator Charles Marlow
talks of his first meetings with Africans (Congolese) in the late 1800s as if
these people were ‘incomprehensible’ and capable of not much more than ‘animal
noises’. He wrote as if in the late 1800s it was the first time in History that
a European had made contact with a sub-Saharan African. This despite the fact
that Europe had received Ambassadors from sub-Saharan Africa from more than 500
years earlier, or the fact that Major Ancient Greek Philosophers such as
Aristotle (no less) had cited references to Ghanaian scholars, and that
Pythagoras is believed to have studied for more than 20 years in Africa, well
before the time of Christ.
Conrad’s
fanciful story is the kind of nonsense that normally circulated in populist
tabloid newspapers of the day. The terrible fact for non-European and ‘Black’
people in general was and is that Conrad despite his disingenuousness was a
master of literary style, which meant that his Ahistorical and completely
implausible story became taken seriously by ‘serious readers of literature’ all
over the globe.
Conrad
was not the first nor the last person to hold baseless views of ‘racial
superiority/inferiority’. Writers in the service of the Slave Trade wrote
hundreds of essays trumpeting unScientific and unsubstantiated ‘drivel’ for
centuries, holding back progress for ‘People of Colour’ and Indigenous Peoples
through the world. The human cost was extreme and continues today wherever
minorities are disadvantaged socially, politically, financially, legally and in
acts of submission and violence committed against their bodies and characters.
Even after Two World Wars in which up to 65,000,000 people were killed and the
resultant signing of the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which all UN member
countries signed, including Australia, European Nations and the USA – countries
which had been made rich by racist policies.
‘Race
Theory’ is nothing more than irrational hatred of someone who looks different
from oneself. It has caused countless Genocides throughout the globe, and no
continent has been spared. It’s hatred of what it deems to be ‘Other’ knows no
bounds. The 2019 Christchurch Mosque Massacre of Moslem Worshippers in New
Zealand, was carried out by a deranged Sociopath who believed in ‘Race Theory’.
The man was Australian born. Surely, now is the time to put an end to this
madness and bury ‘Race Theory’ once and for all. That we might all live as one,
in Respect, Unity and Universal Humanity.
Bibliography:
‘Africa’s
Tarnished Name’ – by Chinua Achebe (this edition 2018, Penguin, UK).
‘Heart
of Darkness’ – Joseph Conrad (1899, this edition 2008, Penguin, UK).
‘On
the Origin of the Species’ – by Charles Darwin (1859, John Murray, UK).
‘Transatlantic
slave trade’ (updated 2020) by Thomas Lewis in Encyclopedia Britannica
retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/transatlantic-slave-trade
‘Race’
by Audrey Smedley in Encyclopedia Britannica (2020) retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/race-human
‘An
African Origin of Philosophy: Myth or Reality?’ by Dr. Molefi Kete Asante
(2004, City Press).
‘Holocaust
- European history’ by Michael Berenbaum in Encyclopedia Britannica (updated
2020) retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust
‘United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)’ retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
‘World
War I Vs World War II’ retrieved from www.diffen.com
St
Kilda in the 1990s
St
Kilda in the 1990s (by Malachi Doyle)
Dear
Brother,
I’ve
been thinking a lot about St Kilda in the 1990s, when we were in our 20s and
discovering the world outside of our
boys-school-raised-leafy-bayside-suburban-world of our adolescence.
Anyway,
to a kid like me, it was totally EYE bloody marvellously OPENING!
We
were lucky that our man Terry McCarthy was living in a share house in Park
Street, St Kilda just off Fitzroy Street, right near the Prince of Wales
backbar I loved so much, which was of course, now that I think of it, opposite
that boarding house which the BLUNT! or whatever, fucked up & pimped out
like the ladies it used but never recognized from their corporatised day jobs.
This
corporate world would of course change St Kilda dramatically for the worse, but
we’ll get to that. Or not, just saying that Kaiser Jeff bulldozed the soul of
St Kilda to let the nazis in for the sake of their casino & grand prix. He
as you reminded me, “CLEANED UP” the place. Much like, well you know well about
terms like “RIFF RAFF” and “degeneracy.”
He
removed the First Nations peoples’ community that used to gather around the
green spaces just down the street, a bit closer to the beach. Their presence so
ennobled the atmosphere of the town, which accepted people for their
characters, regardless of the financial worth of their wardrobes. You would
meet many First Nations people in the backbar of the Prince of Wales, along
with outsiders from every walk of life: from bohemians, the racially diverse,
queers and transgender people, sex workers on their nights off, investment
bankers hellbent on self-destruction, as well the middle class types who
enjoyed just the wonder of openness and permissivity. It was a very healing
place, even if the road to health does admittedly sometimes involve the killing
off of braincells in the hope of being free from painful memories.
When
I listen now to the music made in the place back in the 90s I know how globally
significant the place was. I had no idea back then. I never thought of
‘international standards’, I was just experiencing & being TURNED ON in
every sense of the word.
Anyway,
I’m best when brief, even if little headway is generally made. No great shame.
I feel this world is too hellbent on making headway. Let’s slow down and smell
the sea, as it wafts gently, summer breezes, no wait, the Winter nights were best,
when after hours gatherings of the unaffectedly-interesting types stirred. It’s
all become too CAREERIST today, that is what I bemoan.
The
taking of photos is now so ubiquitous that our memories have become bereft of
mental pictures. Fortunately, I recorded nothing back then. I was receiving
things. I was absorbed. Sure I’d scribble words in my little notebooks on
nights I stayed at home, and sang, when asked, at parties but that was about
it. We were all reading a lot too. And talking about what we had read. Maybe
every young person does this? And today being no exception? I only fear that
they do not. That they are too busy finding their locations on their smartphone
posts, to get truly lost in the mystery. That they are all defining themselves
as “Artists” or networkers. It is so crucial to get
lost
in the mystery,
else
one learns nothing about how to behave.
Art,
I think, should be in the service of better living most of the time. I feel it
has become more a commodity: buying the book to take a photo of the cover,
listening to a record once and claiming authority. All in the service of giving
oneself a platform. Personally, everyone should, weather permitting, go
barefoot sometimes. In the ceaseless quest for power/influence, one loses one’s
goodness or Soul, as Kev Carmody reminds us.
I
listen to the Beasts of Bourbon or a good Don Walker song, or indeed No Fixed
Address, or see a soulful drag queen somewhere on the box and think I met
beauty and truth in St Kilda – not knowing I was seeking her there. She
didn’t look as I was told. People who Looked rough, turned out in fact, to be
quite gentle. Those few who had a bark, inevitably, (though nothing is
foolsafe) had No bite. As Bo Diddley reminds us “You can’t Judge a Book by
Looking at the Cover.”
Anyway,
life went on, and the ups & downs of finding oneself smoothed out a bit and
I found a life partner after many tries, with a big enough character to hold me
and shake me and tickle me and love me & life is good now, speaking
personally,
but
St Kilda has changed for the worse.
Not
as the corrupt guy says,
dog
whistling against diversity,
but
quite the opposite:
that
it has become significantly less diverse
&
in the process,
less loving.
Two
Poems written on His 84th Birthday
‘Peter & Paul’
The scientist obsesses in his lab
The poet adores the great spaces
& if he does not
Then he’s a lab rat
A man of the cage
& it’s suppressions of rage
That from a blank room
He may patent universals
The poet is particular
That flowering
twig, that passing bird
He must know its seasonal songs
& his cadence must never be wrong
& in his odes
He must sing along
‘Troubadours & their pearl inlaid
guitars’
We’ve become more emotional about ourselves
& less so about others
Love poets & their muses no more
Fetishists & their porn &
preparing for war
Bring back the love song, bring back
& those singers who warm & heal
And open chords plucked on strings
That vibrate in concert with our heart
strings
Communication
Communication
Of late I’ve become a bit obsessed with the
difficulty of communication. I’m not sure it’s what the postmodernists have
been banging on about, I think it has ancient precedents. Part of the issue is
individualization. We are cut away from the cloth of humanity each by the
uniqueness of our own hands. We are each different, separate and opposing. It
starts young, they teach you at home, they teach you in school. Under the
spirit of competition. The ego is born in battle: I am not you. In love then,
one attempts the impossible: to make a truce, to speak as if you and I are the
same. Sometimes it holds. But of course truces strain and the warrior ego can
easily spring back, sometimes completely unexpectedly. I love you except for
this one thing. To some this is understandable, but nowhere is it acceptable.
Any reservation in a declaration of love is perceived by the other’s ego as an
act of war. You and I are not the same, which the ego takes to be a declaration
of war. Things quickly accelerate. Franz Ferdinand goes down and the ruling
egos are badly wounded. Eventually the dust settles and the losses are counted.
The two go into hiding, separately, until they are able to face each other with
their changed faces. Little happy from the earlier years is remembered. But at
least the carnage is over. Sometimes a world war is skipped over and a cold war
is declared. Sometimes the truce is easier, but it is always a truce and truces
strain. We pray for a jazz age when two can join in an ecstatic dance. The
lubricated life is the good life, when wars and truces can be forgotten and the
two can live in a shared present and lick one another’s wounds back to health.
It
doesn’t feel right…
It doesn’t feel right watching the film
about Hunter S Thompson “Where the Buffalo Roam” via the web. The central
scrutanisers have got to get their hands on every moment you’ve ever had,
privacy is dead, and we are at the end of times. The Holy Roman Empire could
only jack off at the daydream of such a nightmare and one will never again be
allowed to do anything atypical, have a rich and varied imagination, no,
everything is known and consistent. The vultures are circling, I shouldn’t have
taken that pill, I shouldn’t have laid that man’s wife, to be young these days
is no longer to embark on an undocumented experiment in many realities,
everything is noted down by the worst stereotype of a killjoy and repressed
straight and believer in what exactly?, what kind of Republic? Oh that’s right
it is a computer. Once upon a time one could transgress and suffer remorse, now
one suffers remorse whilst having the experience, the worst kind of bad trip
and one can no longer get it up and consummate. No wonder comedy is dead.
Everything is read literally. One must now intend every thought we have. No
wonder anxiety’s on the rise. In fact the only people who don’t feel anxious
are the psychopaths in charge. I won’t watch Hunter S. Thompson unless I can
watch it on DVD. I want to have a secret chuckle and affirm some fucked up
things. I want to drink a lot of whiskey because this day’s not working out. I
want my backroad’s cabin where I can rebuild my vision.
Selfie
The fact of the Morrison’s profound
negligence regarding the COVID vaccine roll out is so obvious that even the
Labor Party has finally noticed it. I really don’t want to write about this it
is so ugly. And the obvious question is why when lockdowns allow, aren’t people
protesting at that? Our feet, our brains, our wills seem to be in quicksand and
everyone looks anaesthetized. Ok we’re worried but is it that simple? It is
truly terrible and even the slow witted must have noticed that a lot of people
are being left behind and yes it does appear sincerely to be a tragedy. The
banks, despite the recent farcical Royal Commission have redoubled their prey
drive and the government is actively destroying lives by encouraging vulnerable
and desperate people to give up their superannuation. I really want to talk
about something different I really do. The bottle shops are doing well. But for
how much longer? Before people can’t even afford cask wine. I don’t do politics
well. I am addicted to beauty. But where is the beauty at the moment. Nature
can only do so much, and in fact whether we like to admit it or not, despite
the common replacement of the man in the sky with mother nature as God, nature
is killing us. Sorry to spoil your illusions. Nature is wrecking vengeance as
good as any sky god and our bourgeois morality systems clearly aren’t cutting
the mustard. Language games won’t save us against this threat. Individualism
won’t. Identity politics won’t. Things are getting grave. People need to rediscover
values of the common good. The hair splitting of the chattering classes won’t
wash when there’s no money to feed us. Foolishly when summer 20-21 came people
thought “It’s Over”. But no, the Virus has come back with a stronger strain and
it’s quite plausible that next year it will come back with an even stronger
strain and so on and so on. And more people are going to die. The disconnect
we’ve felt for so long in our geographical and psychological distance from the
world and from history in this country is starting to bite us on the arse. The
generations born from the 80s and since have been educated without any
knowledge of history, without a critical understanding of economics. Reared on
American Pro-Capitalist entertainment they know no other way. They’ve been
brought up thinking technology and the internet were going to be their
salvation, that the gig economy was the way to go. So ignorant of the labor
rights movements of the world, they have shunned unions, in turn weakening
Australia’s work conditions and civic rights. Consistently voting for Right
Wing Governments they have supported continual losses of rights and conditions.
We have screwed over one another. Now, today in Australia, there is no People,
just disconnected persons. There is no solidarity. Fighting to the death over
crumbs called social media likes. I can picture it now, on his last legs the
last man in a food and waterless land waits with his smart phone hoping
desperately he can get a like for his selfie.
Ideas
& History
Historical
Materialism says that it is the conditions of our existence that give rise to
our ideas. Or at least the widespread adoption of our ideas. The creation of
the practice of farming gave rise to the adoption of the belief that the
animals were actually lower than human beings, no longer our
siblings/parents/ancestors, justifying this with stories of God loving man
highest and giving us rule over the other ‘beasts’ as they were now known.
But what if we could, through the reach
of the internet produce more sustainable ideas and through this change the
conditions of our existence. Is this mere fantasy? You might seduce some it is
argued, but under the microscope of business and government policy, they will
be seen as impractical. Not holding water, as they say.
And so, it seems our pens must come
second to our behavior and in our daily lives we must enact what we wish to
achieve, we must be models for a new humane civilization. Our lives must seek
out more sustainable practices and through our examples which others will
receive of, grassroots change will occur. While it might not overturn the bankers’
world, it will make real difference in the lives of our fellow beings/place.
Small actions have huge consequences, don’t believe the hype. Our whole is made
up of the personal. Real, not postured, humility is the right path, not star
status. As we know stars are planets and suns and they are a long way away.
Here is where we should be looking. Here and now.
When
The Music Stops
I’m cut up
I’m cut up like a collage. My head’s
where my knee should be. At least the mouth is. My nose is fixed like a cap to
my neck. There’s a saxophone instead of my left foot. And Elon Musk’s space
ship is where my heart should be. Should be, that’s if the whole thing wasn’t a
moving trainset going over a series of cups and jigsaw blades set amongst a 17th century
rainforest, with the Indigenous trading with aliens for a concert hall in place
of what? Did I say it was an artwork racist at its heart? It belonged to Herman
Goering who modified it with a team of concentration camp child slaves. But you
know it’s hot amongst the Monaco set and is projected onto some IMAX-like
cinema screen as background entertainment for old billionaires, while they are
fed from the bellies of beauty queens sourced by a former president of some
country you’ve never heard of but probably declared war on through your
giraffe-headed-rainbow-footed popularly elected leadership bottoms, who carry
shopping bags for a 5-sided Kandinsky rubics cube toasted cheese sandwich in a
panda onesie. It’s on my wall. Projected back out at me through my bathroom
mirror when the music stops and I brush my pearly whites.
By Malachi Doyle 2021.
Aaron
Neville sings Stardust
There's a bit of a
sentiment amongst the Melbourne scene that Aaron Neville is not to be publicly
celebrated.
It's
always been a bit hostile to tenors and pure voices, preferring singers of
the Dylan set.
Incidentally
Aaron's done some incredible versions of Bob songs with his brothers.
As
a once singer who no longer has the emotional capacity to raise himself in
sonorousness I have a real appreciation of Aaron.
In
many ways, he's the singer's singer.
The
most audacious lines are articulated.
He
doesn't just tack his trills at the end of his lines, like Mariah Carey and so
many followers,
he
weaves them into his lines, in fact the line and the trill are inseparable for
Aaron.
All
the while he sings with profound spirituality and emotion.
Having
seen him in concert, his humility is obvious.
He's
all about the song, not his ego.
A
while back this youtube clip from the 80s popped up in my suggested views.
I
find it in equal parts astonishing and truly moving.
The
song is the standard Stardust.
I
once wrote a line about feeling it a profound privilege to share the same
planet as Aaron Neville.
I
actually mean that.
It's
one of the joys of being alive.
It
is what it is, I went to the zoo
It is what it is, I went to the zoo
I went to the zoo
When I was a kid
All the other goats
Stayed on the mountain
That’s where I learned
The law of the jungle
The lawyer’s legalese
While my clients
Chewed on grass
And my friends
We lost touch
They moved further down the bay
Still dressing in their polo shirts
I slept with refugees
Whose suffering
I had a great deal of trouble
Reconciling myself with
I was brought up to fantasize
About women
And here was “not an interesting story”
The son of an Auschwitz survivor
Once said about his parents’
It made sense
When later
I made love to my woman
To a pedestal (better)
& realized I was a phony
Just like all middle class liberals
“Still at least we’re not rapists
Like the Cappos”
You could see it that way, sure
But kids don’t kid around much
These days
Their jokes sound like sermons
In short they’re applauded and agreed
with
But you don’t hear full body laughter
For example, one comedian reckons
The bay people are like a private club
Pretty obvious really
Or to quote my Slovenian mate
“they’re boring”
And so I moved to the desert
Where the golf courses are made of sand
And the miner’s billions
Cost her father a pound
Fortunately we have libel laws
So you can commit wholescale murder
And pay a small fine
You could call it an expense
There aren’t many it’s good
I’m on a retainer
The golf is good
It’s too hot to play
So we play at night
My goat vision an advantage
Over these what would you call them?
We’re having Kow Pung chicken for dinner
So I’m ok
I just wanna eat and eat and eat
You know us goats
We’re not fussed about who’s our dinner
companions
I’ve eaten with the lions
I’ve eaten with the lambs
I’ve eaten with the sharks
I’ve eaten with the vultures
As long as the eating is good
“It is what it is”
The saying goes
A great leader in slacks and a hi-viz
The 11th and most
important Commandment
The
Good Fight
The Good Fight
I’m tired of fighting
I really want to stop
It takes so much out of me
I lose years to breakdowns
Where I can barely walk
I stop
I breathe
I paint
Rebuild
Play with colours and form
Abstractions meaning nought
A meditation is all
It’s kind of beautiful you know
And some people can do it
And transform reality
And communicate
And move others
But my life is different
& hell you only get one
I am a fighter
And there are millions to defend
In a game run by bullies
Mining companies own the pollies
Destroy the planet and get repaid with
grants
Kill ancient treasures
Maim ancient cultures
Ancient cultures that can guide the
world forward
To living sustainably
To living equitably
Economics’ law of scarcity
Is not inevitable
If we learn from the ancients we see
There is enough for all
If we stand up to bullies
And promote our world’s ancient wisdom
Carried on the backs of honest people
For tens of millennia
A
Mixed Bag as usual
A Mixed Bag as usual
After a disgraceful night on the lash
One would do well to view my epodes with
suspicion
It was great to be out with friends
again
After nearly 2 years under confinement
to our homes
And even The Bard warned against
killjoys
Moderation in all things
Along with moderation
Nothing very new then
I am a man
The good the bad the ugly
But I am I think if viewed correctly
Amusing
I give the pantheon a good giggle
As my old mate said
You might be a f%#K up
But you’re OUR F&*k up
I overreach
Then lacerate myself with spells of
anxiety
Then a period of calm
Then an intense feeling of elation
That causes me to overreach
On the high wire act that is a man’s
life
Then the panic again and
self-recriminations
Then anxiety without object
Then abatement
And so on
It’s a bumpy ride
For me and for others
But I guess it’s my ride
I am thus-wise constituted
I am profoundly embarrassing
And irritating
An incessant
But as one of my additional needs kids
vouches
I am patient and kind
So what is all this?
What does it add up to?
Some maintain that on a preordained day
I will be judged
As to my sum worth
Like a final tax return
But so too I will live for a while
In the memory of others
As my late mum said
It’s not what people do or say that you
remember
It’s how they made you feel
I hope I’ll leave some nice feelings
I wish to uplift the world
From its downcast ways
And give the meek some belief in their
humanity
The job of the poet
Is I guess not to be one thing
But as Les Murray said
To look at life from a new angle
Each day
Yesterday before the wild session
I bought a vinyl copy of the great Neil
Young album
On The Beach
And the marvel of Greville Records
Said that he’s waiting for someone to
write a piece
About how important music and the
creative arts
Have been to us during our
Extended periods of lockdown
I don’t take direction well
I pursue things from weird angles
But anyway thank you for the music
As ABBA once put it
Thank you for the Art
We need you
& Life would be unendurable without
you
Thank you
For the way you make us feel.
Nietzsche
Backwards & Forwards
Nietzsche Backwards & Forwards
The isolated thoughts are sane for a
time
Before they become maddened
The in the world thoughts are wise when
they’re new
But eventually jade to vacuity
Life is a balance
Time with the crowd
Time on the mountain
The polyglot’s is a beautiful path
When handled with wisdom’s humility
But you never were very wise, Friedrich
You could’ve played your hand
And enjoyed the richness
Bow when you overstep
So would’ve said your loving Dad
You WILL sometimes
It’s late perhaps
Love & laugh
Dance Tragedians Birth
Yes perhaps after all
It is early
Our world?
& so you write a shopping list
Over the climax of your magnum opus
You’ve always had a sense of humour
I just wish you’d ’ve known
The gifts of Love
You could’ve retired like Van Gogh
You could have been Immortal
& not mere Genius
An arcade game for logicians
You could have shared in human warmth
& amazing stories we could have
shared
Reminding the world
That Man’s greatest Highs are
transitory…
The multicultured dance
Is the wildest test of wit
You alluded to this at times
It is the best mix of climes
You could have flowed tai chi
flexibility
To smooth out your peaked acoustics
You could’ve loved
Had you not sought to possess
That most ill-suited to your spirit
And conservative aspect
The trills of the thrills
Grow truly Uber
Higher than the Matterhorn
Rejoicing with the Heavens
And your 6 years old Friedrich
Rapturous in Handel
In every child’s nativity barn
Animal and man in arms
Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, First Nations
As Time is born and melts into dreaming
Waves rise and fall
In Sound and Light and All
Like a Berlin dancefloor
Had you lived to the 20s
You would’ve dropped the act with the
Bohos
And a better 50s you would have got
medication
& found one more redemptive work in
you
You could’ve truly broken through
The wall inside me & you
History
& its Biases
All
good brother,
swimming
in the sea and Hunter S Thompson is always wise.
A
good way to go
Inside
this rollercoaster pipeline.
I'm
enjoying my break from music.
Not
sure I like writing much, sometimes it’s fun,
when
I get in a Hunter like groove,
but
serious writing is truly awful.
It
is seriously unpleasant.
It
messes up your insides.
While
the World chatters as glibly and arrogantly as ever.
Have
been meditating on suffering
And
how too often people focus on the perpetrators of crimes against humanity
And
how rarely we focus on the victims/survivors.
Is
it because my lot are victors of History?
And
count victims/survivors as Other?
Is
it the structural biases of English?
Is
it mere habit of outlook? Of Practice?
I
lay on the bed crying about it all Sunday afternoon,
It
haunts me as I work in the Knowledge Industry,
Contributing
a lot of volume,
But
little that brings about anything approximating Justice
And
thought I SHOULD write about it
If
writing I do,
But
frankly,
I
don't have the stomach for it.
Where
to start, where to begin? --
Another
war starts in Ethiopia
Where
do they get the guns from?
Food
is scarce
Are
guns cheaper than potatoes?
But
the victims already pile up,
Doomed
to be but numbers in the World's Press.
Who
will remember them?
Their
spirit, their wisdom, their love, laughter and music?
Will
the media speak their names!
Name
them,
Tell
their stories
Their
appetites for work
Their
plans for the future
And
demand help for them
To
lessen the toll
And
not chalk what's happening up as 'another' anything
Suffering
is unique
Each
victim is rich in variety, complexity
Speak
up their humanity
Show
us their beauty
Grant
them their Rights as Humans
That
is the truth of Tragedy.
On
The Journey
I
get well
I
get good
I
get great
I
get supergreat
I
overstep
I
look down
I
panic
I
self recriminate
I
worry
I
disconsolate
For
Days
I
rebuild
I
get mild
I
get well…
©Malachi
Doyle 2021.
Frankly,
we looked like friends
Frankly,
we looked like friends
The
shadow self while significant in times of heightened psychic stress is not the
main player in a material time of great import. God is in the shout of the
street. Irony, while useful to calm one’s anxieties when at their zenith, is no
creed to live by, less one is to give in to radical complacency.
I
am no William Blake, Ben Okri, but at times I touch his light & Yeats says
In dreams begin responsibility. & today, if I can’t see humanity in a lotus
or eternity in a wine glass, should I be allowed to write of flattened moods?
Are such angles useful or should one’s tongue be stilled? Do we need more noise
in a world that’s deafening? With no sign of short circuiting. As Okri said,
maybe the exhausted should get out of the way, because there are others who
should be heard.
We
all ate today, at a gathering of strangers. This is good. This should be
guaranteed. It was just one place in a many placed world, but shit that’s where
we were. And it was pleasant to see faces around us convivial, in a reprieve
from a plague. & to forget about Right against Left for a minute, to ignore
the tv, the internet. & perhaps from this margin, a new book was made? Cos
frankly, we looked like friends.
©Malachi
Doyle 2021.
On
Divide & Rule
On
Divide & Rule
I
feel as if my students look at me
As
if I’m somehow responsible for the bad weather
As
if I have set it as homework
With
an unfair submission date
Last
night we went to the beach
And
the great blue sky domed high above
Maybe
I could set that
It’s
so close to the end of the year
No
one would notice?
Imagine
if we as teachers were trusted
To
gift our students the world
&
not mere texts
If
there were no prohibitive insurance policies
&
phobias of catastrophe
Imagine
if we taught within our community
Maybe
we could really sort out some stuff
We
could break that suspicion of others
&
un-divide the rule
On
Obscenity today
On
Obscenity today
A
previous piece contained obscene language. I wrote it while hot, but the
written word quickly cools, and cools sober and impassive and unflinching.
And after the post-disclosure anxiety attack, came the realisation that this
anxiety had some basis in something that clangs false. It makes me think about
what I read recently about the painter Patrick Tjungarrayi: that the Dreaming
is listening. The ancient way is about wisdom, while modern man gets seduced by
the sound of his technique and falls in lust with his own handiwork, and yunno,
this is getting us closer to an endgame on many levels. There are better
stories to tell than the one I told. The story was poorly selected from the
psychic library of universal stories we all have access to. We should choose
our stories more carefully, not from fear of others’ reactions but from the
chain-reaction that follows each word we activate.
This
eventually Lightens Up
How
to start such a week as this, as any?
A
truly terrible way to start the working week. Why did I do it? Research the
marches sweeping the cities of the world, but of course no one seems to know
where the money is coming from? I guess accountancy is good like that, if
you’re a fascist billionaire or network of billionaires. Divide the people,
necessitating authoritarian governments to maintain order and your security
forces and weapons and news outlets. Blah blah, as Joan of Arc, sorry St Greta
says. Still, what a waste of a beautiful day. All that was achieved was that I
am now miserable, which is no doubt precisely what the plot has been all along
– to sew atomised discontent amongst the people. We amplify the threat and
diminish the good. This is the definition of a production line of tragedies,
where is Aristophanes when you need him? Why aren’t the production houses
allowing comedies? This is also a question, is it? I understand the current
love of instrumental music. A break from words, because the current words are
bad.
So,
How
To
Inject
Some
Humour
&
Keep
Humanity
Breathing
Oxygen?
…?
Yellow
with stripes on it
Like
a trip hazard
Like
an icypole
Yunno
kids still love frozen sugary drinks
I
dearly love frozen things on a hot day
For
all the horrors
Of
the dispossession
The
white man brought the freezer
Good
in a hot summer climate
I
wanna get out into the bush soon
I
will
The
bush is healing
Kev
Carmody’s butterknife slide guitar boogie
Who
would’ve thunk that
Some
of his best recent work is his instrumentals?
Capturing
the humour
In
the dreaming
In
country?
A
Bit
Like
The
sound of Music
&
The
absurd little bird
Coming
out to say
Cuckoo.
My
dearly departed friend Mikey
Taught
me a depth of love
Of
our birds
&
their people
Birds
are great fun
He
called King Parrots
Twinkle
Discs
As
in a Japanese mini disc
Which
Joked
“It
thinks it’s better than
It
is”
Maybe
like the birds
We
need to feel pretty
And
rejoice in our gift of
Song
&
Flights
Of
Fancy?
Cu
Ckoo!
Lee
Scratch Perry & Poetic Truth overcomes Defamation
Lee
Scratch Perry & Poetic Truth overcomes Defamation
Defamation
Law prevents us from engaging with our politicians
The
rich are so easily offended it seems
Why
is it the hypersensitive are so prone to denying human rights?
But
of course the latter are now on the nose
And
the former are IN
The
politicians are silently dog whistling
They
stick to fighting through the courts
And
conducting blood ballets
Off
the record with their teams of accountants and lawyers
So
we have with poetry, music & art
The
Government of the tongue
Spend
more time with your artworks people
Learn
how to experience & read them
You
got to learn to dance
Before
you be too quick to judge
There’s
a BIG message
In
every brush stroke
&
every remix
&
every accented rhyme
Lee
Scratch Perry
Apocalypse
rider
Psychic
acrobat
Madman
in the marketplace
Surfing
bombora
Nothing
to lose
More
alive when dead
Than
most you sold meat on the street
Scratch
threw off the shackles
Grew
his sense of humour till it sprouted planets
Never
conned into being serious
Who
is really serious?
When
the truth can get you sued
What’s
a boy to do?
What’s
a boy to do?
(For
Lorena Allam)
Lee
Scratch Perry’s
Afro-Diaspora
Plays
with genius madness
&
prophetic gobshite
Calling
Out
The
End
Of
Days
Rockin
All
The
While
Whilst
First
Nations
Poets-in-being
On
Country
Still
Project
&
Protect
Eternity
&
Deep
listening
Against
Th’
Incessant assault
Of
Corporate
Greed
On
top
Of
&
Under
Every
stone
Whispering
We’re
Always at the beginning
&
Here
Is
where
.
So
What’s
A
Boy
To
Do?
Does
One
tread lightly?
&
Appeal
To
what’s most holy
In
Man?
Or
sometimes
Fire
Up
Da
Bass
&
B!tchslap
The
Bullies
Back
In
their place?
(Btw
The
last bit’s
Not
a conclusion)
What’s
a boy to do?
It
all sounds light
As
if some kind of joke
That’s
English for you
The
folly sounds serious
&
the serious sounds folly
What’s
a boy to do?
Universals
by Earth To Malachi
The
ancient Chinese were right to tie knots in string rather than write words.
Nowadays we type words in some standardised font even further separated from
the making of marks of meaning on the infinite canvas. We merely copy and paste
third hand concepts which we never test and call ourselves experts on the world
and enact policies. Again, the world a concept that may or may not mean
anything. Convention determines our understandings. What authentic witness to
experience and drifting thoughts under psychic stresses and eases do we bring
to bear?
Listen
to Universals by Earth To Malachi at the link provided.
https://earthtomalachi.bandcamp.com/album/universals
©Malachi
Doyle 2021.
(a space in Jells Park
11/12/2021, Wurundjeri Woi Worrong & Bunurong country)
From my limited experience,
it seems to me that the great writers are invariably fairly pale kinds of
people.
The
great spirits are dialogists & enablers who would rather live than write.
People
like yourself.
I
was suggested to run a poetry picnic in Jells Park the other day
&
in the process realised that my poems in writing are fairly b grade,
which
was initially disappointing,
But
I did rip out a pretty cool improv on guitar which spoke to, of, with
& for the occasion.
Above
all I preferred the collaborative nature of the day, with EVERYBODY
SHARING
than
the usual stage delineation between performer and audience.
The
birds, animals, trees, water, sky & earth participated too, the spirits who
were acknowledged and present.
There
were some beautiful words read, recited and spoken, where written texts,
borrowed texts and the conversational, the sung blended into one patchwork
quilt.
Of
course History prefers documents.
Hence
the two dimensional page.
My
artistic truth is the uncaptured, the document mere fragments souvenired (or
perhaps vandalised?)from the whole.
I
really feel that the written word is merely a touchstone for the ineffable of
the infinite/intimate.
(Excerpt
From a letter to my Mentor, Dr Robert Wolfgramm)
I
also made a sound piece in honour of the occurrence.
https://earthtomalachi.bandcamp.com/album/the-inaugural-poetry-picnic-in-the-park
Not
about the Beatles per se
The
Beatles were so right about our materialist, individualist world –
“You don’t see me”
& I don’t see you
& this causes so much frustration
Which easily heats to anger –
We don’t see one another,
Because essentially
One cannot be perceived –
One appears to another through a series
of masks & mirrors
& today
Most people we see
Appear via screens
Rarely presenting themselves
Other than in the capacity of a
functionary
What I’m saying also
Is that you don’t hear me
& I don’t hear you –
Were it ever possible to
It would be impossible
Using the today’s language of
Commerce & politicking & power,
To attempt intimacy
I say something
I think is beautiful
& I wish to share the beauty I feel
with you
But a word catches
You don’t like that word
All you see is that word
That becomes
the focus –
The signifier
Not the signified
This is especially clear in our age
Of individualist materialism –
I am open
But still waiting for real proof
That it has not always been thus.
--
Nevertheless,
Miraculously
In rare moments
We feel each other –
The inside,
We see & hear one another –
How does it come about?
I wonder
& is it so incompatible
With what some people
Call God?
Why
Write?
Why
write?
People aren’t cut out for reading.
They’re incapable of joining the dots, except for the few destined for the
madhouse. It’s tedious. Everyone’s talking politics, they call it. Sounds more
like gossip to me. It’s crowding out articulate voices with animal noises and
photoshopped faces.
You can’t teach about genocide via a
movie. Movies are exterior. Suffering is interior. You can’t do justice to a
genocide by focusing on the perpetrators and leaving the victims silent. Then
you are perpetuating it. JoJo Rabbit is a tragically mistaken work. It provides
little but a sympathetic Nazi and anti-Semitic ear worm taunts. I once wrote a
poem using the n-word. Born from a life experience where it was embedded and
recollected in the poem. I spent years editing and footnoting all trying to
make it work, until finally I realized it was inherently flawed. I guess
Hollywood rewards people who put entertainment and their artistic egos above
morality. Most famous artists are unwise. Except about building their careers.
Perhaps because their audience is
unwise. A lie can never become a truth. No matter how hard you work on it. It’s
tedious writing this. I’ve sworn off writing about genocide. I think the
survivors who said no art would ever do justice to the holocaust were right.
But the genie is out of the bottle and the holocaust becomes mere aesthetics.
It’s tedious having to remind people about this. My heart’s not in it. I’ve
broken my mind too many times banging on the same wall. Do I really have to
break it again? I promised myself not again.
But, I don’t know, I guess I think that
as a privileged person I have a responsibility to defend victims. And so do
you. So why are you silent?
Mouth,
& things related to the mouth by Earth To Malachi
Mouth, & things
related to the mouth
I seem to spend an inordinate
Just wanted to use that word
Would a helluva lot work better?
Shouldn’t I try for as wide a potential audience as possible?
Don’t get me wrong I’m under no illusions that many will read or hear
But yunno, not to isolate; rather to invite people IN
What was I talking about again?
It’s not really relevant is it?
You only want to know who I am
Or rather what I am
A unique event
Reduced to an object from a collective said object
Of course, you doubtless think
I’m beating around the bush
Anyone would say that
I know I would, in fact, I am outright saying it
All I really wanted to say was that I cringe A LOT these days
At old foot in mouths committed over the years
They behave like a lowlight reel on a loop
Embarrassing moments from my youth
The older I get
Rather, I wish I could occupy my psyche with new and interesting things
& not just rehashing sh#t
But yunno, not much happens when you get to my age
Well not quite true
A lot happens
But most of it dying or decaying
& yunno that’s not very titillating is it?
When I was young everything seemed for my amusement
I never minded the foot in mouths
I barely gave them a second thought
letters
& numbers
numbering the painting
so not to lead the viewer
still the viewer is led
&
presumes meaningless
as a meaning
as if visual language must mean nothing
when not translated via words
we now use numbers as words
everything is words
like gestural splashes --
an everything of things
Poem
2
Poem
2
It
doesn’t there was a disc
Now
think, you who good cheer
What
rabbit what is not but you
Baby
rapturous & confused
Would
snatch it with your hand
Bland
hill bald aren't what?
Over
& under
Up
& down
Out
& in
Inside
surface
Rhapsodize
In
spontaneous
Da
boo bap
Ta
zwimmerzwommer twip
Ya
can’t swear or be honest on a work computer
Blip
Red
hi
Red
hi
Red
hi red chain green mouth why are yes when will how? Don’t drink the wind and in
your mind’s ear Fortune flavours the air ducts why sand and clever hard to get
into black & whisk no hi
Prose
haiku #4
Prose
haiku #4
I
when who you been where too?
It
there under the orange blanket lifted
Cut
was in the shards & shattered
Blood
is enough you get it
Here
lies…
Here
lies…
Here
lies recumbent slumber to an insomniac. Man that hurt, my mind is getting
stupider by the day & I have to consult web dictionaries because my
vocabulary is diminishing. An access issue. I’ve switched off part of my brain
to preserve my sanity. Mentally and emotionally exhausted. Better to make
animal noises or what the pentecostals call talking in tongues. I do it in the
car, where nobody can hear. It feels good to do so. It had got to the point
where I was recording everything and the observer effect is felt because one is
always self conscious not to sound crazy. That one’s utterings adhere to
standard historical modes of artefact. For now I prefer the unrecorded. That
which passes forever into space untranslated into text. Vibrations are good
said Wilson Brian. Is it clear I like the Beach Boys? I listen to them every
day. Because of those good vibrations and joyous balmy seaside thrills. I could
quite easily move to the tropics and wear shorts and savats* every day.
*What we Aussies
call thongs/sandals & the Brits call flip-flops.
dhdcbdhcwd
dhdcbdhcwd
Why
is it that discussions of reggae singer Peter Tosh are discussed in terms of relative
popularity whereas John Lennon is discussed in terms of his artistic
achievements?
It
appears that Third World art appreciation is discussed in teen language while
First World art appreciation is discussed in academic language.
Why
do all poetry magazines about Africa on the web come from America?
Some
would say that none of these questions matter much to discuss.
That
we know what exists and what has to be done.
That
literature is dead.
Still
politicians deliver speeches.
Reflection
…
babble babble babble…
Why
did they stop taping up my mouth?
I
used to know my boundaries then
When
I was 6
art
& politics
Some
have claimed that the birth of Abstract Expressionism in the US while not
caused by it may have had connections to McCarthyism when it was deemed safer
not to be explicit. In China, Ai Weiwei claims that to solely make paintings of
traditional themes is forced by the repressive mechanisms of the state against
the body and spirit.
When
will political bullies bugger off and allow artists to create art
representative of the enormous capacity and potential of the human spirit?
Social media umpires demand that an artist explain herself at all times quoting
things out of context and denying the symbolic and the dramatic, modes,
poetics, traditions, fiction, the right to transgress to name but a few. It
gets harder and harder to make art where a sophisticated audience is required,
after all everything on the internet is rated G. & so art is embroiled in
suspicion much like it was under Hitler & Stalin, the message that the
human is so terrifying that if she lets go in her art, and great art requires
this, she must be silenced. Any artist I’ve known began in innocence and joy
and is, alas, taught to feel self-conscious, when the whole purpose of art is
to escape the self and merge with the whole.
For
this reason Nietzsche celebrated the Dionysian Dance. He had a point, but
should have stuck much the time to art and avoided politics, because when
people don’t trust their artists/writers they are more likely to read into
their art a call to arms. And a call to arms can be embraced just as it can be
rejected.
I
am mostly kind
I
am mostly kind
What
is the shadow of this?
That
I judge, that I am inflexible
To
the movements of others
As
I judge myself and am inflexible
Towards
my own movements
Still,
I know all this is illusion
For
it is not I
But
the self is the universe
I
am you
&
there is only really All
The
tragedy of self consciousness
There
were things wrong with my childhood but a good thing was that we didn’t wear
branded clothes.
We
wore handmedowns.
We
were also infrequently photographed.
We
didn’t really think about how we looked.
It
was all about identification with every aspect of life.
Today
children are reminded what they look like several times a day.
They
have become self conscious.
Identifying
only with their physicality, alas life for them is but an exchange of surfaces
xx
Sometimes
I travel
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.
I
need to read more and be silent but my soul's on fire like a burning man
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 Missionaries forced upon the naked
Indigenous. Get naked people, Be your animal self. Human centred worlds
are inevitably gossip. Get in touch with your dreams, not your ambitions.
Listen to the air crackle and fizz, listen to the wind. I got no flies on me.
And now I’m not angry, I’m just really uncomfortable and have difficulty
breathing and so I shriek and buck and leap, coz I cannot stop. I’m possessed
by a devilish fire. A redhead, until I’m dead. Then I have no wish for Heaven,
I wish to stay on Earth, a child of the stars. Talk with people openly, not
defensively. No more pointing of fingers, judge not lest ye shall be judged.
Come inside my kitchen to borrow from Tiddas. Let’s not take things so
seriously. One day in not so many years we’ll be put in a box. It's time to
dance, eat & make love.
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
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. Additionally, I live in a world where the only people who
would read my best work would be people in Ivory Towers and no offence, but
Fuck them. Fuck them. I don’t know, is that fair? And if I wrote not in a hurry
I would have proceeded along a steadier course where such targeting of
hypothetical readers was unnecessary. So then, some situation, either social or
psychological or both creates this mess. I am trying to get to the heart of
something. That is always my aim, in as little time as possible because no I
don’t think your concentration span would only last that long, or do I? No,
frankly I have no patience, because of MY concentration span: my
muse is impatient. Thus I have a muse, because I cannot be bothered exploring
my writing motivations in greater depth and so: to shorthand. I am an
essentialist, who quite frankly doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously, like
most of you television and internet watchers. Nevertheless I write. It’s a bug
that’s bitten me. Again: shorthand. Poetry. Adorno said that poetry has
outlived its used-by-date, but so did Plato, millennia ago. Ugh. Somehow,
nevertheless, I trust it. As an impatient man would. I am clearly not then,
wise, but then again if you look at the actual ideas of most philosophers as
pertaining to ‘how to live’ they’re not that wise either. Great writers, yes,
great logicians, but invariably their partisanship to an argument is dangerous.
Because people experience a sense of awe when reading and surrender to them.
Not me, I only surrender to my own ineptitude. I do not believe in myself. I
only believe in things that cannot be said. Like what the wind says, like what
a third of a bottle of scotch says, like what my wife says, like lines I like
in a song, in films, in poems, in books of philosophy, ha!, the occasional
dream, people I’ve met, observations from what is called ‘life’. I am an
amateur – as my Irish father would’ve said before his tongue was taken: a
blatherskite. I am not to be trusted, at least not in the capacity as a writer.
Alas all I can do is provoke. Faithless one might say. But no I would rebut, I
have great faith. Just not in any single code. Certainly not enough to write
anything grand. But then is this a kind of grand belief. In the ineffable.
Therefore in the sublime, in the ecstatic? That worries me, because as I
haven’t said here, I am wary of our Western World’s obsession with the sublime.
People become immune to the ordinary, the humble, which our ancestors dearly
respected. Robbie Burns and Kobayashi Issa etc. No, we seem addicted to the
ecstatic, us Westerners. Or is that all too convenient? and is it only really
me? “Don’t write then!”, I hear the chorus cry. Again shorthand. No, I am that
chorus too, who says no, better not to attempt anything too grand. Have a
scotch. And so. And so. A bumbler is me. All out of the desire to be ‘free.’ Or
to escape scott-free. Or am I just playing for rhymes. Surely, the question
requires deeper investigation? I’m not a writer then. At least I’m not a good
one. One should have intellectual integrity, my mate George is always
complaining. Still I write. Out of boredom, the bug that bit me, my muse that
is as blatherous as it is impatient. I write because it is the only thing that
eases my ache. The ache unto death. I think sickness is going too far. Trust me
Soren I get laughs. Kierkegaard should’ve drunk more, danced more, laughed
more. At dumb shit. That’s it too: I don’t want to enter so deep into a work
that I cannot exist outside of it and laugh at silly things. Fear then? That it
would change me? That love wouldn’t be enough to pull me out of the Divine
Comedy? Then maybe I do have the capacity? Getting closer. But then we fall
into moralism. What one OUGHT to do and all that. I sound like a panelist on
the ABC! Shit haven’t we had enough of that? Man, I’ve realized I don’t want to
know and frankly if I ever got past blathering preambles, maybe I’d write
something good. Clearly, if I’ve done my job, you’d know that that’s something
I have no desire to do. I just wanna bitch and moan. Cheap. Cheapskate. But
look! The sun is setting and I’ve missed another one. Frankly, take me inside a
Turner sky and let me be like an albatross and fly! I wish like posthumous Jimi
Hendrix to touch the last rays of the setting sun.
Damn, something called me to
proofread and now it's basically dark outside! That motivation is also worth
further investigation, were I inclined. But I really want to get up off this
chair and walk the dogs...
P.S. 40 minutes later... I realised on
the nightwalk, that these can captivate too, as it did me and the dogs and also
that Hendrix posthumously didn't say that, dead or living...
Written
in White ink
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
Not
on Light
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…
The
written word intimidates…
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 written word.
I
prefer the oral-aural.
Not
the written, the lawyer’s language.
I
like the language of the bard, the travelling griot, the songman. Carriers of
culture. The same language that holds one’s mother tongue and the language of
love making, the cry in the night, the wise counsel, the many sided
conversation and the celebration...
First
warm day in Spring
The
young curse the old for polluting the planet and yet when it comes to opening
some windows versus turning on the air conditioner, which one do you think they
choose?
Premature
Epitaph no.2626r262r62r623r2r97237r2378r7239r237r2000….
Premature
Epitaph no.2626r262r62r623r2r97237r2378r7239r237r2000….
(*written
after watching the Colin McCahon documentary: I Am)
In
my short artistic career over my short particular 51 years on the planet, I
have produced maybe one or two pieces that may be of interest to others. The
question is whether to stop now – lest the possible diminishing of my
powers as I age sully those previous, dare I say ‘useful’, achievements? (note:
I am not a Utilitarian, but WAS trained in Sociology and social functions are
kind of imbedded, even if I rise against it as often in my thinkings). I hope
it’s relatively clear by now what I stand for artistically/philosophically. My
fear is if I were to drift towards madness in my later years, that these later
works might darken and unfairly define my vision. Let me spell this out before
I become infirm: I am NOT a misanthropist. I like people. Whether they’re good
bad or otherwise is beside the point. But if I later drift intellectually
towards the ‘apocalyptic’ as I head towards my own personal ending, you may
choose to listen -- but when death comes, know that that moment will be
arbitrary not a logical climax to something, an idea or any such....
One
will never know what may have come next. Or what may have not. Or what would
have motivated any particular utterance at any point in my life. My life as an
artist will be balanced between the manifest and the latent, the revealed and
the unpresented. In essence a person is unknowable, and her life will not
follow the classic narrative structure. There is no big conclusion or necessary
progression to be drawn, unless affectively. Else you’re telling stories.
Documentaries love to finish with these and stories are good fun sure. They may
even provide a certain ‘use’ or at least point of interest for others. But if
you find an earlier work more to your liking I’m completely ok with that.
I’m
not a bad bloke if viewed compassionately. I really hope I continue that way.
But one never knows completely. As Tom Petty once stated “ANYTHING is
possible.”
Letter
to my late brother xx
Dear
Baity,*
*Mikey
Maginness and I played in the band Bait between the years of 2003 until his
death in 2021.
Dear
Baity,
It’s
hard not having you in the living to jam with
You
took me out of my creative solitude
My
words shifted and I became saner more collegial, more brotherly towards
humanity
Less
interior
At
times I feel lost inside my mental maze
For
hours and days
I
wanna rock hard
I
wanna scream and sing for hours
But
all I do now is speak
Or
occasionally a brief car ride shriek
But
I’m always alone
Too
self-absorbed despite my belief in the universal siblinghood of humanity
And
treating one another as such
You
also made me brave
To
call out at the crooks
&
shout it from the rooftops
To
sling stones at their icy pleasuredomes
Because
they desecrate the earth and her children
&
must be called to account
&
we must persist in this project
We
whiteys need to grow some guts
&
put aside our pettiness
&
band together with everyone
And
blow down the walls of Jericho
That
leave the violators inviolate
Fight
Fight
Fight
Against
Apartheids!
Me
and Clarice Beckett - bred in Beaumaris
I
could have been born a woman in Somalia
I
could have been born a gay man in Iran
I
could have been born transgender to Christian Fundamentalists
I
could have been born a poet to ‘white trash’ —
(I
use the word advisedly and respectfully: those who do not know who their people
are,
Perhaps
I am one
Who
escaped on the racks to Grammar
But
who still kicks and cries like a c#nt
And
does things spellcheck
Would
never allow —
Springsteen
sang
“Don’t
you feel like you’re a rider on a downbound train.”)
We
must explain to the latter
Cos
they don’t know their place
The
former know how things are - their apocalypse
Their
loss of faith
Their
abandonment by God
Is
as nothing
As
it would have been were I they
Deprived
a voice
Deprived
a pen
The
racists have a word for them
A
word that they think gives them authority
But
all of us are accidents
And
heresy is the only possibility
As
Jesus learned
Not
comparing myself to him
That’s
just a trick of English
-
the language…
Jah
bless
One
Love xx
Walcott’s
Robinson Crusoe
Walcott’s
Robinson Crusoe
*Patrick Kavanagh – Irish poet from
Monahan, Ireland (not far from my father’s hometown in Longford, Ireland).
^Derek Walcott – Nobel Prize winning
poet from the Caribbean island nation of St Lucia.
While I admire the work of Kavanagh*
I relate more to that of Walcott^
I have too many origin stories
To make sense of
I must self invent
From a soil
Foreign to my ancestors
A soil I love nevertheless
I don’t wish to change her;
She already has changed too much
Though of course I am part of that too
& yet I stand
As good as any man
With my own secret knowledge
MGA*
Jells Park 23.10.22
I
like those moments
In
Basho’s travel journals
When
he writes
About
where he has
Been
with great attentiveness
&
engagement
&
yet is unable to compose his responsive
Haiku.
After
all the counted
Marvellous
things
I
have seen on my
Walking
this morning
I
also have no
Haiku
©
Malachi Doyle 2022.
*MGA (ill
advisedly I believe) changed its name in 2023 to MAPh
27
Degrees
27
Degrees
By Malachi Doyle
27 Degrees
--
Sunny – Stormy – Repeat – December
--
Published & © 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 20th 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.
an
amateur’s manifesto
Music & Words
I see it
unadorned
I hear it
sung from whispered lips
Sometimes
soaring
Sometimes
flat
I see it
like life not like art
I want it
to be discovered by an alien
Who does
not know what it lacks
I want it
to be amateurish
Who gets
the occasional complimentary
I want it
asymmetrical and atypical
I see it as
unique
An example
only of itself
I don’t
want it to be tasteful
I want it
to be graceful
I don’t
mind if you only listen for a passing moment
As long as
you listen in
&
acknowledge that a man was here
Who’d live
to tell a tale
A tale
different to any other
No better,
but just so no lesser
Don’t doubt
it
Trust what
you hear
Like you
do
When you
eavesdrop on a stranger
©️ Malachi Doyle
2017.
6 years on it actually
reads pretty close much of the time. I wasn’t intending to make a manifesto.
I’ve continued a
perilous journey since. Technology has made it easier in some ways. For the
dance parrot project, the phone is preferred for recording rather than the
computer. Field recordings in essence, unedited and extemporised, it’s just I’m
the one with the microphone and camera. It feels right now, to bypass
multitracking and editing.
At times I long for a
physical souvenir, but that seems to require extra anti-human processes. So
increasingly my work is only available for download or stream, the souvenir
usually a handmade visual work on paper, despite the fact that I consider
myself a singer-poet. Some extant handmade cds exist but I have no strong
desire to fire up a machinery of work — which burning the disc requires. Art
must I believe fight for the human. Media can use AI and all the work/war
machinery it wants, I am in the play of making art, as humanity has done since
the beginning of time, if indeed there is a beginning.
Love, Justice, Wisdom,
Understanding, Spirit xx
©️ Malachi Doyle
2023.
Current Project: dance
parrot available at Bandcamp.com,
Earlier projects:
Malachi Doyle, Bait (with Mikey Maginness), Mel From Melbourne, Earth To
Malachi also available at Bandcamp.com
On
exceptions to rules
On
exceptions to rules:
Having
created a manifesto of sorts, tension is invariably created and the artistic
impulse to rebel rises daily.
But
limitations, as Basho and the Haiku Masters found, generate imaginative
responses and raised tenors.
I
have on occasion hand written in my paper notebook some notes as touchstones
for my improvisations, much like Miles Davis and other Jazz Masters did.
There’s
where jazz exists beyond country blues.
A
product of the postmodern city and its hypercosmopolitan traditions and
options.
Anyway,
another temporary picture.
Another
provisional sketch.
I
am convinced the spirit of the approach is sound.
Best
not to be mired in the letters of ‘laws,’
when
geneses are born from the dynamic interplay of imagination and materiality xx
https://danceparrot.bandcamp.com/
Love
Poem Of A Psych Patient
Love
Poem Of A Psych Patient
Blue
ink —
Black
pen
Describing
it
——
Therapist
—
Believing
semantics
Can
uncover
What
is chemical
——
A
tale told by
An
idiot —
Man’s
systems
A
Wiggles album
——
The
ways I feel
For
you
Are
beyond explanation —
Watch
me
Closely
——
The screams, the slap and the howl
Even
the profounds of advanced dementia is not silent, disturbed by the endless
cacophony of next door’s television,
Miscellaneous
beeps and buzzers,
Music
from neighbouring rooms,
Bogans
and crying kids,
One’s
own gasps, sneezes and hiccups,
Silence
rarely arrives,
No
more often than the life of the garrulous or the banal,
The
end as trivial as the middle,
In
the beginning perhaps there is some dignity:
The
screams, the slap and the howl.
Movement
I
opened my computer to type out a poem today breaking my manifesto which unless
ur well yunno is no covenant, more a guiding principle - relax: as Lao Tzu
said: The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
Be
like water xx
Teaching
today about visions and people’s place within movements I feel powerless. An
independent in a world of gangs. I wrote An Amateur’s Manifesto on my blog
(look up Malachi Doyle blog - Mel From Melbourne Music Words). Few paid
attention as I live in a cultural desert/dessert. I moved today. Something
moved. Not trivial. Too important all this to leave unrecorded. Go well. One
love xx
The
Blue Eyed Boy of Wonder
The
Blue Eyed Boy of Wonder
The
young man
Was
repelled
By
the rhetorical
&
preferred the image
He
saw as a child
With
a new man’s strength
Ecstatic
with novelty
&
pleasure & ease
Then
he weakened
Time
sped up
Objects
— no longer images suspended miraculously
And
rhetoric became required
(You
could call it a fall from grace?)
As
he desperately
Sought
out meaning amid the horror
Values
Now
ordered
By
his tired mind
Beauty
no longer seduced him
For
long
Everything,
even
His
visions,
Felt
full of effort
What
was “Life”
But labour?
Forgotten,
the blue eyed boy of wonder
Birthday
Blues 2023
Birthday Blues 2023
That’ll do,
I can barely see
I lost my readers at the hippies
I hate racists
I hate fascists
That’s my problem
Coz I was born in Prahran
& grew up in Beaumaris
Ha
They murdered Lorca
For similar reasons
Mainly for being interesting
& it’s not I hate racists
More I hate racism
The acts
Not the person --
Everyone deserves their shot at
redemption
Hit squad
Boom!
Boom!
Shovels
& buried by the side of the road
Somewhere unknown
In Franco’s Espana
Me,
Nigga Irish ‘blacks of Europe’
600 years
Forgotten today, their barbarian roots
Racist cops to the blacks in Yank
Anyway,
I’m blessed,
As are you
The worst is we never
Or rarely
Get to tell our beautiful stories
Coz
We’re too often under threat
Of how I saw Mikey today
My deAD best friend
Out a bus window
And he had that Mona Lisa smile
And the nice3 chat with the 18 year old
kid at the bus stop
And she talked about how kids these days
don’t talk
They’re divided up into tribes
Separated from one another
& she was sad about that
So a poet’s job is to talk to people
Distil refract reflect
Weave
Melodiousness
From the deep blue
Of human pain
Even us
Fate/luck
Bore white skinned
So be it
Or as dead Ned said
Perhaps apocryphally
“Such is love/life”.
--
It’s Easter:
Jesus
Tortured
Unto death
Saith
“Forgive them Lord,
They know not what they do”.
--
I love
--
“Marcus Garvey’s words come to pass”*
*Winston Rodney aka Burning Spear
What
does Ai Wei Wei Say?
What does Ai Wei Wei Say?
What does Ai Wei Wei Say?
“Never Sorry”
Well, he’s got bigger balls than me
He’s the reason I started this blog
malarkey
Which is what good people with wooden
ears sometimes call me
It’s ok
Just call me Mal
It’s an ethnic name
One of my few distinguishing features
A white guy
I was allowed to pass
Largely invisible for the first 35 years
of my life
Til I found my voice
As the Millwall support told me
“You’ll be right, Mal
Just don’t open your mouth”
Hard for a poet
Blah blur blah malaka
fuck!$%$($%IU%*OGUL
What I really wanna talk about
Is the hatchet job being done on the
referendum push
Dutton clearly has no morals
Opposing this
But Albanese
Hasn’t been upfront about what a
constitution is
& why a permanently enshrined
Indigenous voice on Indigenous issues is crucial
Else one party introduces a body
Only for the other to axe it a few years
later
& no assistance is ever provided to
the rightful owners of the land
All to please the mining companies who
want carte blanche to rape the whole middle and top end and west of the continent
Where the blacks mainly live and suffer
3rd world conditions in a first world country
Plus institionalised racism
& thuggery from those protecting the
law
PS
I got no beef with police
I’m a public servant too
And if they’re protecting Democracy
As they’re sworn to do
It’s good times
But yunno
People are not always so ethical
In any walk of life
So you don’t get off the hook either
Buddy!
Chardonnay socialists
Don’t make me spit on the grass
What dismays me
Is that so called ‘radical’ academics in
this country
Have never heard of the IPA
(Institute of Public AFFAIRS)
And who funds them
& which media stars are paid for by
them
What the heck!
What kind of coercive situation
Is we in?
Prison culture after 250 years still
Finger to the lips
Like the Soviets
What were we opposing
Then?
The right nor the left here
Are candid
How can we claim to love Democracy
Under such conditions?
--
DH Lawrence wrote Kangaroo.
If you are too woke to read it
Aka pig lazy
Watch the film
& don’t text all through it.
It’s about your country.
Grow up
& pay attention.
Else I’ll be playing lawnbowls
& watching the grass grow…
It’s
a terribly unwieldy medium this written stuff
It’s a terribly unwieldy medium this
written stuff
I’ve talked about it several times
already on the dance parrot bandcamp site verbally but wanted it on record in
ink (if virtual)
Enough
This:
Today,
When we meet strangers on the street
We are no longer meeting ‘people’
But avatars of algorithms
Designed by multinational tech companies
Decked out in fashion
Hair
& flesh & blood
The death of the social
As a theatre of human activity
People are advised to ‘compartmentalize’
The life coaches call it
What one of those Frankfurt School types
(Erich Fromm I believe)
Called the schizophrenia of modern man
Meaning schizoid
So where lies ‘the person’
Now?
On the street you’ll never pick the
misogynist
The facist
The Communist
The racist
They’ll more likely
Outwardly conform
To normative retail exchanges
Maybe even a ‘please’ or thank you’
Or ‘sorry’ if they need to push past you
For a tub of yoghurt
The ‘real person’ saved for extra
curricular activities
This latter
Apparently ‘the true self’
Like the hermeneutics of suspicion
Gown wings
Oh!
How I long to meet the person
Not
ON social media
With an underdeveloped
Internet ‘identity’
Someone who sees the ‘god’ in me
& I ‘god’ in she
Love Wisdom Overstanding
Riddim
Stippin
Tet
DRS
- At my brother’s behest
DRS - At my brother’s behest
At
my brother’s behest
I tried to watch the footy today
I’m in a hotel
That’s what people do, surely
Not write their attachments down
Chill out
Put ur feet up
Et al
But yunno
I tried
The decision review system (DRS)
Over goals etc
The booing of good play
By the opposing team’s supporters
I just can’t.
Get into it.
On the DRS:
For a start,
The technology is rarely conclusive
Why do we trust technology
More than human judgment?
For a start
Modern science
Has moved away
From its philosophical underpinnings
That governed
Newton etc
Science no longer cares about truth
Only production
(not even bothering to point out
That some dude in a lab coat
Will still have to conclude a ‘reading’
On the basis of the data
Hell, he might even have a fever
Or mightn’t have slept well the previous
night
Or be undiagnosed for stress
Or be working despite it
Regardless)
All this
What late 19th century
writers
Might refer to as ‘Irony’))
And on this question
Of DRS
And objective judgment
“Modern Truth” in essence
I keep coming back to Primo Levi –
That a non human/instrumental ‘truth’
Of Auschwitz
Would have been false* –
For only living beings
Experience
Pain, suffering, violence, death
So, the affective
The emotive
Is Necessary
Crucial
In fact,
Of course
In dialogue with reason & wisdom
It goes without saying
Or should
Unless ur ‘thick’,
That is much more
In the service of capital T Truth
As for 65 000 years,
According to Oxford Publishing,
Indigenous Law & Lore have proceeded
Marvelously sustainably and equitably
God bless
God is in the shout of the street
God in all of us
& our lives
What,
As you may prefer
One to call:
‘The sacredness
Of life’
* The further irony (tragedy is insufficient to
say) would no doubt be noticed by the perceptive reader – that it was
instruments of science/industry that were, forgive the pun 6,000,000 loved
ones, instrumental the very direct cause of those violations and murders.
NDIS
talk in the Chicken Shop
Funny,
some bloke in a chicken shop yesterday was talking to me about ‘the problem of
the NDIS’ yesterday.
I
thought to myself I hadn’t heard THIS before?
Strange
it had never crossed my mind.
Then
today, I thought I’d check if Andrew Bolt had launched an attack?,
And
sure enough,
It’s
a Sky News beat up.
Don’t
worry about the Multinationals/Mining/Food Companies paying zero tax on their
billion dollar profits - raping the land, destroying sacred sites, enslaving
the 3rd World,
Let’s
us lowering middle class
Pick
on the vulnerable and poor for a bit of help paying the groceries.
I
guess people these days are basically parrots for algorithms designed by
trillion dollar tech giants to divide us and rule/conquer.
As
Bob Marley put it on the greatest political music album of all time ‘Survival’:
“They
don’t want to see us unite,
All
they want us to do is
Keep
on fussing and fighting;
They
don’t want to see us live together,
All
they want us to do is
Keep
on killing one another.”
As
Bob would also like me to say, I’m sure:
One
Love.
My
speaking self, nay my writing self blah blah…
My speaking self, nay my writing self
blah blah…
My speaking self, nay my writing self
blah blah – yunno what I’m talking about!(?) Anyway, it sounds very certain of
himself. The reality is the same. But this reality is contingent on a brain fed
body requiring a desired balance of pleasure & pain; and as a yunno miggle
miggle class, affluent first worlder etc, it’s probably unsustainable for the
planet, other people etc, the whole frigging game/sacred ineffable existence,
blah blah.
What I really saying is: I’m an illusion
– in my apparent solidity (legal/medico/financial/corporeal/relational
etc).
What others are too well
behaved/dishonest with me/themselves (maybe the latter irrelevant and worth
only proximity, not causality – but science runs this way today innit?, so why
not muddy the waters of neo-Rousseauian confession(?)) to tell me,
is the ‘fact’/judgement,
what in this moment seems a fact or at
least a realization
(whatever the hell this latter word
means in this imprecise tongue – English (comparatively to certain other
languages – or so I’ve come to ‘understand’). Is this:
‘My’ ‘fact’ that I am a “weak” man. A
coward. Not out of holding some undemonstrated ‘will’ back,
but my weakness/‘need’ (it’s a want
perhaps? Or maybe is a need?) to numbing the intense pain I feel.
Lao Tzu beautifully said (according to
Stephen Mitchell, whose version I know best) that (paraphrasing): fear &
hope are both illusions that come from thinking of the self as (the) self – as
opposed to the all/nothing,
& he implies
that this illusion is best avoided.
Or does he?
He does say that mystery &
manifestation both come from the Tao (loosely translated by some as ‘the way’,
there are other words sometimes used in its place, I can’t think off the top of
my head/under ‘inspiration from my Muse’ (haha)).
And finally, or rather, principally,
that the Tao that can be told & named is not eternal, nor infinite, but
somehow the Tao/‘it’ is. (I think?, but could be missing the point?)
Marvellous!:
How a fallible being articulated this,
is I think, extraordinary.
And what I am suggesting here, is that a
similar quantity/quality of thinking might be achievable by me.
Because no doubt, Lao Tzu didn’t exist
any more than I do (the ‘illusion of thinking of the self as (the) self’)
& ,
he did,
as a man,
fall prey to the same weakness(es).
(Nah singular will do)
What is not known,
is whether he held less or more
weakness?
Less or more ambition,
less or more wisdom?
Or if miraculously,
the words just got f*^$ckin written?
A good book, for mine.
Similar conclusion to Kant’s Critique of
Pure Reason, I’d say. Both of them, I’d say, were conformists. But so what?
Societies are made up of us conformists. What Sociologists call ‘Deviance’ (or
‘deviating from ‘norms’/normative behaviour, only serves to strengthen, not
threaten, the Society. Serving as a ‘folk devil’ which the rest of society
bands together, to ‘fight’
- which
could just as easily be said to ‘embrace.’
This what I have taken from what I’ve
learned, and if possible to do, ‘observed’
(if indeed it’s really observation
& not projection?).
I’m tired now.
See: ‘WEAK’!
NOT a philosopher:
A POET.
SHORT STAMINA held intensely in fits
& starts.
In long: a MAN.
Attached, not detached, as philosophy
‘ostensibly’ requires.
Whatever the f77ck I am.
Finally,
(perhaps connected, perhaps not,
(both?/all? none?)?:
Is intelligence affective?
Is there present an affective
intelligence?
Does this affectiveness need
entertainment?
Does Tragedy, Drama, Sport & Comedy,
Pornography, Ecstasy, Irony, Ennui, Absurdity, Music, Dance,
Culinary/Excremental odours, Perfumes, (of course there’s more varieties) etc
Satisfy it
Or leave it unfulfilled?
In short, did ‘God’ create the ‘world’
coz he was bored?
Is ‘he/she/they/us/blah) still bored?
Dead?
Still affective (or feeling)?
Involved?
Somehow I think sympathy does exist.
I think Love, for want of a better name
does exist.
In short, I think Life does exist.
There’s just no way to explain it.
But that’s ok.
We wouldn’t have the strength to do so,
even if we could.
Yunno what,
Despite it ,
Or perhaps,
Because of it all(?),:
I like people.
Illusion/illusions or not.
I do.
Better than being dead or alone.
Not GOOD,
Not BAD:
LIKEABLE.
That’s pretty f85king good.
From one illusion to another:
“Here’s looking at you kid.”
The
Disease of Conceit
The
Disease of Conceit
“There’s
a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight from the disease of conceit…
Steps
into your room eats into your soul…
Conceit
is a disease that the doctors got no cure…
Give
you delusions of grandeur and an evil eye
Give
you the idea that you’re too good to die
Then
they bury you from your head to your feet
From
the disease of conceit” – Bob Dylan
Wow,
what a song from the ‘Oh Mercy’ album, from the late 80s (produced by the
superb Daniel Lanois).
What
a timely song too
In
this age of internet ‘virtue signalling’
From
what we’re told
Are
‘the 2 sides of politics today’.
Social
media self-aggrandizement.
What
Irving Goffman
Had
so beautifully written about
Decades
ago
As
“The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life”.
If
Goffman saw that then
What
would he have thought about the ‘Social Media’ age?
All
of us are ‘trippin’, as my Rasta brother pointed out the other day.
No
one more nor less.
All
of us.
Each
of us.
Even
those few opting out
Defining
themselves as comparatively
‘superior’
to those ‘on’ it,
&
vice versa.
A
virus, as Bob continued
“They’ve
done a lot of research on it
But
what it is, they’re still not sure.”
‘I’m
a real man because I drive a V8’
Versus
‘I’m a superior man because I drive electric’.
‘My
soul is superior because I do yoga & mediation’ versus
‘I’m
no hippy, I’m a straightforeworward girl’.
All
of it: CONCEIT
“Turn
you into a piece of meat” Bob says, an object without a subject’s empathetic
& hospitable capacities.
A
lack of humility and generosity.
Earlier,
Peter Tosh had said “A poor man’s wealth is in a holy place.”
The
traditions in folk cultures in poor counties was always one of hospitality.
Now
I’m not saying that I wish to take a vow of poverty.
That
would no doubt be couched in a conceited view about the ‘virtues of
simplicity’.
It
is indeed, as Dylan saw, a “disease.”
To
end then – 2 lines from the song,
&
I’m thinking of the current battle of the sexes, oftentimes occurring between
‘spouses’ or so called ‘partners’ and the mass proliferation of divorces and
relationship breakdowns, exacerbated by social media, internet porn, polemical
‘news/current affairs’, individually targeted programing aimed to divide us
further:
“There’s
a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight from the disease of conceit
Whole
lot of hearts shaking tonight
From
the disease of conceit.”
To
Footscray, via the city and back
To Footscray, via the city and back to
Cheltenham (my current domicile)
Namibia
Leopards or cheetahs
Attacking horses/
When hunters arrived
With guns
& domesticated foreign
Animal species,
The wild animals
Fled/
The occasional meal.
But now
Man builds
Into their small remaining
Tracts of land.
Man
(ok, mainly white
But it’s spread to most
Basically it’s agrarianism)
doesn’t
see it this way/
Or on that trajectory,
Can’t.
So he’s attacking
The wild, carnivorous
Animals
Who also happen to be NATIVE
(YUNNO POPE NICHOLAS 1455: ‘it’s ok to
kill and dominate, the Church will protect,’ as it would also protect and
promote rapists, etc) Anyway, just some backgound for the melonheads who’ll no
doubt misinterpret what I’m saying (Need despairing emoji in the alphabet
please!). //
--
Public sculpture
Melbourne
Policy:
Miscellany/
Novelty/
One offs.
In short no major statements/
Play to the room
Safely
Inanely/
Whatever:
Defensively/
Insubstantially. //
‘Art’ in Australia got spooked
On ‘Vault’
& Contemporary public art
And the melonhead’s
Fear expressed as rage
And violence/
It was renamed ‘the Yellow Peril’
And moved/
The ‘City Square’ terminated
For fear of the populace
& Australian’s racism/
& equally as present:
Participant Democracy//
(WE DON’T TRUST THE PEOPLE HERE,
TRUST ME. LEFT RIGHT WHOEVER .).
Ridiculed by philistines*
Ignorant of art
As we still ARE
Reading ideology into aesthetics/
(WHAT IS NOW IDENTICAL WITH WHAT IS
CALLED ‘POLITICS’ (2023))/
Anyway, the sculpture was moved
& never a daring statement
Would ever challenge
The ‘footy crowd’.//
--
I’d made ‘An Amateur Manifesto’
When I was living on FAT STREET.
Now I’m alone again
In the world
& I see it going crazy around me/
Even my old dog
I don’t live with anymore/
He prefers the comfort of a house,
To life on the road.//
Anyway,
Where was I? –
Hunter S. Thompson/
Famously spoke of his Generation
As DOOMED.
How right he was/
& when I look around the streets
At my fellow people,
It’s what I see:
The Doomed –
Angry, mad, hysterical,
Directionless,
Lost,
In short:
DOOMED.//
And so I say
To my earlier ‘Manifesto’:
“When the going gets weird,
The weird turn PRO.” (H.S.T.).//
--
Brass band with the footy crowd
Along Birrurung Marr –
Along the Yarra
Uplifts
Everyone’s
Spirits.
People are STILL TRYING
As am I/
Sure,
It’s not innovative,
But a lovely
Appropriation –
As Colonials do well at it.//
(Link back to sculpture/music).//
--
But the BANAL!/
--
Maybe I WON’T be going
To the Art Gallery (NGV Fed Square).
It’s TEAMING with people./
Is it
Post Lockdown RELEASE?
Or the latest fad/
Marking the end of the Comedy Boom?.//
INTERPOLATION MADE POST FACT:
MAN I SOUND LIKE A MISERY GUTS. A
WHINGING, WHINING MIDDLE AGED GIT. BUT ARE YOU DEAR YOUNG ONE, ANY MORE UPBEAT,
UNLESS YOU’RE HIGH ON SOMETHING?/
IT IS A SAD TIME.
I WISH IT WASN’T.
I REALLY DO.
BUT IT IS.
FEW PEOPLE CAN SEE HOPE.
A CYNICAL AGE.
SO I GUESS THIS SHIT IS WHAT YOU GET.
ALL I CAN ADVISE IS NOT TO DIVIDE
AGAINST ONE ANOTHER.
AS THE ABORIGINALS TELL THE YOUNG:
“YOU’RE AS GOOD AS ANYONE,
BUT YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN ANYONE.”
HOW ABOUT TELLING YOUR KIDS SOMETHING
SIMILAR.
RATHER THAN JUST BEING TOO DRUNK TO WEAR
A CONDOM
& ABSOLVING ANY RESPONSIBILITY TO
YOUR CHILD OR OUR SOCIETY/WORLD?
THEN MAYBE,
WE WOULDN’T BE IN SUCH A PICKLE?
--
Back to this reflection from travelling
on foot around Greater Melbourne for the first time in a while// –
Personally, I mistrust ‘travel writers’
as shallow self-promoters.
‘Th’Art Gallery’
As Les Patterson famously put it,
But today
50 years on,
The advantage of ‘THE CONSUMER’
Is that they are armed with smart phone
cameras –
So,
One’s
Selfies
Can
ROCK!//
Social media
Like so much cubic zirconia
& Revlon
“Coz you’re worth it” propaganda.//
--
The YOUTH’s (bigger boys)
Macho posturing
Seems more exaggerated
Than I remembered it
(pre lockdown)/
Everywhere,
‘Shadow boxers’
It seems/
Hoping that they can be caught
On a friend’s ‘smart’ phone/
Evidence of their bullying tactics
& ‘sharing’
On ‘Tik Tock’,
In the hope of
‘going viral’/
AGAIN, NOT WANTING TO PUT TOO FINE A
POINT ON IT, AS THEY MIGHT BE GIANT’S PREVIOUSLY BORROWED,:
VIRUSES!!!!!/
Repeat:
VIRUSES!!!!!/
Repeat:
I can’t remember it being like this
before I entered into the marriage contract (Jah Bless)
& foreswore public transport
As UNBECOMING
For a married man.//
What strikes me most
Is the JOYLESSNESS
Of the EXHIBITIONISM:
Its sound & motion
AIMS at MENACE,
NOT CELEBRATION./
For THIS
I am sad./
Trump’s minions
‘storming the Capital’
Unleashed
Something wider:
HATRED as the new HYMN of the CURRENT
GENERATION.
(AGAIN I PROTEST THAT IT IS THEIR
PARENTS WHO FAILED THEM, US & THE WORLD! BY FAILING TO UNPACK THE ‘HATE
SPEECH’)./
As RADICAL as an 18 year old from their
grandparent’s ‘LOVE’ Generation –
this time as a perverse parody./:
All you need is HATE
The current day LENNONS & McCARTNEYS
sing
Or rather rap,
(Their ‘tales told by idiots
All sound & fury
Signifying nothing’ (Macbeth) /)//
The only echo
That still resonates
From John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero’
Is that :
“You’re all fucking peasants,
As far as I can see.”
TITLE: ‘THE RETURN OF THE PINK FLANEUR’
– TRAIN TO FOOTSCRAY, FOOTSCRAY TO FLINDERS ST., FLINDERS ST. BACK HOME./
END//. A DOOMED GENERATION – ONE UNLIKE MORE OTHERS: IN THAT THEY ARE WITHOUT A
SONG.// (An idea for a title.)
lo
I was going to bang on about something...
I was going to bang on about
something...
I was going to bang on about something
the Chinese laundry women at the Casino many years told me: “Don’t be so up
& down. Better less high, less low”. I’m paraphrasing.
They definitely had a point.
I don’t really know much about the
Chinese way.
But that kind of middle path the Buddha
talked about might be the key to wisdom?
I’ve read Lao Tzu maybe 35 times, still
going…, Li Po, Tu Fu, Ai Wei Wei, a little Confucius, Chuang Tzu, the guy who
came to Australia and wrote better poetry than native speakers Ouyang Yu, but
not too many. I’ve watched some Western and Chinese documentaries, I’ve watch a
lot of videos about Chinese Ink Brush Painting (which I love), I’ve had a
couple of chats with people over the years and have really connected with each,
but really I don’t know jack shit. Never been there. Never married one. Never
lived with one. No idea.
All I do know is that there’s something
great there.
Also, I studied Tai Chi for a while.
Forgot.
And I have 2 scholar’s stones.
I think you’re only meant to have one?
Anyway, the depth of Chinese culture is
equal to the Romans (Ancient, Modern, Diaspora, "New World"), so back
off em.
In 52 years on the planet, I’ve never
had a problem with a Chinese person.
So why this aversion? Irrational
hostility?
I’m not saying I want to give up my Democratic
rights or live there, or be colonized by them.
Personally I don’t think I’d last more
than a year or two in a Communist country.
Because I believe in challenging Taboos.
& the CCP does not.
How is it that one is be able to insult
one’s spouse (who one loves as themselves) as a pressure release in a topsy
turvy life and yet not be allowed to crack a joke about one’s leader?
That seems fair, doesn’t it?
Who knows, maybe you can?
& if it doesn’t make sense, ok.
I’ve never governed 1 billion people.
So, there would be things I don’t see.
All I’m saying to Xi & Biden (or
some Republican maniac) is that conflict needn’t be inevitable or ever be a
solution.
Life is a riddle.
Personally, as much as I love Lao Tzu,
I’m a Jesus man.
Hell, I’m an ethnic Irish Catholic.
& so I say:
“Blessed are the Peacemakers”,
Knowing full well the Irish joke:
“No good turn (or deed) goes
unpunished.”
Ha, like that great Jew Kafka, maybe
life is Ironic and not Heroic?
Who the F*&^ knows?
Anyway,
To all nations: bless you all. Your
ancestors and Progeny. I come in peace. So be kind. To me and one another,
Love
Mel From Melbourne.
Film
Review: London The Modern Babylon
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1937419/
At
the exact moment they talk of Deptford & Lewisham (2006-2008) I was living
there.
I
could see the radical racist right pumping its chicken tits out and then I
hopped on a plane to Melbourne.
I
had mates getting beaten up with pipes, one killed, the place was going mental.
They'd
built fences around 'common (area)'s' in Blackheath (the rich basically 'whites
only' pocket up the road), where I played Summer football with young ethnically
diverse people from my neighbourhood.
I
even brought a 20 litre bottle of water, coz I know poor, desperate people
don't often think of their health (it's arguable that they don't WANT to live
to an old age? Who would? A good old proper Cockney guy, who let me sleep in
his bed, was found dead a week later in his council flat, a few months after
I’d left town).
In
flight, back to Melbourne, I had a psychotic breakdown.
Long
story short: the stewards weren't listening to me when I told them that
"the Italian kids on the Youth For Christ tour seemed distressed and were
not being well looked after by their priest."
Not
implying anything!
They
told me just to sit down and shut up.
Sure,
but I wouldn't 'shut up and sit down' (I have ethics!);
Anyway,
two nights in a Singapore lockup
allowed
the Policemen there to realise I was a GOOD GUY and more concerned about the
wellbeing of others than my own.
Having
had what is called a 'Transcendental Experience' as a kid, has always reassured
me that life is 'as it is' and to in essence 'have faith'.
It
took me 5-6 years to recover from the breakdown.
Fortunately
I met my wife & I learned to speak again.
Anyway,
I
walked those streets of South East London all hours of the day & night,
back
when it had the "highest murder rate in the UK".
Even
hoodlums couldn't believe I walked through Deptford at night & back to
my boarding house room above 'All Wines' off license where I had saved the
lives of 10 people (4 Tamil, 1 Indian Hindu, 1 Algerian Muslim, 3 generations
of Nigerian Muslim women, and a layman Christian Englishman) from a fire which
was climbing the gas pipe in the kitchen at 3.33 am on a Tuesday morning.
Man,
I just smiled at people everywhere I went & said hello, how are ya?
And
found people good - black, brown, yellow, white - in short 'the World's Poor'.
Everyone
on Lee High Road knew my name and what kind of person I was.
I
even had a beer in Blackheath one day with my postcard of Churchill from the
National Portrait Gallery - my favourite London gallery at the time.
Lewisham
was a magic place.
A
real intimate crazy sane community in a big city.
A
miracle of humanity's beauty & promise.
For
some reason I gell with 'black' people - what I term the above mentioned
multiethnic grouping.
(Read
that as 'not the privileged').
People
are people.
Each
as good as one another, no better, to borrow from this country's ancient
peoples, the Indigenous.
I
have no idea why I get on well with them?
I
grew up in Beaumaris (Melbourne) by the sea for goodness sake.
I'm
not looking to prove a point.
It's
more that there is a shared 'getting' of one another.
Yunno,
like "I get you".
Maybe
it's childhood trauma?,
But
that's oversimplifying.
My
other siblings don't have the same knack.
Anyway
I digress, with Humanism's categorical t'inking.
Personally
I find my supposedly 'own people' (in inverted commas) (the middle class
educated whites) more 'foreign' to me.
Weird.
My
Rasta mate Richard (who's helped me so much) says I'm just "THAT
guy".
For
some weird non utilitarian reason.
Clearly
there's no financial profit in it, more kind of — helping me to love.
I've
even been 'acting father of the groom' in a Hindu wedding & best man in a
Fijian wedding, ha.
And
that's just the tip of the iceberg.
These
are deep friendships that Bob Maguire has always praised.
And
Bob's a seriously good egg.
Anyway,
it's
not deliberate.
It's
just feeling more relaxed when people are mixed.
When
everyone looks, believes and thinks the same, I find it kind of intimidating to
whom might not be there.
Of
course I have middle class white friends, definitely.
I'm
not a self hater.
I
just think of myself as a person.
I'm
not sure it's really 'citizen of the world' that's a bit cliché, just a lover,
a person.
What
the painter Jack Whitten called "just one of the guy"/gals/trans/inter,
come on, it's a quote, relax.
By
the way my middle class English-Australian mate Perry told me I should write
about my time in 'SOUF'.
So
here it is Pez.
Love
ya.
Big
time.
Anyway,
back to 'Souf':
Singing
with our all nations "All King Survivors' Reggae band. Singing 'Natural
Mystic' in a Jamaican barber shop — post rudeboy haircut. Playing on Grime
records, and jamming loud and proud with Gripa.
The
kids I teach now have no idea about this.
They're
not allowed to know.
They
think I'm Scott F&*Y&*ing Morrison!
Coz
of my age & race & education.
Hahabewhuewbuewgfyue2ghahahahaha!
Groan...
Fu%#in’
Tick Tokkers. plhgygueuegyuegegfewyfg!
Anyway,
a
beautiful film, this link at the top, the title of this piece.
I
thoroughly recommend it, if you haven't seen it.
Hope
things are well with your film, poem, song, homelife, business et al...
Many
blessings,
Malachi
Final
Word
Ok
I’ll stop.
I
wanna get a book out.
It
was actually my Mauritian parents in law’s idea.
They
like me talking.
They
don’t think me some horrible upstart.
They
like my poetry.
I
like the poetry of their stories and conversations.
Marie
is an astonishing cook, who’s cooked for the masses all over the place since a
young child at the end of a brutal day.
Marc
is the smartest guy I’ve ever met.
They
would like this:
It’s
really for people of the 3rd World I write this book.
And
I don’t mean that in an exclusive way.
There
are plenty in so called 1st World countries.
Those
who’ve been around the block.
Like
my mother I wrote a note about to the wonderful female cabaret performer Geraldine
Quinn today:
Dear
Geraldine,
I
don’t know whether you’re interested and whether you know the cabaret artist
Meow Meow?
But
my mother (my hero) was her drama teacher/director at Firbank Grammar in
Brighton.
Melissa
used to come to dinner at our house, back in the day when it was legal for
students to do so.
Mum
(Maureen) did amateur drama in Tatura, (proper Country) after losing her
singing career to polio. On the back of her amateur acting, which she always
did to a brilliant degree, she was offered the role of Desdemona in Othello
with the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Unfortunately,
as a single mother of 3 in the early 60s (when there was no social welfare for
single mothers) having survived a criminally abusive marriage, she couldn’t do
it.
So
she poured her energy into the next generation.
Performing
Australian Premieres of a Botswanan political play about South Africa during
the height of apartheid at her conservative Brighton Grammar School etc.
(Plus
an Australian premiere of an Indonesian political play during the Suharto
years)…
So,
few people get the credit they deserve…
Blessings,
Malachi
xx
Ham
Sandwich of Hate
Ham
Sandwich of Hate
It’s
really tedious having to explain the bleeding obvious. This Ham Sandwich Hate
guy the teenage boys are all into.
I
don’t want to.
I
really can’t be arsed pointing out the bleeding obvious.
It’s
not the job of poetry.
There
are beautiful things to talk about.
Human
dignity.
People
helping their fellow kind & the planet.
I’m
sick of having waste my breathe on fuckwits.
Basically,
The
new ‘Cambridge Analyticas’ fake news sent to kids via fixed algorithms &
paid ads,
All
financed by Right Wing Think Tanks
Paid
for by Criminal Billionaires, with the politicians in their pockets.
(No
offence, but no one gets that rich without killing & raping a lot of
people, peoples & land. Just the facts.)
The
point being to divide us all along race, class, gender etc.
Divide
& Rule – like the British in India.
Are
people that thick that they think the internet is organic?
Fuck,
I’m gobsmacked at people’s short memories,
Inability
to think unless instructed by the circus ringleader as to what is the so called
‘Issue of the day.’
To
everything else they are amnesic.
Idiots
on panel shows on ‘both sides’ (a CON) more worried about their careers than
clarifying how medias work.
And
where are the schools’ leadership, the Australian Curriculum & the bloody
parents on this?
Heads
in the polluted sand.
Stuff
off.
Unless
you’re about LOVE,
You
can bugger off or just stick with your usual jacking off.
I’m
going out
Side.
George
Atu: The best musician I’ve ever played with was from Rotuma
The best musician I’ve
ever played with was from Rotuma
Red marker
on the map shows Rotuma, you can’t actually see the Island & Islets, it’s
so small – at least in area, definitely not in spirit, where my old bass player
George Atu was from.
He was a
freak.
Probably
the best musician I’ve ever played with.
And
I've played with many so called 'famous' players.
Always
joking
Really
stupid hilarious jokes
Like when the lead
singer needed neck surgery & Geoge joked “too much sperm.”
Ha. You need guys like
that in the band where blokes competing egos can quickly get toxic.
George always took the
tension out of the room.
Rotuma.
Ever heard of it?
Literally in the middle
of nowhere.
Separate
but linked to Fiji administerially.
There’s
probably only 2000 Rotumans in the World.
But if only
you could’ve heard this guy play bass!!!!
Think
Bootsy Collins – a bit more around the beat, less metronomic, funnier and
smoother xx
Perfect
sense of rhythm
Seemingly
no tension in his body
A better
player than Robbie Shakespeare
I just had
to play super straight as a drummer coz he was piping and sliding all over the
place, I just to pocket it like Al Jackson Jr, still he never played too many
notes for essentially vocal ethnic music.
He was
always surprising yet appropriate.
Terry once
called for a Fijian version of Lionel Richie’s ‘Stuck on You’ song.
Me and the
rhythm guitar player kept laughing coz George was so funky xx
And with
the Fijian 4 part vocal harmonies it sounded like paradise xx
Best
musical moment I’ve ever had the privilege of being a part of.
Better than sex.
& I’ve had some good
sex in my life.
In terms of
sublime beauty.
I used to
crash at George’s house as a 23, 24, 25 year old coming up… and drink buckets
of kava and listen to him crack jokes.
You gotta
have a lot of humour in a band xx
You don’t
want academics
You want
people that dropped out of school at 8
10
Ok 13, 14
Something
like that.
As Neil
Young’s producer David Briggs said “the more think, the more you stink.”
Thinking’s
a philosopher’s job.
Music’s the
place for the body/heart/soul.
Not that
it’s not highly intelligent.
Just
not intellectualised. Yuck!
Like too
many bourgeois poseurs
Idiot tales
Sound and
fury
Signifying
only
Whether
nothing or Hamlet’s suicidal thought
Or just
some little thing.
Being
requires belief embodied xx
Georgie,
If you’re still around,
Would love to catch up.
Though my music’s
suffered with the years.
It gets harder to sing.
With all the grief.
And the gravity of
aging.
As Oscar Wilde famously
said
“Youth is wasted on the
young.”
JOK
(Johnny O’Keefe) I’m a wanderer too
JOK (Johnny O’Keefe)
I’m a wanderer too
JOK (Johnny O’Keefe)
I’m a wanderer too.
“If you’re a performer,
That’s the level you’ve gotta give”
-Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil
Drummer-Vocalist) on Johnny O’Keefe.
I never saw JOK perform, but I’ve felt
him tap me on the shoulder, when on stage, surrounded, as an 18 year old, by
old man hecklers & rough boy c87nts.
Me, who as a boy soprano soloist from a
1000 boy Boys’ Grammar School with compulsory Military Training and udder
thuggery had the fortune (mis? Fortune!!!!!) to be born with a 12 year old’s
boy-angel’s voice and walked with a target on my back til I faked an injury
& became a French Horn player (still pitch perfect bitch!).
Anyway, my adult singing voice was never
as good as my child’s voice.
Lacked the strength and integrity.
But you know us Australians can’t
reconcile the masculine with beauty.
Ah well,
What’s done is done.
Anyway,
Later I sung.
18.
& then onwards Engerland when I was
35.
I felt Johnny O’Keefe tap me on the
shoulder
In the Murder Capital –
The Kindest place in the Country.
They say he embarrassed every overseas
act (as ‘soft’).
Roy Orbison.
Little Richard.
Cliff Richard.
And THAT’s the real reason
Elvis never flew.
They say
Those I’ve known who saw him twice
That HE was THE MAN!
A performer.
A REAL PERFORMER.
You have to be a Colonial to perform.
Else you’re Apollonian.
Nietzsche’s ONE GOOD book.
(‘Birth
of Tragedy’)
WE’RE the bastards.
The boys for the job.
Insults —
We learned
In our mother’s womb —
A kick to the guts.
Maybe a Rwanadan child
Born of soldier rape
Can relate
But no one will give them the tape.
So,
Until then
I’m your albino Bredren.
That’s how HARD
WE ROCK!
(After Hopkins)
Praise Him.
Yes
Yes
The word YES spoken is different to the
word written or even read aloud.
I haven’t written about how much
Aboriginal people, culture, philosophy, the whole shebang means to me.
It has radically altered my personal
perspective.
It has radically challenged the pencil
thin perspective of my English Grammar School education.
It has radically challenged my
understanding of the English Language.
It has changed me.
I had the honour, and trust me I don’t
really use that word. It’s perhaps the first time in my life I’ve meant it
enough to use it.
I had the honour of a chat with one of
my biggest heroes, the Aboriginal Songman Kev Carmody.
I don’t know what to say
In this written context.
He showed me the power of the oral poet,
when for years I’d belittled it, as my tertiary education and class/sub-class
does.
I believe now
In the power of the oral.
It’s become my main medium.
The written stuff I do,
Is because people tend to read more
closely than they listen –
Amongst my class/sub-class.
But
As the oral is circular,
As breath is,
I repeat:
The spoken YES,
OR I should add,
The sung YES
Is the correct and true affirmation.
The white man’s law doesn’t get this.
That is why his law is so life
impoverished,
And to borrow from Martin Heidegger:
“Thought Poor.”
Strange,
Coming from a rich guy.
Not Heidegger,
The Australian Lawmaker.
'My
Face'
'My
Face'
I
don't recognise
the
face in the mirror
Who's
that guy?
The
face I remember
is
her face
That's
my face
That
was me.
Afterword
If
you have noticed the intensity over the last quarter of this book increasing it
would no doubt be due to the fact that my wife and I have separated after 11
years, and right before the last entry, my father died. A heavy 6 weeks or so
in my life. I hope the tone doesn’t cast too dark a shadow over the book. That
would be contrary to my wishes. The book is taken from the first 5 years of my Mel
From Melbourne Music & Words blog (https://melfrommelbournemusicwords.blogspot.com/).
The
entries are ordered chronologically. Unlike a novel, it has no logical end or
beginning. It is after all basically a work of poetry and poetry need not
follow such architectures. 5 years. 20 seasons. This is more its aim.
Anyway,
I wanted to share one last thing before I ‘call stumps.’
I
was truly privileged to be with my father in his final moments. As luck would
have it, my siblings had recently left to rest. So, me and 3 incredible Indian
nurses shared this experience. As dad was dying, I told him and the nurses what
a wonderful man he was and how grateful I was to him for all he’d done for me.
My father’s and my relationship really blossomed over the last 20 years we had
together. All the nurses from all corners of the globe gave him such incredible
and tender care over his 11 year stay at an Aged Care Facility. One Filippino
nurse named Angie, told me “He was my father.” Such was the level of deep and
attentive care and love that she gave. She and her fellow nurses deeply
respected my father’s School Teacher occupation and bearing. For the people of
the developing world, education is so highly valued. And the nurses work as an
embodiment of their deep faith. One that is about helping people, and not sitting-around-the-water-cooler/playing-on-their-phones
judging them.
On
the day of Dad’s Funeral/Wake, 10 nurses from the Aged Care Facility drove an
hour after their shifts had finished – in the cold, dark and rain (an Irish
weather snap) to attend. They stayed well over an hour paying me deeply-sincere
condolences. They also stayed so that they might hear the entire cd of dad’s
singing, made when, in his 20s, he was a young homesick Irish priest recorded
on a small tape player. The women wept and listened reverentially. We all
hugged tenderly.
When
the women left, they left a card with me.
When
I got home that night, I opened it. It was filled with deeply loving words. I
am almost embarrassed to say that there was also a gift of cash for our family.
From hardworking, low paid people. It has moved me profoundly and made me want
to be a better person.
People
such as these women deserve more attention. In a celebrity and scandal obsessed
media, perhaps we might readjust the focus from moralism (the judging of
others) to morality (the helping of others). People who lead by example and in
the thick of the throes of life, roll their sleeves up and muck in.
Thank
you,
Malachi
Doyle, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2023.
Anyway,
the publisher fucked up so I thought I’d go a little longer with more recent
stuff.
I’m
glad really coz things look brighter in the country.
At
least until I saw the other side.
Perhaps
you might call it, the Genocide. ‘Babylon’.
And
surprisingly to many, you might not guess the genesis:
As
usual the fake intellectuals
Have
proven to be more aggressive than ordinary people.
In
short: (as all black/poor people know – beware the ‘World Beaters’!)
Still
my sense of humour is getting darker & darker by the Google day…
God
help us.
So…,
Take 2:
Earth To Malachi (After Basho after a fashion)
1.
Ear to my tree —
--
Different cloud
Masses & strata —
Moving — tempos —
Observing
--
The voice of my tree advised me — the
tree’s friend — to listen to the live version of the Byrds’ ‘Lover of the
Bayou’ with fresh ears — surprisingly garrulous — as a teacher sometimes must
be with children.
2.
On the contemporary Melbourne Middle
Classes’ Neo-Victorianism:
I’ve seen too
Much
To mince words
--
Sometimes,
when the world is spinning too fast —
a notepad on my knee
& a pen brings calm
--
With insults & hits
Over the years —
(Space, silence &
PTSD & grief)
--
I needed to clear my head & go
outside for a long bush walk. It was good. When I warmed up, off came the
beanie, the scarf, the jumper & eventually my t-shirt.
--
The second time I put my ear to
my/the tree — whispering loving assurances to it & it healing to me
embracing it whole heartedly, deep & sustained — the hug —
It took longer to speak.
But when I left Its embrace &
walked a few steps, I was left with a word:
“Assignation.” As in to give a task,
a role to someone (a ‘job title’?) I think.
A word I thought I’d forgotten — I
didn’t realize I knew — I can’t remember learning it —
But yes! Think that’s the meaning —
as in to give — to ‘assign’ meaning —
Beautiful — (I might look it up).
It even rained a bit. Was lovely
—& then after — it stopped — the birds gleeful — the kangaroos grooving…
--
No, I’m wrong — assignation — meaning
a meeting — according to
The Oxford English Dictionary — a
situation when two or more people meet, by chance
or arrangement —as in “he intrigued
her on their first meeting.”
--
Maybe I will go back again & see
what happens on another day, at another time.
--
I guess it’s an old fashioned thing
to believe that communication of meaning or learning takes countless revisits,
& that meaning or knowledge doesn’t come immediately.
--
“Assignation”: Ah! An appointment!
Typically made in secret —
--
Have I betrayed it by writing about
it, therefore?
--
I will remain silent.
--
Or yes! From the French — to
attribute.
--
I feel it more the French.
--
But then it also throws into question
— the belief that people are entitled to demand to know — regardless of their
attributes or intentions.
Or is culture carried only by some?
--
3.
Sure enough…
Today,
The stone
Reiterated it —
“Assignation”
--
4.
The television appears in the middle
of the Forest.
& capitalism arrived like the
colonists. —
Trading, gamblers, privateers,
mercenaries, & life underwent assault upon assault.
The tornado is not Mother Nature. It
is the Free Market.
--
5.
Ok, I thought I would feel better
having done a selfless thing — this “Assignation.”
But as my Jamaican friend, Richard
says, when I do something like that — “you’re talking like a dead man.” — World
that demands we think & behave selfishly — “my bank account not yours.”
I guess moving against the tide is
tiring? — that wants its writers to sell their stories & steal the
limelight —
Unless you do so, some snake oil
peddler will steal it.
--
Ok, I’ve lost the mic, but maybe it’s
the beginning of a learning? —
If we’re always busy in action, how
deep do we ever really go? (…)
--
6.
The no word today was a feeling
Of love —
Uniting the tree &
Me
Embracing.
--
7.
On the flipside, (how us humans love
the dialectic) — no energy — for heavy lifting — but no one else seems to want
to do it — hence sometime my writing sounds bitter — I’m tired —
Can’t people THINK for THEMSELVES?!
All plugged in to Multinationals perpetually.
I haven’t really walked in 3 days. Just
drinking really. & now it’s night & I’m desperate to fill my lungs with
clear air.
8.
The past 2 meetings with the tree
introduced “Love” & “Heart.”
This Heart time I wept & the tree
comforted my human misery. Then when I went to put my sweater on — it snared on
a shrub I hadn’t noticed. We met. It put up with my human investigations — I
took a couple of small leaves to smell them —they communicated a wonderful,
refreshing almost “…” freshness.
And I commenced my return walk it
felt like a trudge — “I think I’d better go” —
but I knew I didn’t want to — so I
lay down — on the midwinter ground —
finding, as Coleridge &
Wordsworth attested to — that some such floors are lush but quite dry.
I lay down & looked up through
the canopy at the late June southern sky.
(Northern Hemisphere readers have to
reverse the seasons — give or take* — to get the idea)
--
Tanka:
“Love” —
“The heart” —
Violent world
Won’t be healed
With more rage.
--
9.
But loving is easier said than done —
What with men with machines destroying the peace & quiet — the guy in the
fruit shop coughing & spluttering all over the mushrooms — & generally,
being a step ahead of me — blocking my easy way — the woman who nearly ran over
me backing out of the carpark — coming off an — alcohol binge — unstable brain
chemistry — being high strung — haemorrhoids — finding few people with the
vocabulary or knowledge base or mere passion for life to share a conversation
with — my own inflexibility — social anxiety — being what the squares call
“neuro diverse” — war mongers — bad drivers — free range parenting — in short,
the irritations that block up one’s heart — sensory discomfort — pain &
anxiety — the 2 main causes of stress according to Ainslie Mears — true, I’ve
forgotten to meditate recently — but even that has become infiltrated during a
brief trial to do so in a group — & the doctrinaire New Agers who shove
‘answers’ down your throat — when you just want to silently breathe for a while
in a shared space & leave.
Tanka:
I heard the
Kookaburra laugh —
I think at
My mental activity
--
— not to mention the horrors of the
world — war — maniac dictators — private armies. —
Don’t mention it — you’ll never write
that love poem —
The chaos created by Internet think
tanks —
How to LOVE now?
— & yet one has no choice —
It’s a matter of Poetry perhaps — a
man & a tree — (hu)Man & nature — a microcosm — a hill of beans — a
dream — I dreamed of Love — I don’t want to relinquish that Dream.
— The Media is failing to do its job
— it’s not digesting events properly — the pros are tip toeing through the
tulips — not as a dance — but as a dirge — the insights blunting — people
believing it’s not up to each person to think deeply —
the Google Search Model — that every
Question has a simple Answer — that there
Is a Solution to Life. —
Love is not an answer — it is a
Feeling — that unites — that embraces — that uplifts — that something or others
— it’s not a Thing — not a Method — I don’t claim to be an Expert — nobody is —
else it would be Packaged & Sold. —
I have no Wisdom — I am a Fool — I
tremble & shake — & fall in the pool of Tears & Blood &
Laughter & Madness — ‘what is this Quintessence? — a speech — a poem — a
soliloquy — of a fool. —
Maybe we need to feel more varieties
of emotions — & know we’re Sufficient — sufficiently
Fools. —
I’m with
The Kookaburras —
Laughing
At myself —
Sharing the
Joke. —
I just have to let go of the Rage. —
I’ve passed the cut off stage — I’m an old codger now — too old — too cold —
too blue — partially true. — Ha!
Haiku :
Time to heal —
No more putting
It off
--
10.
Another midwinter’s bush walk —
almost balmy weather…
Double Tanka:
I lay in the
Thicket for so long
I forgot I was looking
Up —
Reveries amongst the
Finches
& other canopy
Birds
Whose names I know not,
Though I do,
Their
Dances
--
11.
One Country haiku followed by one
City haiku:
i.
quiet —
a privilege
a need
ii.
a rush to the
city & home
to get there to rush
--
I hadn’t spoken to anyone for 3 days.
Then I get a call from a friend in the city. & they’re moving from phone to
Bluetooth in the car, back to the phone, to buy the dog food & “sorry I
lost you again”, “how much for the milk?” to the cashier & back outside the
shop & then “I lost you again” & then the Bluetooth in the car &
walking in the door & the complaint from the wife & we never got to
talk about anything. & you called me. So what was all that about? —
Hyperactivity for the sake of hyperactivity. No centre. No connection. Madness.
Melbourne 2023.
Haiku:
Take me
Back to
The trees
--
12.
A night or two after “Assignation,” a
dream answered a question I’d been gently pondering for a month or so. (It
seems I have ‘bigger’ dream here — far from the madding crowd & the
mediascape of sub/urban work & living?).
The answer was a tad surprising — it
exceeding the question & answered others. “Assignation” I heard again.
Nevertheless, because I’m vain &
neurotic, I ran it by some friends. The shocked response made me fear that it
was too ‘hot’. The world is hot enough with lies —
& anyway, it was the answer to MY
question, no one else’s. Lest it become an effigy, & concrete slab,
something material, separate from the living.
So evidently, yet again, the tree is
wiser than me.
I would do well to trust the grain of
wisdom & love in me it speaks to.
Haiku :
Vanity
Kills
Life
--
13.
I sang & poeted in public last
night. I ‘smashed it’ as the Aussies like to say. But the experience left me
shaken & miserable. I feel my performing days best behind me.
--
Haiku:
Great highs
Come with great lows
—The Buddhas ‘middle path’
--
14.
Haiku:
A dream of persecution
Woke me —
A singer poet’s sleep
--
15.
The tree doesn’t say much. No more than
one thing each visit. Mind, I don’t stay long. There’s a grace period for a
hug. But today it said something in its quiet, matter of fact way, that made me
split my sides laughing:
Long Haiku
Me: “It’s confusing being a man.”
Tree: “I bet.”
Me: “ Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha!...”
Man even once I’m home & have
written this, I’m still laughing. It reminded me of my dearest friends Terry
& his cousin, the late Mikey (RIP), when Terry had his laughing fit at
Mikey’s quiet, matter of fact response to Terry’s long, long spiel:
Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha
Cough
cough
Cough
Ha
Ha…!
It also reminded me of my late
mother, Maureen, who taught me to hug trees — even though I eyerolled it as a
teenager — “Why can’t you be NORMAL like the other mums?!”
Ha
Ha
Ha Ha
And some former students of mine on
an excursion, who said “Can we go & hug a tree, Mr Doyle?”
In Fact, I wasn’t even hugging trees
then — consciously. Once or twice perhaps, but I’d never really done it
wholeheartedly. Too self conscious — another confusion of man.
Now that’s enough yacking!
All I wanted to say — & forgot —
is that the tree & me are building a relationship with no destination in
mind. In short, in good faith. Unpremeditated. What used to be called ‘it
happened naturally.’
16.
Postscript
Of course,
All this has merely touched the surface of what is too precious and profound to
utter.
I have listened better than I have written.
And the word I speak is “Assignation.”
Footnotes:
*Many Indigenous Calendars the world
over are quite different from the Roman, bearing in mind that seasons are
particular to place.
A small point of
great import
Ur writing on your
phone but big things are happening all around; recently I’ve been aware of
something that came to me through the waking moments from my dreams. That 1606
the Dutch arrived Far North of Australia. What did they communicate back home?
There was a librarian to the King of the Netherlands, Melchisédec
Thévenot. And librarians were hugely influential — in reality, the sole source
of contemporary information.
Melchisédech or Melchisédec Thévenot (c. 1620 – 29 October 1692) was a French author,
scientist, traveller, cartographer, orientalist, inventor, and diplomat. He was
the inventor of the spirit level. And
he drew the first coherent map of the northern part of Australia – the
‘Southern Tip of the known world’ (1664).
He was a very influential
intellectual all through the region and on the rise of Encyclopedias (eg.
Diderot), including France. Yes, 100 years later give or take JJ Rousseau (“all
at once I felt my mind dazzled by 1000 lights”, “Man was born free, yet
everywhere he’s in chains”) wrote The Social Contract (1762) and with further
agitation from radical journalists, the French Revolution came, conditions were
right sure, but they were needing ideas to propel them forward (1789). Shit
happened. Misinformation, misinterpretation. Nevertheless, the Feudal system
ended. The King was beheaded. Liberty (maybe too much du Vin and hatred of
authority?), but free from Monarchy (Indigenous?), Equality (Indigenous?),
Fraternity/Sorority (Indigenous?).
No doubt, stories from
the ‘New World’ would’ve circulated. Plus, the Americas, the Indigenous peoples
of this so-called ‘New World’. The speaking stones have lay too long in the
ground.
Most Northerners think
top down. That the North invented the South. I conjecture that without the
global South, the Modern World may not have existed.
At least, one for your
considering pipe or glass?
It’s a supressed
history, journeying from 1606, the Dutch meeting the Australian Indigenous to
the birth of modernity, 150 odd years later. Is it so inconceivable that
Indigenous ideas and social orders influenced the modern era?
Conjecture perhaps, of
course.
What else happened,
then? That no stories were carried back to Europe about ‘first contact’? What
about the Anthropologists?
What do you think? —
surely, even the sailors would’ve said something about what they saw on return
to Europe, let alone the verbose sharing of information from 17th & 18th
Century intellectuals?
Whence else came the
concept of the ‘Noble Savage’? so popular amongst the writers of Romanticism.
The earliest recorded
testimonies of European scholars to Australia talk about a happy people found
there.
This is in direct
opposition to the poverty and misery of Industrial Europe and Blake’s “dark
satanic mills” and Rousseau’s “every man is a prisoner.”
The European Romantic
era provided, to borrow from Blake’s biographer Peter Ackroyd, “a radical
change in the way we see the world.” “And the birth of Modern Democracy.”
If you need proof,
you’re in the wrong place. Life and Poetry provide no proof: dream and listen
and perhaps it will be slowly revealed.
--
As a postscript to this
and possibly whereby I came to the first inkling, was in reading Wordsworth
& Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads (1798 – these men, burnt out and disillusioned
with the French Revolution’s turn to tyranny, and finding sympathy with Nature)
in many ways the beginning of the Romantic era in Poetry and the commencement
of what is now the widespread adoption of sympathy for the natural world and
the rise of Environmentalism. (Noteworthy too, their belief that poetry is best
communicated by groups of people, or is beyond the scope of individuals – they
published the work withholding their names). These lines in particular struck a
chord:
“Love, now an universal
birth.
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth,
— It is the hour of feeling.”
Immediately I thought
of the Aboriginal songman Kev Carmody:
“I've been moved by the
wind upon the waters
And the shadows as the leaves are blown
When that old wind moans on a weary winter Sunday
Like a friend that keeps on knockin' at my home…”
Second Postscript:
Since writing this
piece I received a response in the form of a dream, perhaps the spirits again
communicating?, cautioning me about this essay poem. Such are the distortions
operating from the editing of our mainstream media and social media
organisations, this work will never receive a fair audience or representation.
It will become a thing of obfuscated debate. For as I witness again and again,
the media & social media organisations have no interest in real discussions
being aired. Rather they will deliberately confuse and misrepresent ideas and
edit a story opposite to the ideas present in this essay poem. In a post-truth
age, nothing vital gets through. Only nonsense protective of the status quo
does. I hope this work has done no damage to peoples already so disadvantaged
and deliberately subjugated – by a system that puts their rights deliberately
out of reach. Sometimes a white man’s innocence is truly dangerous.
If you need any
questions answered about all this, ask yourself.
It's called meditative
thinking, or thinking about thinking and listening, what Indigenous people call
‘Deep Listening’. No one can answer your questions but the spirits that are
always communicating inside you, should you choose to listen.
3rd Postscript:
It seems to me in this
hour that what the Romantics, both Philosophers and Poets, missed in the
Indigenous 'teachings' was the principle/practice of 'Kinship'. That the West
applied an Individualism to what otherwise are noble principles. We learned
some notions yet these were distorted by greed and lust and vengefulness. A
good idea in the hands of people possessed by the 3 former sins will always
bring about injustice & folly. That is what we have failed to understand,
as far as my limited knowledge, (as a non-Indigenous ‘outsider’), of Indigenous
philosophies and culture can assess.
It’s important I
underline this last point. While I have a reasonable grasp, as an amateur, of
modern European history; as a non-Indigenous person and, therefore, not
initiated into authentic ‘knowledge’ and ‘ownership’ of culture, I am working
only from my private scholarship, conjecture and meditations.
No Ego – the Spirits
Dear …,
No ego,
I don't attach to ideas.
Else one would never hold to the
truth, regardless convenient/inconvenient.
I reckon I clocked a big jam.
It's burning a hole in my mind &
I'm gonna need to tell someone soon.
The truth is not personal.
I'm not non-Indigenous or Indigenous,
I'm just a man.
And spirits communicate with me,
for some weird reason,
maybe coz I have ethics and I'm tough
enough to hold the bag for black people?
Anyway,
It's a massive story,
which would rock the foundations
of modern civilizATION.
The question,
who do I tell?
I told you first,
but you don't sound interested.
I've just told my friend … (but
told her to keep secret but if I can't keep it a secret who can?) and
… and told them they're not allowed to talk about it for 2 weeks.
But really it's a Northern Idea.
- Far North Queensland/Northern Territory idea.
So what do I do?
I'm a nobody who no one takes
seriously,
who's a semi-autodidact and has read
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Rousseau's The Social Contract and Coleridge
& Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads.
I'm better read than many
Academics but not interested in profiting from it.
Else I'll be forced to compromise.
I love Aboriginal cultures the world
over because their ancestor spirits speak with me despite me coming from
conquistador people.
So I believe in Karma.
And I want to protect black people.
And celebrate their victories.
Most of the key people in my life
apart from my mother have been black and trust me my father knew the Yorta
Yorta and as a Priest would have warned them about Child Protection Services
coming.
The day the Yorta Yorta got their
native title Dad was on the phone with the community.
I'm not a Johnny come lately.
1st & 6th Generation Irish
Australian.
Malachi James Doyle
Born Prahran 1971
Grew up Beaumaris, Bunnerong land
Transcendental experience 1986 on
Bunerong land at Shipston Reserve Cheltenham/Beaumaris.
Ate Witchiti grub 1981 Cheltenham.
Connected with spirits Wurundjeri
Hawthorn Victoria during Kev Carmody & Tiddas cd 2013.
Connected with spirits 2020 Mount
Waverley Wurundjeri/Bunerong telling me to slow down and "not that
way".
Connected with spirits consistently
Dja Wurrung 207-2008 with a late elder from Lewisham, London.
Canvassed for the Tent Embassy
2006-2007 Lewisham London.
Connected with spirits Dja Dja
Wurrung on 4 occasions 2023.
Revelation (June 2023) regarding
Indigenous influence on Western Democracy/French Revolution/ English
Romanticism 1700s.
Also met a spirit in Fiji - Nausori
1993.
Love,
Malachi xx
Mind of a Singer-Poet
Happy enough today – had difficulty sleeping – Full ‘super’ moon
– it’s that Johnny Cash song about not knowing where you’re bound.
The self is an illusion – says Lao Tzu – if only that simplified
existence! - pain seems part & parcel of being an illusion - &
pleasure, occasionally – maybe an illusion – but a dogged one.
Tanka
A postcard of Joan of Arc –
Healing to have the feminine
In a new-bachelor’s home
Nighttime Tanka
Good to sit –
Only the sound of the heater
& occasionally a bird woken by something
Written days earlier
Sad tonight – I got frightened about feeling elated - & a
super-awareness with the sobriety – so I went for the beers – to deaden the
acuteness – It gets too much you see – when I become super-clear – fearing that
the path leads to madness – I’m really scared of that – The analogy I draw is
the finely tuned athlete – more susceptible to hamstring injuries – than the
average player – same for me ‘cept with the brain/mind – like a piccolo violin
– the higher the notes go – the harder it is to pitch them – as the intervals
become smaller & smaller - & so the potential for discord – It’s not
hubris – it’s an attempt to be objective about the mind - & to speak about
mental illness in a non-pejorative way.
Continuing with the pleasant quiet – before my out of sequence
notebook – reminded me of the other side – or thing – suddenly not so bad – As
my friend Helga says “you’ve made it this far” – (must be doing something
right! Ha.) – of course I’m always one to ‘touch’ (or as the Americans say
‘knock on’) ‘wood’ – Ha!, I’m full of it!...
… still, I like this quiet tonight.
The dialectic – the tides – the see saw – the person – (not to
mention the inhale & the exhale)
Haiku
Sit! –
Do nothing –
Enjoy the quiet
Sometimes writing gets in the way of peace - & yet – it
seems compelling – hence Basho wrote amazing haiku - & never cut it as a
holy man – Ha! – loved a bit of tail – I guess – ha.
Sequence of Haiku & Tanka
Morning –
Turned off the radio
To sit with the birds
Leave the window open –
Still & quiet
After the rain
As the kookaburra sang –
I felt a spirit
Tap me on my shoulder
The spirits
Like it
When it’s quiet
“Acronym”
(“)Anyway,
Let’s stick
With stuff
People can handle(”)
?...
After the rain
The birds
Sound well fed
& relaxed
Drunk Haiku Sequence that doesn’t look like a Haiku
except most of this poem is invisible
If one were inclined to such adages – might one say “by the way
that’s a cute hat” (to borrow from Bob Dylan) – or more likely – “damn girl –
you’ve got confident eyes – having not yet met her for a while – but last time!
– serious eye shadow! – I wouldn’t have a clue –
Drunken ramblings to the cabbie – “I’ve lived with Tamils,
Sikhs, Algerians, Nigerians, Aboriginals, Jamaicans, Canadians, Irish, English,
Americans, Lithuanians, Russians, Fijians, Thais, Japanese, Mauritians,
Australians – never lived with a Central or South American but I’ve shared
time, even spent a night - & what I reckon that we all have in common – is
a need to be understood” – “Cash or Card?” – Jesus – when will I ever learn to
shut up? – “Sorry for rambling, brother.”
Haiku & Tanka
Hangover –
Wiped the slate
Empty mind –
No doubt – the object
Plover be safe
So almost tame –
Lovely folks
The other day
Surprised by a few kangaroos –
A joey looking innocent as an infant
From its mother’s pouch
There’s nothing like a decent bushwalk – after the worst – of
the Vermouth hangover is over – tears – laughter – groans & sighs of
exhaustion – joy & serenity –
That’s enough booze for a while – shift to apple juice &
soda – water – & tea…
Wondering what it would be like if we fucked –
Nice to think about – but best we remain friends – else you know
where it always ends up – routine –
Still NICE to think about …
The dimly lit room – the sounds of the moans & sighs –
bodies rising & falling – like the play of light – like a candle flickering
for hours …
Tankas
First light in the bush
Really does
Feel like the
Beginning of time
Turn off the
Stereo & listen
To the birds’
Morning songs
Struggling today – the after effects of too much fun – as Newton
saw – everything that goes up must come down –
Haiku
A grown man
Crying out
For his dead “Mum”
Back to singing country music – enough buggering around with
experimentalism –
Tanka
I miss my
Wife so much –
Our parting
Has cut my
Being in half
No conspiracy theories – but I fear another mental breakdown – as
Lao Tzu says “hold onto the centre.”
The mentally ill get no help from friends – a brief text – when
you’re crying out for a phone call – to hear the reassuring sound of a friend’s
voice –
The tears – the desperation – the desolation – fall on deaf ears
–
The only people who are for real are my (ex?) in laws – & a
cousin - & my ex-wife –
We live in a Country of fair-weather friends –
“Beautiful day” – “the weather’s a bit iffy” – “sick of the
cold” – etc – a
As the old saying goes – “if you didn’t laugh – you’d cry” –
I guess people who don’t know what I’ve been through or care to
think about it – I wear them out –
Like the Ancient Mariner –
No wedding guest cares to wake the next morning
“A sadder & a wiser man…”
As my Irish father – was cautioned – about his novel – by
someone in the Industry – back in the 60s – “keep it light” –
We’re in Australia –
Don’t rock the boat –
Lest the genocide –
& the locking up of people fleeing war & persecution –
becomes too glaringly obvious –
“Who’d like dessert?” –
“Not me –
I don’t feel well –
& have lost my appetite –
For child slave chocolate” –
Or as I say –
“It’s here
We might as well eat it & enjoy it” –
I guess there’s the News Story of the Day – to spend your
empathy on – Note: not Sympathy but empathy – furrowing your brow perpetually –
& carrying a sour expression & attitude through life – not actually
lifting a finger – ha ha ha ha ha ha – Oh God – to be middle class Australian!
– ha ha ha ha ha ha – Too good! – ha ha ha ha – Wonderful! – Sincerely –
Wonderful! – ha ha ha ha –
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! –
Look, of course you find good people amongst all sorts – just a
joke – not a fuckin piece of legislation – a joke – relax!
Sink into your armchair & forget all about it –
Sorry, I couldn’t resist – I’m tired of being noble all the
fuckin time in my art –
--
A few people reached out next day by phone call – so I’m feeling
a bit bad about last night’s joke – albeit in the middle of an anxiety attack –
screaming for air – perhaps as a class – we’re not without the possibility of
redemption? –
Still a grain of truth in it though – no?
Can’t seem to move on from being mired in remorse –
People have been lovely to me today –
It’s just it’s when you’re in the middle of an anxiety attack –
You most need love & support –
Not afterwards –
I remember hearing Thelonius Monk’s wife saying that when Monk
would have his episodes of mental illness – he most needed hugs & comfort –
And it was precisely at those moments –
That his kids ran away from him –
Coz they were scared –
--
Haiku
I see my
Guitar against the wall –
Singing in silence
Problem for the ‘ethical’ artist –
We’re living in Time
As well as Eternity –
--
The counter to all this – of course – is that I miss the city –
I’m a product of it – & no doubt I misapprehend aspects in the country –
& a couple of things –
I miss the multiculturalism –
I miss having a battle –
I miss working –
I miss my milieu –
I miss the buzz –
We’ve reached a point in human history – when now more people in
the world – live in the city – than the country – I’ll have to find a way to
bring what I’ve learned here in the country – to seek a development which might
assist – in a transformation of the city – for the better –
I don’t want to ‘drop out’ – I’m a people person – & I
like difference –
I saw the country divide in a supermarket today – and saw the
old ‘real’ country people – & the expats (from the city) – & how the
two don’t really mix –
I want to mix – I want your B.O.! – I want your zone out on the
fuckin earbuds – that you’re all AVOIDING – sure – but you’re also doing your
best to cope with the noise –
I don’t want to be ‘pure’ – I want to be a contraction – as
people are (meant to be) – I want the Bright Lights – not really – I’m not into
that – I don’t believe in the excesses of the city – I believe in the hope of
the emergence of real community – of course there will be things which shit me
– things shit me – that normal –
We know about global warming – & environmental disaster –
but we also need to learn about living together – It’s lonely here – everyone
dresses the same – & Aboriginal people are busy with deaths in custody –
interventions – school drop-out rates – poverty – sickness – drug abuse –
mining companies – the white man’s curse –
They don’t have the time for Dr Malaka – a poet –
They’re trying to piece together their stolen cultural knowledge
– & trying to carry it on to the next generation – being assaulted by
American Materialism – & the phony Internet Pan ‘Blackness’
commodity/‘identity’ –
So I think – I’ve learned some big things – & most of them
appear to me to be – common sense –
People think ideas have to be novel – to be significant - &
transforming –
I think not –
A bit of fuckin BALANCE –
The Earth – The World – The media scape – The Art & Literary
world – The world of Education – & Work – & the Justice system – &
Politics – & Banking – & Mining – & War Mongering – & the
English Language in disarray – the Academy run like a Corporation – Food &
Water insecurity – Pollution of the air – Medicine becoming privitised –
radical materialism – Science & Technology in the service of Big Business
not Humanity – the foul treatment of Refugees & Asylum Seekers – Housing
crisis – the death of Community –
I’ve missed out 99% –
Anyway –
Things are out of wack –
I’m out of wack too –
& even if I sit pretty on a hilltop –
& bring myself back into wack –
Who else benefits? –
I’ve got stuff to do – & writing malakan poetry – isn’t the
be all & end all –
I want to be closer to my dogs – & lifelong friends – &
isn’t that really what keeps you warm at night? –
I’m too old –
I’m too weird –
I can’t kick against the pricks – in the country –
Country people are ‘tribal’ –
As Dorothy saw –
“There’s no place like Home” –
The Sacred is attainable in the city just as much as in the
country –
The Sacred is localized – sure –
Differently expressed in different places & cultures &
times –
But it’s also universal –
As my Sociology Lecturer told me –
“Religious experiences aren’t just ‘Transcendental moments’ –
They’re also Social” –
& “you’ll never understand religions –
If you only look at theology –
Rituals are at least as important” –
Thanks Dr Robert xx
Postscript
The end –
To the hot blooded –
Yet on the flipside –
A haiku poet –
Yet longwinded –
Geez I love to talk! –
Ha ha…
But I’ll need to get out to the country more often – like I did
before Mikey died –
Note to Self:
Beware of neat conclusions –
& symmetries of rhetoric –
I have No Idea what to do –
Just sick of where I am in life –
I need to work –
Poetry’s not a job –
& no doubt you’d counter that this is not poetry? –
But I call it that –
How my verse & expression has evolved / devolved –
Anyway, fuck off value judgements –
It’s bringing the world no closer together –
Stop! Mal!
“Just breathe”
As my wife used to wisely advise –
I miss her –
For some reason –
Or some non-reason –
Or not –
We can no longer live together –
At least that’s what the ‘smart money’s’ on –
--
Start Again …
--
The mentally ill – have a harder time – escaping from themselves
– for this reason I can be (or at least seem) – because there’s so much noise
in my head –
I can listen intently if I set myself to –
But usually I’m listening over things –
Listening out for key terms & turns –
& later – when I’m alone –
I properly revisit – & connect with those words –
& they can dominate my mind –
How do you listen?
I had a good day in the country today – I haven’t really given
it a chance – how often we wake thinking the polar opposite – to last night’s
pillow talk –
Today the country really GAVE TO ME – in human form – not just
non-human nature –
After all – aren’t we all a part of nature? –
The clock is ticking towards a full circumnavigation –
What a week! –
& yet a week like any other –
Life is not simple –
Or maybe the mind – too simplistic to find it strange –
“They say the darkest hour –
Is right before the dawn” –
& again – to borrow from Lao Tzu – paraphrasing –
That all that is significant – is the return to the source –
Finally – to bring it round full to 12 o’clock –
The highlight of the week –
I sat on a tree stump – in the Winter sun – silently – apart
from my breaths –
& after about 25 minutes – thus postured –
A hilarious –
& truly delightful occurrence –
A Willy Wagtail – (I hadn’t seen them since I was a kid!) –
appeared in the clearing before me –
& turned it into a dance floor –
& it was a beautiful dance –
Joyous for its solo audience –
Of me –
Totally captivating – thrilling – gorgeous –
The kinds of words I haven’t used in decades –
It seems today was a revelation – pure pleasure –
I love it here –
Nowhere is perfect –
But nature speaks my kind of language –
& me with a full sail –
Can move mountains –
Metaphorical of course –
I have hubris when I’m in a good mood –
Don’t you? –
It’s called Absolute Identification with All Around –
Fuck yeah! – the mountains were dancing – with my heart/mind! –
The End
Not the lacerating scream of Blake’s dream
Tonight when I have looked
at the stars
& looked at the stars
& there are millions of
stars
Perceptible from this spot
on Planet Earth
Were the lights to turn off
JUST ONCE!
Is that why they leave the
lights always on?
So that we might never be
knocked out
By Existence?
& so musk & his
little spunk
Who gives a blow?
Anyway fuck him & other
wasters for the satellite surveillance
But I look at the stars
& there are thousands
of stars perceptible from my home
Even with the street lights
on
Imagine if I got out to the
desert
& Eternity not in a
grain of sand but yes, True
And the stars would go on
& on & on…
Does anyone even think
about what Infinity means?
Ok you do when you’re 8
But they test you out of
that
& the tests come
& the tests come
Even after love
The tests come
Money
They call it
Money
They call it
What invisible quintessence
of puke
In an Infinite Universe
In the whole of the
Universe
Bar for our miniscule spec
Money
Means nothing
Photoshop means nothing
The Western Orgasm
A hiccup
Soda pop
But the stars
THE STARS!
Thrillions and trillions of
light years without end
Or an orientation
The stars
& our God
& God knows how many
Gods
& whether they’re
mirrors or not
It goes on & on &
on
& I have to think about
paying the bills
To which authority must I
supplicate for the right to exist in this dish
A phantasy
The Dark Satanic Mills
Which the Brexits think a
Mammonist hymn
Not the lacerating scream
of Blake’s dream
I don’t want to work
I have nothing left to
teach
On this cricket pitch
rolled in shit
’cept the stars and their
relationships
The Stars & Human
Relationships & Animals, Plants, Trees, Rocks, Oceans & Rivers…
The stars und relationships
The STARS!!!!!!!!!!!
& our DREAMS
Our VISIONS!!!!!!!!
Question is: is that
Drama or Comedy or something else?
I remarked to my friend Len,
how frustrating it is that people barely listen to the deeper work in my sound
project dance parrot & yet to my novelty joke songs, people jump all over
them – he replied that “it’s a weird time, so I guess we all gotta get a bit
weird” – a very 60s idea – ‘let your freak flag fly’ to borrow from Hendrix
& Crosby –
Having said that & now
committing it to the written – I wonder if people jump on the weird stuff coz
they’re sorely in need of a laugh – I’ve talk about this before with my sound
work – how the airwaves are being starved of Comedy like some Victorian
dystopia –
& when people forget to
laugh at life & themselves – when they forget to laugh – or are given no
reason to laugh – then they take everything more seriously – perhaps why so
many people seem so angry –
Is it such a long bow to
link the current dearth of Comedy Films & Programs to a WarMonger’s wet
dream –
Like Isis etc & the
White Supremacists’ Militias & not being able to laugh at the homoeroticism
in Putin & that Tate guy –
In short,
Angry men jacking off angry
with someone they’ve paid for –
& not talking sweet to
their woman’s vagina –
& not laughing at how
we’re not much different from the frightened kid we – very recently at times –
were –
& how we bleed vomit
piss & shit - & occasionally at the same time & sometimes don’t
make it to the toilet –
But it’s beautiful – the
human –
That’s the spirit we need to
make our comedy in –
Laughing with affection for
how trivial & self-aggrandizing we are –
So perilously close to death
– we must surround ourselves with currency & objects – in some ancient
superstitious belief that these will stave off death –
So if you know a joke – tell
it – for God’s sake – for humanity’s sake –
We’re sacred – but also
absurd – just when we congratulate ourselves on getting something “right” – we
trip over – or bump our heads –
Shakespeare finished Hamlet
& was so wired & excited that he couldn’t sleep – so he thought he’d
make some late supper – he was thinking the fire’s not really burning – the
wood must be wet – so he looked around for some paper to stoke the fire – but
he’d finished his last sheet of paper with the last page of Hamlet – so he was
stuffed – the tv the stereo the computer hadn’t been invented – so he went out
for a walk – it was cold – where’s this going? – I don’t know – I guess the
‘success’ all started to seem all very anticlimactic – & as he thought this
– he walked around a corner & saw some beggars – all gathered together –
the only revelers in – seemingly – in all of Stratford –
As for him he had no one to
share his triumph with – so he asked one of the beggars if he could join in –
& have a bit of a sip of the common weal –
& the whole band of them
said “Fuck off buddy!” –
So he went home & slept in
a cold house…
Question
is: is that Drama or Comedy or something else?
On Music
Space
In music ̶
Good
--
Real percussion
&/or drums ̶
Good
--
Bass guitar ̶
Listen to Cool Rasta (by the
Heptones)
The tuning pure
Not a keyboard
In sight
--
You see,
The piano
Standardized
Tunings ̶
No longer
For the ear ̶
But the scientist
It spread to
The piano accordion ̶
& folk musics
Became Colonized
By Western Academic Music
That’s why
I like
Reggae Bass
From the 70s ̶
Tuned for the Caribbean ear
--
I like dry
Vocals in
Country music
But I also
Like the echo &
Delay
Of Burning Spear
& Sun Studios
Elvis
--
Lead guitars ̶
The flashier & more
insubstantial the better ̶
Give me a couple of Peacock
feathers
--
The church
Music
In the Fijian
Villages out
On the Islands
Everybody sings
With gusto ̶
& the awesome
Chords created
By a whole village’s
Relational acapella
Pitching
Is untranscribable
& truly
Astonishing
--
Gauguin
Was unscrupulous
Sexually
But he
Had a point
About the
Western Modern
& the tropical
Ancient ̶
--
Classical music ̶
I like
& none of
My rules
Apply there ̶
It IS Academic
Music ̶
Therefore
It requires
The Well Tempered
Clavier ̶
--
Winston Rodney (Burning
Spear)
Is my favourite
Living singer
Though ̶
Human Reggae at its intimate
limits
Chanting Down Babylon!
--
Basically,
I
Love
Music ̶
Live is
Best ̶
There’s too
Much recorded
Muzak in our
Lives ̶
Copy & paste
& looping
Is not music ̶
It is Text ̶
I mean,
I don’t mind
It on occasions ̶
But music
Is human
Expression
In PERFORMANCE ̶
It is a
Performing
Art ̶
Which Capitalism
Has REDUCED.
Not only
Making it
Text ̶
But also
Reducing
Its communicative
Power ̶
For most people
In the Affluent Class West ̶
It is air conditioning ̶
I LOVE
MUSIC TOO
MUCH TO
STAND BY
& SAY NOTHING ̶
Pay attention
To musicians
Or put up
With silence! ̶
It’s time
You respected
Them
& stopped treating
Them like
Slaves ̶
To borrow
From Peter Tosh
“It’s time
You recognized
My quality.”
--
You guys in
The Affluent Class West
Use music
Almost every
Minute of
The Day
& barely pay
Attention
Or a
Cent ̶
But without it
You would go
Insane
Or homicide
Or suicide…
FORGET IT!
Apparently, I spoke inappropriately to a pub
employee
It was a Saturday and I’d had a few
I said nothing of a sexual nature
Nothing illegal
Nothing abusive
There was no touching or gesturing to touch
I told of my recent grief at losing my late mother,
my late best friend, my wife having separated from me (a year after she had had
2 brain operations) & my father had died a month earlier
I am new in town
I have no friends here
I live by myself
I was drunk & lonely
& had not talked to a living soul in days
I have PTSD and acute anxiety for which I am
medicated and receive therapy
I am loquacious in a muzzle culture
I did not raise my voice
I did not express anger
Strange town Castlemaine
I thought it was meant to be a ‘Human Rights’
supporter
Evidently,
People are bigoted beneath the sales pitch
& I’ve worked out
I far prefer ordinary country people
To the trendy ex Urbanites ('Artists')*
I found similar things
In SE London
I far preferred
The Cockneys, the Caribbeans etc
Rough around the edges apparently (I found them
kind)
Too much for television producers
But FOR REAL
They like the butter melting in their mouth
More accepting of what IS
Rather than denying
For their advocation of what ‘ought to be’:
Totalitarianism
Castration & Gagging of all men (in case…),
Free Market
Censorship of Art & Literature
An angry self-righteous Cult
As for actually helping people in need
Or exercising compassion & tolerance:
FORGET IT!
*I can think of what kind of '...artists!' they
are, if you catch my drift.
Anyway I don’t want to end this book describing the ins & outs of
Divorce proceedings.
Needless to say it turns every act made in good faith back on itself as
something malicious,
& your heart gets turned around 180 degrees
& the best you can do with love
Is fart it out your rear end
Coz your mouth is gagging on skid marks…
But still you must at all times,
Publicly,
Keep your voice to a moderate tone & subject matter.
So what’s to be the last piece?
First,
A Prayer for my Divorce
I am not able to write
Not because I am speechless with wonder
But rather utterly distraught ̶
Divorce has no place in poetry ̶
Suffice to say
‘Hell froze over’
But that’s a borrowed phrase ̶
Johnny Cash singing
“When I die
Hallelujah bye & bye
I will fly away
(Oh Glory!)” ̶
My favourite hymn ̶
Universal suffering
Seeking Liberation
--
However,
Here lies…
Life & Love
Reduced to
A spreadsheet ̶
Beware Gallahs!,
They’re coming to take away
Your home ̶
One spreadsheet at a time
--
The suggestion
By a non-poet
That maybe
We could make poetry
Out of our divorce settlement
Sounds like
Gibberish ̶
I guess gibberish is a kind of poetry in its own way
But it doesn’t come close to describing
Anything of its referred essence ̶
The only description comes via prose ̶
“No one was to blame.
It is the way of our world.”
--
Meanwhile
The fairy wrens tweet sweet
“Rrrleet petite
The finest girl
You ever wanna meet”
--
Death songs are easier
Even though
Straining through blubbering ̶
This is a COLD silence
The carcass picked over
& no one to mourn ̶
Bureaucracy ̶
The same hands
That write
The deaths of cultures, languages
Genocides
& environmental catastrophe …
I want to finish this poem ̶
It does not deserve a tome
But a tomb ̶
Here lies love ̶
Skinned alive
But still its heart beats …
Forever ̶
--
‘Hope Springs Eternal’ ̶
The wattle returns
Well before September
“Womin-jeka”
I return to
The breath
& the senses
& the soul
& life tastes fragrant ̶
Hopeless Romantic ̶
For whom love
Will always conquer rationality ̶
NOT so hopeless eh ̶
A fuckin survivor!
--
Again Lao Tzu
“Resolve is stronger than hope” ̶
However
I think the two are
Synergetic ̶
a Hackneyed word
For a rare gem ̶
How English frustrates me ̶
But it is my mother tongue ̶
I know my name in Gaelic ̶
The tear / tear
My father sang ̶
Best singer I ever heard
& I haven’t yet had a moment
To digest HIS DEATH ̶
As divorce & death
Came as Geminis ̶
Twins
--
How to end ̶
That arbitrary
Date ̶
But look here:
The spiritual
Will always
Outlive the
Material ̶
Whether apocalypse
Comes ̶
I believe in
Infinity
Of time & space ̶
You have a kind face
Stamped in a light beam
Hurtling through the universe ̶
Your kindness
Never forgotten ̶
--
The other
I’d prefer to ignore ̶
True forgiveness forgets
& makes a sleight
Into
Nothing but Love ̶
At least as far as I’m concerned
--
I’m not like this
With just anyone
But I am with you ̶
To borrow from Costello
“My aim is true” ̶
--
&
THAT
Peoples, gods, flowers,
Is how
You turn
Divorce
Into poetry ̶
--
Pin a badge
Of Ginsberg on your breast
(Innocence through Experience) ̶
& make the best
(of it) …
Amen
Next:
People lack the requisite conceptual skills to understand one another —
So we are drawn into fight or flight responses xx
—
Without faith in a relationship
The latter is all we have —
Power relationships
—
Hence for Nietzsche
It was a madman
Who called the death of God —
Or as my late ex-priest father explained the concept of God when I was confused
and curious as a kid:
“Think of God just meaning Good.”
Title:
Afterword in verse
But hang on,
A simple country guy lifted my spirits yesterday with a great joke.
I was soooo in my head with the shit in my life:
“A religious Minister couldn’t be bothered preaching one Sunday. So he
called in sick.
He decided to play a round of golf.
He teed off.
He started with a birdie.
Followed it with an eagle.
He was playing better the pros.
10 Times better than he’d ever played in his life.
A one off round.
Phenomenal.
He got to the last hole & he only needed a par, or a bogie or a
triple bogie or anything, 3 lost balls even, it still woulda been an amazing
round.
The last was a long uphill Par 3. 223 meters or something. Maximum
length for a par 3.
He teed off.
He was blinded by something & the wind changed direction suddenly…
Blast it!
HOLE IN BLOODY ONE!!!!
A 59!!
Tiger Woods never shot 59!
He raised his hands in fanatical prayers of thanksgiving.
“Thank you Lord, God
How you have blessed me.”
He felt touched by the Ancients.
Then he thought:
“But who in heck, can I tell?!”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Magic.
A beautiful joke.
I laughed for an hour.
Thanks brother.
You lifted my week.
God bless the humble.
This book’s for them. XX
PS.
The Kookaburras liked that one too!
They’re straight up trust me!
Published and copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.
I’ve decided not to go through with the administration palaver &
costs associated in using publishing companies.
As an avowed Amateur, while not seeking payment for my works, I also
won’t pay others to make my work what Capitalism calls “available.”
So if you want a physical copy of the book,
Email me at malachijdoyle@gmail.com
& I’ll send you a PDF and a Front & Back Cover Image.
If you want to, you can choose to print off a copy or even bind it.
I might, not sure, print off a copy or two for the State Library to
hold.
Or am I being vain?
Time will tell.
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