Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  Red was the colour of my true love’s heart Red hot Fire Call the truck Too often We fought Instead of Fucked Being attacked Is not foreplay for me I’ll say One thing For us We got to know One another Deeply But not as deeply As we could have Without The rage Between us     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  My dad was a man I still, at 52, feel like a boy the youngest in the family even though I'm the one who cared for both parents unto death & ran the fuckin show I've never felt like the main event I feel like I live in the margins I've heard that beaten women emasculate their sons & my mum did that for me lest I turn out like my father It makes sense But it's belittled me I've never known how to throw my weight around I'm 6 foot 2, who feels like I'm 4 foot 3 Better I was a thug I'd have more money & more sex I took the life long mental health plea (medicated) lest I go to prison for treason Still I'm gifted in the spiritual realm & animals, kids & old people take to me. Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  In old age I toileted my father I didn't know "toileted" was a thing its just life & one if anyone has any decency/dignity one does what has to be done No big deal Apparently people big note it I didn't really realise for a long time that my culture was so pissweak But "toileting" was a reminder of my dad & me: He had a bigger dick He was a better singer But I am a better poet & he was a wife, child beater Nevertheless, I liked him This poem is not the succinct poem that my friend liked I'm less funny My dick is not as big I'm a good singer, but not as good I'm less popular People liked him, less they like me I'm more ethical, regardless the cost What losers call the "moral victory" I'm a loser. What I've learned from 2 failed marriages is that women prefer bullies or they'll bully Or as my first wife said about Picasso "he was good at girls." Ha. Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Yet another form of Colonisation Susan Sontag pointed out how photography colonises the world, by converting life into a library of ‘known’ (translated) images. But today, photography goes further & similarly colonises its viewer. One, a writer, has something to say, so she opens her laptop – her writing tool, but before she arrives at her wordprocessing program, images appear, without her consent, taking her away from her intinsicity, sending her on a path of tech giants’ narratives of official Media images. Her imagination is impaired. She wishes she was blind, but then no doubt there’d be spoken words or sung. Our writer’s inspiration is diluted by the unasked for library of official cultural/media images. & our writer is sent to a Swiss chalet, even though she wishes to paint in words the beautiful dry scrub of northern Victoria (Australia). The world loses whatever innocence is left, when our artists, musicians & writers cannot convert the invisible/the silent ...

  Full moon in Castlemaine is claustrophobic. I get a massive hit of manic energy & they’re playing Wiggles songs for adults. I find the Aussie cuteness obscene. Stultifying. Suffocating. I wanna be a mad cunt & be wild like the ghetto & stage dive or scream like Berlin but it’s Wiggles but you’ve gotta be silent like the band’s the Berlin Philharmonic, not retired never was pretenders. Tonight it’s a full moon. When I stand 9 foot tall. Most the month I’m about 4 foot 2, but full moon, forget about it! I wanna rock. I wanna roll. I wanna fuck. I wanna go for a long hike through the mountains with no night torch, just the lunar sun to light my way into the dream of madmen. There was a dog off lead thank god. But the prey drive got into him & so I’m like that too. & if one more person tells me to hush for the Wiggles I’ll go for their throats.   Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  It hasn’t however perhaps it will? One is placed temporarily. One is certain of little if any. Still bureaucracy requires black & white answers. So one must pretend or starve. One must lie. Because there is no space on the forms to tell the truth. Everything in the human sciences is like that. Simulations & trials. The testing, the basis of our “knowledge.” So again, one is certain of little if any. & yet such vehemence. No one fears their own doubt more than a fanatic. No one self loathes more & they are willing if pushed, to kill, in order to try silence their doubt.   Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Not waking dreams   Since I’ve stopped working & moved to the country & lived a quieter life With less hyper-stimulation Reduced media & device use & lived alone (who knows which factors have greater or lesser influence?)   My dreamlife & my waking life have merged   I have vivid dreams & later I’m unsure whence came the source Of a message: Was it someone or something in a dream or in waking?   The other question is: does it matter?   My anxiety about such uncertainties Have diminished   If the message has piqued one’s intrinsic interest Who really cares?   & so I have found a bridge between realms   Mammon’s world Determines the importance of our waking hours So we can work in worship of him   I’m also in touch With a dreaming world A world my ancient Irish ancestors Knew well   Its culture is rich Despite the colonizing attem...

  Yesterday Since the death of my father & the separation from my wife last year, plus years of losing friends and family, illnesses to my wife I have been running towards death. Seeing my father’s slow demise in aged care through COVID, the pain of losing my wife, I lost the taste for life. I gave up thinking about planning my life or taking agency. Numbing myself with alcohol I was spending my life savings with abandon. I guess I thought, if I was conscious, that I wanna die like a cat. Go off somewhere till the engine gives out. But finally the thought came to get some help. Of course things are not as simple as that. I’d been talking with people & making friends & the act of talking heals. The seeds are sewn & we don’t even know it, till we feel empowered to get strategic. Now I’m still at the beginning, but I’m exercising & taking days off drinking & my mind is coming back & I’m taking pleasure in being alive. I bought some nice shirts, rather tha...

  Dear vaginas of the world,   A brief note. I love you in your unique variety. I guess I believe in free love. For instance, I love you when you sat down on the seat in front of me, & you were watching porn. Why didn’t you come sit next to me, sit on my lap. I wouldn’t have minded in public. & evidently, you’re not too shy. Anyway, porn on a train is hypocrisy.   Alas I have always been too verbose, & have had more luck With women with migrant English. My English is so good, it’s bad in a pragmatic land.   Anyway, Much love. No need to return the vinyl LPs. Keep them. Enjoy yourself.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Then it became about something   Then it became about something Every way was a part of it Because they were born that way But no not something at all But many things Which came first The baby or the nurse? Not at all what I was saying What was I saying? One thing among many Speaks about one thing or many Nay, many things simultaneously speak Speaks about something it is impossible to understand Except in parts one or two or a symphony at a time But simultaneously are speaking all voices at once & all silences at once Or at seemingly random intervals & infinite arrangements Unless all is silent & sound an illusion But if an illusion What a pretty thing is this music.   & abstraction ok But sex on sex Touch on touch Car crash in a far flung galaxy What then is propaganda? Or is this pen a handgrenade?   I went for 2 long walks today & sweated a bunch I had a light lunch Grazer th...

  I’m homesick   I miss my mother I miss my father I miss my best friend All have passed I miss my ex-wife I miss my home I miss my home Professional man/woman Say it’s my duty to be optimistic I just want to live my final years At home I do not want to prolong my life In a hospital strapped up to machines Just for the sake of extra days I don't want to be imprisoned by Mammon's greed I want to be I want to not be I don’t believe in work It’s heating the planet up It's killing us We are forced to work more hours than is necessary To be able to pay the bills We are killing the earth To pay the bills I do not believe in work I do not believe in work I miss my home     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.  

  Ancient Truths   “The name that can be named Is not the eternal name” (Lao Tzu)   Then what do I write?   More of the same?   More poems of myself?   The battle for sacredness Against violent materialism?   No one listening   What more to write?   & what’s the point?   Nothing is shifting If anything it’s getting worse.   -- The Funny Thing   The funny thing   Is that people assume you need solutions Whereas all you really want   Is a yarn. -- “Lonely: bad Friend: good.” (Frankenstein’s monster) -- & the ancient truths   Need to be re-articulated Differently   Every generation.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  The First World Cry   Bureaucracy kills poetry Reverse that like gangsta rap Cause we’re meant to be “tough” Poetry kills bureaucracy   But honestly it’s about pain Poetry doesn’t kill Unless it’s propaganda It yields Tears & blood   & Poetry’s primal tender call Is broken The spell that cradles life in its sacred balance Is shattered   & box ticking Black & white forms Inflexible to reality   Reductionism at its most violent All one can do Is rage & destroy   Bureaucracy brings out the revolutionary in me & the scream The red mist   When if left unmolested My passion lies with the butterflies & the distant rumble of cockatoos thirsty for water While reggae soundsystem  Smokes cool & fire over the airwaves.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  I only had a few things to buy the shop was empty low on supplies I'd get out quickly The shop was empty then as I approached to pay people appeared like a sea of birds The shop was full descending on the check out & time slowed down at the stalemate as we felt the human patterns conform place & time Like a swarm It’s either Super quiet Or super busy  none of any of it conscious Some unnamed psychic magnetic force Draws people together Or separates us life changes so quick outside the store was quiet & I quietly made my way home Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  I don’t know   I don’t know What hope for us? Still we fight wars Still we oppress our siblings Materialism Rationalism have brought results Counter to the Enlightenment’s hope The spirit Centred in the spirit What can’t be stated What must be debated We each have a different role to play Scientist Healer These days too many soldiers Not enough lovers We each have a different role to play For a pattern to emerge Which nobody will foresee Or see it then Though we may be able to feel Things a bit better when     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  The Post Religious Age The underclass were depressed. The middle class were sanctimonious & aggressively scared. The upper class were invisible & inviolate. & David spoke from his throne. & Rome was disowned. & The centre was nowhere, maybe the Arctic cloud? I never dreamed that death would loom less than bureaucracy did. Of course I always knew that. Of course I always knew that. Outside the principal’s office. Never as a student, mind. I was pretty law abiding. Too frightened of home. No as a teacher I seemed to get more detentions for the same thing kids do. Namely having a personality. The bureaucracy stole my dreams & poems & visions to manacle me to the others & the machine. Fill in these forms. Fill in these forms. & so the storms kept rising as implosions, not explosions. & god blew his head off with a sawn off & emitted volcanic gasses & mass went on as usual. “Funny?,” people murmured. “Surely no one goes to Mass anymore...

  People get captivated by the sound of their voice   People get captivated by the sound of their voice The flow and rhythm The rhetorical They convince themselves that they are articulating truth When the words don’t bear much scrutiny They omit as much as they reveal and conceal It’s a made up face Foundation, eye lashes, lips But it could be read just as easily as an abstract painting With no basis in reality Many are good colourists & art is illusion We see not what’s there But what we’ve been taught to see & so all we articulate is what’s trending in the cybersphere & what benefits the rich, & harms the poor, the status quo, called “the breakthrough.”     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Café Oz-style   “How are you?” “…I’m struggling…” “Oh?! I’m sure it’ll look up I’m super busy with…”   Australia:   Aggressively frightened of vulnerability or any deep truth Aggressively frightened of silence Talking a million miles an hour Endlessly About nothings in particular   Seamlessly a ready supply of topics & never a moment’s break Miraculous!   -- I try to smile  I hold my breath Till I can leave   Whispering my farewell   -- & spend the evening alone Fighting to recapture my breath     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Before I went to the job interview An Aboriginal painting told me Whatever you do, don’t work 5 days a week It invited me to think… To be open to journeys.   I’m such a conservative I still haven’t been on my Australian adventure “Because I need a travelling companion.”   But I need to be open to the Spiritual journey of life & not soaked in booze & shutting down the spirit/spirits.   --   Then when I get home In the 100 degree heat & my pastel drawing of the praying mantis & butterfly Takes me higher than the sugar clouds   I skydive drop From higher up & I’m a freak remade:   Drive around Australia coward! You’ll be dead & you will Have seen too little Though you feel as if you’ve seen too much.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Abdication of Vocation   Robert Hughes spoke of the Aussie artist’s abdication from Great art, despite early promise The shorthanding into reportage & cartoon & commonsense Such is his internationalist perspective It’s true, to a point We shy from the tragic, the violent, the perverse, the carnal, the primal To prove we’re ok Just one of the boys or gals We’re safe for the children to watch The good art we make in this country Is kid’s songs & kid’s tv Homiletic & cheerful The morality of put on a happy face & don’t take things too seriously As opposed to an Artaudian farce & its comedy cruelty We are aggressively normal & have no time For the spastic within The volcanic & the homicidal The lust for power, blood & sex Like Eliot’s hollow men We live, work, feast & die “not with a bang But a whimper.”     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  The Blood' Oath I caged my soul in a swallowing of tongue I broke a commandment Of my rearings I thunk But then I paused & arched my back like a cat For isn't that afterall the way to survive here? the true lessons we learn are not those explicated but witnessed the sufferings of others in the light what they don't tell you but demonstrate the keepings of secrets the subscription of loyalties Of using the shadows because the luminous is interrogatory So I prefer to hide & telling white lies Seen things screwed over  of "Fair play" & candour many  too many times & so I check in to the prison  & thrive the Australian way to avoid the lashes & the gallows or what was graver for the ancients: exile Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Instinct takes over The dogs off lead Race for their prey Impervious to their master’s pleas     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  My ex-wife’s house   My ex-wife’s house Looks like something from a magazine   I remember it being my home In another lifetime   But I look at myself in the mirror here & I don’t fit   I left the straight world behind   I left the straight world behind   I don’t know what I’m doing here  Walking on eggshells again     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.  

 "There goes the neighbourhood" niggas come in to wake up the stiffs from their neurotic implosions "wanna have a real problem bitch?!" "you just got imagined problems" Feed the hungry Stop the rape African talking drum where we all come from bombs overhead wake & praise God ur not dead Malachi the Australian likes the way Africans talk loud he talks loud too don't wanna be two faced one thing public, one thing private like the Australian middle class FUCK THAT! I am that I is & so I need the heart laid bare which is why my friends are black or white misfits/deranged stop explaining & own your song the reason they ban I am 9 is because the 3rd world 9 year olds are dealing with starvation & prostitution while the Aussie's 9 dealing with anxiety In short fear of standing out a phantom a fuckin luxury I'll bring the beers & barbeque You bring the 'tude this living Hell & we'll get along on our (mutha) Planet Earth ...

  It has to be live A live Not a thing But a becoming Caught on a hook Released with a kiss We’re all caught by lures This life a river Think back to key moments They are not achievements They are dreams Unrequited But boy You felt alive!     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Our bourgeois ways are ill equipped for the banality of evil we turn away from it we pretend it isn't happening raised by 3rd parties we're not used to taking direct action we freeze & evil subtly nice guys I'm sure destroy evil is into smoke & mirrors & freeze mode gets mezmorised they educate the warriors out of us the prophets, the poets, the healers & we are impotent to the tricks & abuses & riddles & weapons of evil. Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  I cry for children stolen from their innocence by abuses of power or ignorance I cry for their rage that burns inside all their future days when the flowers have all be stamped on by war-ing men & our kindergartens levelled in steel & concrete & do not know the naked rainbow broken in fear to be remade in hate who cannot remember their earliest dreams who cannot sing their toothy hymns violated & born in pain where is love, pity, mercy, peace? Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  As long as there’s no abuse of power   Think as weird as you can But in life ethics count Dress as weird as you like Speak as weird as you like Fire as weird as you like But in life ethics count Dance as weird as you like Sing as weird as you like Relate as weird as you like As long as there’s no abuse of power or ignorance or habit     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

   It doesn't matter whether you work in the system or out of it you have a transformative part in the play of light & shade ghosts live in machines the neurotic has gigantic dreams the giant can't remember his & so indivisible the invisible visualize there's a part of each of every who's a spy, who knows how? the system has its complimentary the outsider feeds it, feels it feeds the whole there is no system ipso facto surely a random sequence of time which demands patterns as impatient as the Bohemian Queen slowed down from 45 to 33 Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  You know what bruv? I’m cookin & lookin forward to workin Post sabbatical A psychic open I wish indirect transform the world of work Bring human, the holistic, animalistic, herbism & love Bit of cool Try reduce the fire The wheel turnin too fast We got to make things last Ease the rush We can avoid the crush If we naturalise the synthetic & bring the human peripatetic Spirit enter the halls of Progress & surprise the lights with shadows of the ancients Kundra na Vanua Djaara The silenced sing Blowing the wind     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Here I stand   Here I stand Here I sit Between worlds The mystic world & the business world Can I keep something of the spiritual Through my dealings with Mammon?   This is my fear: That I will become a one-dimensional man Battling against the powers that be That I forget about the flowers & bees Alienating from my self Paid to do something That comes less naturally than my dreaming worlds That I will be one more pair of hands at the wheel of death Tears well in my eyes As I approach the battlefield All I can do is meet the people I meet With love Whether my job is to kill or be killed All I can do is WHAT? Would someone tell me     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.