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Block

 

It was during 2004

When going for a walk with my housemate,

A culturally Jamaican (Australian),

Now mentor & deepest friend,

 

I was talking about

Reggae bass lines

 

& Richard said to me

“Don’t worry about the bass parts,

Listen to the lyrics!”

 

I started to pay more attention to the words

& heard great truths

 

& realized we Aussies

Don’t often pay attention

To the lyrics

 

We’re not great listeners on the whole,

 

We want the escapism

That a cursory experience of music can provide

 

We don’t really want to engage

With the song.

 

Fast forwards a few years

& playing gigs

 

& people chatting through

What’s for them

Background music

 

A way of avoiding silence

& its meditations

 

Air conditioning really.

 

--

 

Part of the denial we Aussies live in/under

Is this.

 

That conditions exist for our

Comfort called “pleasure.”

 

We don’t look too deeply.

 

--

 

But there’s only so long

 

We can lock

The world out.


The very people whose deprivation pays for our life of escapism/“pleasure.”

 

The reckoning is coming,

 

When we will have to pay attention

To what’s going on on our fair shores,

 

Not relying on top-down campaigns

Media, Government Press Releases, NGO advertisements, etc

 

--

 

We can either get engaged with it

On the inside

 

Not superficially:

 

Deeply,

 

Or else wind up

 

Building higher & higher fences/walls,

 

Lose sight of the sun & moon,

 

Self-imprisoning

 

Living shallow lives

 

& fall prey to the failings of our northern hemisphere cousins

& our past

 

Block out richnesses of cultures & practices & ideas

 

& wither


Wither…

 

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.

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