Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  No One Cares   So the 3 rd Word has come to the 1 st world & there are so many homeless people, good people, intelligent people in Australia. We used to think the problems were only overseas but they’ve come home to roost & those rich who call themselves Patriots, let them fuck their fantasy globalizing sex dolls but I ain’t fighting in their wars, because my people are all humanity & in my country they say, the politicians say they're representors, there are so many homeless people in Australia & a lot of them have homeowning in their lineage, but the cost of living gone crazy & the statisticians lie & people are living in fantasy & that’s why people cannot cry coz they’ve got to find food to eat and shelter from the cold & heat & our nation turns it’s back like it’s a disease when it’s your brother & sister & transgender no one cares when you have no food to eat what your identity is. No one cares.     Published & Copy

  One Love   When I listen to Reggae or Afrobeat or Aboriginal music or Black music in general, I think wow it must be amazing to have a People as your audience. In a country like Australia, I’ve never felt that strong sense of belonging to A PEOPLE. Most of my peers at High School were revolting (puffed up & arrogant. It was a private school after all. Where are they now?) & it tarnished my view of Australia. But what I’ve latterly come to see is that the First World is in crisis & people are getting poorer & more desperate by the day & STILL we’re separated by the ruling class. Don’t you know, my brother, sister, that we went through the Depression together? Why have we forgotten our roots. What I see, for I do not feel Patriotically, is that we must think one People Globally. The ordinary folk have so much in common that surely we’re part of the same struggle: the quest for peace, love & harmony, which requires that we’re not so desperate & absurdly t

  My eyes close without me   My eyes close without me My 90 year old mate Mary Requires I drink to excess & so my eyes close without me The moment I fix my hot water bottle To the small of my back I might try to watch a movie Or listen to a usb stick & my eyes close without me & I wake up in 2 or 3 hours time Over & over again This morning I woke Well before first light & again my eyes close without me Hot water bottle to the small of the back I force myself to write a poem But it’s pretty well marginalia & the whole time I have a gooey feeling Good morning good night Of my eyes aching to close without me     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Futures   And so I’ve started down this path before but I can’t remember how it goes whether might feet separate spread or I wind up a pigeon toed? The washers spinning fast time to refill my glass from the crystal tap waters the tap to the Pharoah the glass of his nemesis my hero no dramas we say & who dare doubt it 8 comes before 65 & I will a kid though 3 times as wise Never forget the Ides of May my dogs arrived for the biscuit tray We’ll serve dutch biscuits & tea & mount an assault on corporate tyranny I nearly brought the washing in but you know we’re only housemates & I felt t’would be impertinent to grip your smalls A neverending tale of tiles & carpet piles & smashed eggs & glasses & superpowers ending in farces dynasties come & go & I feel like going slow resisting passive resistance to the ticking clock For nothing is ticking time but impatience of the masters & I’ll take to the hills, smoke some herb & r

Poetry to a groove   Been talkin like an old dog But I still got some tricks I skip flip & skip to the fit I can still baby move Believe me slide closer woman Move your sweet beat down the street To my arms We listen to the pink sky It sounds like a hundred butterflies Don’t be restricted by Lady Marmalade Voulez vous coucher avec moi? Let’s dream awake The ghosts of our spare rooms Let’s slow things down Bring a couple of moons & think upon the times ahead our changing times These heads of ours too rooted to the shoulders Let them escape aboard a flying grape balloon It’s autumn time & snakes are sleeping But if you play your mystic flute They might dance a whirling proud & we can kiss away our troubles Close our eyes & dig deep into time Through the rising mists & our clenched fists To build a starry tower Atop Heaven’s high bower The clouds part in a rush What you sang to me Made you blush Don’

  The first day   I wake today to the first day It’s still dark in time & I sit watchful in the dark With no inkling of a thing called daylight At this stage there are few words Emerging on the breath of change I know not who or what I am Bit this is nothing new or indeed anything to worry about It is encoded in my DNA   I wake to the first day It’s dark but for electric light My dreams have refreshed my imagination I hear the first birds & a semblance of first light Words appears in my modern brain Language a relatively recent development All is quiet, bar for the sound of the heater It is Winter afterall Change is continuous at this time of the day Though it will never relent, one forgets to observe it as keenly in the daylight After a spell of uncertainty I feel more certain of myself as if the clause “I know who I am” resonates, whether or not it is true I feel strong within my body at home in my manifestation What is new is

  A clear cold night   A clear cold night The stars a cold solace Somewhere else it is warm But I’ve recently had my turn I feel close to you brother & sister tonight A heartfelt message From a long lost friend Sorry I’ve been remiss Juggling a battered heart & mind But yunno, We have each other     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Rwanda   I’m glad I watched the recent DW documentary about Rwanda & how it was the Colonial Germans & Belgians who in the late 1800s demarcated the Tutsis & the Hutu & the Hwa, whereas pre-colonialism they related as part of the same clans. ‘Race’ theory was responsible but also the colonial trick of divide & rule & so the seeds were set for genocide in the 1990s. I’m glad I watched it for I feel I had come to a kind of endpoint with the examination of myself. That I was an illusion & my job now is to be an agent of positive change. I will go about my work as a shapeshifter & heal myself & others. I could end there & yet there is much undoing of knots to be done. People atomized in this country. People ghettoized. The silencing or stupefying of the working class. A divided nation. I remember that during the 50s there were reading rooms at factories. There was a working class hungry for intellectual sustenance. There were serious author

  I resist   I woke up really doctrinal about doing the washing. I am still an idealogue about making pumpkin soup, a fanatic slob sittin on a country log, driftin away, give me the beat boys to free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock n roll. Anyway the soup. I must make the soup! I see analogies between my soup making & fighting the oppressor. Only joking. I’m just chatting shit. Jesus don’t take any of this seriously. I get Duchamp’s water fountain, but it is still art about art & that quickly tires, but the point was well made: we take ourselves a bit seriously in the affluent effluence. I understand the horrors in the world & how really poets in the affluent effluence really have limited value. I don’t understand why people seem so riled up here. If I see one more miserable middle class twat I’ll go “he” coz you know: “First World Problems.”   Anyway, this is a very sarcastic piece, which I’m not really feeling. I have the wren & the finch I would rather

  Changing the wallpaper   Changing the wallpaper pointing the finger outwards, a way of avoiding looking at oneself. Ok I’ve looked inwards & I’m not sure there is anyone there. I used to think it needlessly contrary to cast doubt that I exist, but the more I’ve investigated what I am, it’s looking accurate. I am a kind of a heavy gloomy feeling that requires a change of soundtrack to lift for a time, but after that the music grows into noise & I must switch it off. I am my duties. I must walk the dogs everyday. Before tomorrow starts I have responsibilities, though I have simplified my life so much. I will want to eat, though whether I have to or not is a moot point. Afterall I could fast a couple of days. So I am what I ought, not what I do, for when I do, the doing exists but I kind of disappear. I write each day, I talk with my housemate, I smoke, I drink too much, but not today, so perhaps when there are so many exceptions today I don’t really exist. However, yunno I

  My heart is in my throat like the old lady who swallowed a fly   My heart is in my throat like the old lady who swallowed a fly, I don’t why she swallowed the fly, perhaps she’ll die? And so I wrote and instead of ampersand but still it feels better to write, it gives my day some purpose. I will try & wake earlier in the morning & get some things done. I think one bird outside has been listening to car alarms or house alarms. I mean who has alarms in the country, what are you? a bank? I once walked with lyrebirds & they sang the history of late-capitalism. It was a bush walk much like going to a shopping centre. Dong! The intercom just came on at the prison. I think we’re all in prison, but some of us are having celestial visions. Is it the absence of children in my life? Then again I look at many teenagers which is what the cute things become & they don’t look very full of joy. I guess it’s living in a broken home or in prison with the curriculum of horrors as if

  The Music of Kev   Music Carmody plays As the day closes This music makes silence speak more clearly Poetry, in short Do not mistake it for mere poems “Cometh the desert winds of change”   Now sit Mary (90) Me (53) Listening keenly in silence It’s good Listening Hearing   What? What do you hear? Are you listening? Listen!   It feels good to be alive Birds Insects Reptiles Mammals On the concert stage Sun Sinking Blue into stars Waxing moon Infinity You & me   Where go we? Manifold places Time & space Infinity/eternity   & big fuckin round vowel sounds From stone age vessels Through th’ice age & Mary’s up & I … There’s so much more Inexplicable   LISTEN   “Knowing beyond understanding, Understanding beyond knowing”   But all is Clean & pure   Still   After 2 million years   An endless poem “No alpha No omega”   & so comes Th’abitr

  Certainty, mixed feelings & depression   At times when I write I sound really certain of myself. I even believe certainty of myself because I switch off my whole mind & activate only my certain mind. So my doubt & withholding is silenced. But that underwater iceberg/shadow self runs throughout my days & nights. I dream of bizarre things I can’t bring myself to write about, they’re too complicated & I am tired & depressed & dejected. I was thinking something else & lost a grip on my rhetoric & there’s a reason for that. If I have to edit, it’s a writing exercise not deep inner most feelings. So I am basically mixed feelings. The proof of my conviction is in the pudding & talk is cheap. And our artists & writers are all talk. If they were action, they’d pick up a shovel or a gun, or care for the vulnerable. Instead they paint or compose. Clearly we’ve seen that discourse serves only itself. It might make us feel better, less lonely, but I

  The inside of the universe   Someone said to me that it’s too mental, they can’t do an examined life. Seems to run counter to everything I live. But I also get the desire to just smoke life away, even though you know you’re invested in a diminishing economy, I’ve been there. & so people look for distractions, like the issue of the day or joking endlessly. A poet like me looks inward, finds the universe inside. The inside of the universe. Not a telescope but a hum reverberating within my gut-being. I must pursue this science with an internal ear, not an eye.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Poetry competitions   So all the poetry competitions have entry fees The only way to get inside Yet it’s an inside job for academes Coz they can claim it on tax It’s part of the job I don’t have a job How do I pay? Only the poor man feel it Said Peter Tosh A poet is not a bureaucrat     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Near Winter   Morning too beautiful to describe – Blank mind   --   The sky – A chemise on a small breasted woman   --   Soft blues & whites –   Black threads – Windless – Birds considering     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  When your nearest & dearest are paid professionals   Some days the rain falls in light rhythms Though the sky stares back blankly at you She cheered me up for a time With her unexpected beauty inner & outer Until the spell ended & she was just doing her job Some people do their job with love It just emanates from them, it’s in the eyes, the ears She was one could’ve been a carer from any nation You can’t teach that, some just have it She listened as is the way & when I asked her If I could ask her questions, I blushed Because what I wanted to say would’ve opened me up Far deeper than my psychiatric biographic list of disasters My social worker, on meeting her for the first time When your nearest & dearest are paid professionals     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Two things in late Autumn   Two things in late Autumn First was it Hans Hoffman who warned Jackson Pollock that because he didn’t work from nature but from the unconscious he would be doomed to repeat himself, or Clement Greenberg, or someone else? David? Anyway the point is made. Second I was neglectful of my greyhound Rhonda, I didn’t know why she was so restless & only much later did it twig that she was cold without her jacket, greyhounds don’t have much fat or fur on them, I feel like a prick. On the first cut up sound piece I’ve made in months & months I feel like I’m pastiching myself going through the motions, I may BE nature Jackson as you replied but yunno you ran out of momentum too, when one develops a style the adventure is all over & it’s time to take up tennis. On the second I’ve been very self absorbed with grief & depression, so much loss over the last few years, but the dogs are in my care & I should read the signs more quickly, Rhond

  When life gets dark/Shaun the Sheep   When life gets dark & deep down with the blues Don’t feel like talkin Don’t feel like walkin Shaun the Sheep gets you through   It doesn’t cure you exactly But it gets you to laughing Universal laughter & pathos The world ain’t all bad Coz we made Shaun the Sheep   The pigs are mean The farmer is stingy But the sheep & the dog understand When life’s too dark It lights a little spark Good old Shaun the Sheep Is the ‘safe’ man     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  One into Two   We say things we don’t mean To hurt loved ones Rather than confess Our pain & fears   & so we live a lie Loving in bad faith Because we cannot trust another Since the very first day There was two   The devil taught us to play games In honour of his son Mammon   & so divorces end in false recriminations When the love is still there Despite a separated future The world teaches us to end divided As we start   At times finding togetherness We divide the minute we see The mask/face of the other   Love best proceeds in darkness The illumined is to be viewed skeptically     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  & so when I sing those old Irish rebel songs   & so when I sing those old Irish rebel songs I’m singing for humanity Everyone’s been done wrong No matter the circumstances My dad always taught me to “Become the song” & so I fight when I sing songs of resistance   Everyone in Australia Loves the ‘drunk individualist’s’ self laceration But they do not wanna hear Songs of liberation They get neurotic & think you’re yelling at Anglo-Saxon them When you’re merely crying for a little universal tenderness. I get wild when I sing those songs They require it of the singer “You’re drunk”, the Anglo-Australians decided Somehow invalidating your culture’s grievances.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.  

  Nice waving guy meets Attila the Hun   Nice waving guy meets Attila the Hun Or nice waving guy meets nice waving guy Or wrong waving guy & wrong Attila baby just pull on this pipe & says I liked that guy though we couldn’t have spent more than a few moments together, he’s resonated through time & space, The herb’s allowed me to hear his voice. Envoy, How many kills, how many losses today, personnel & capital? I’m being too much of a dude, I’ll give my herb to Max & have a modicum of sobriety for a time & space. Drone strikes & cornflakes The bullies live in luxury Still not as easy as that Is me while Rhonda the greyhound Slurps her post-walk water Water is life & when one drinks it, one should be totally focused Else one might choke to death.   Then he walked the dog, had a smoke, drank grumpy juice Is that better? That you dismiss when I play with formality Coz I tell ya I really don’t want another meeting,

  Hasn’t it just?   Terrified of the Lined white page Each line like A horizontal Prison bar Or else The world’s gone Sideways. You LOVE long Text conversations (gag reflex, shaking Your head) Don’t you?! Don’t you?! Don’t you?! Don’t you?! “Yes I love them (nodding). God, this Marriage of Reggae, ska, Funk-RNB & Herb is a Winner. Ok, I’ll Put some Shostakovich On & lock You in solitary Confinement. I’m a WONDERFUL  Person Amn’t I?! Amn’t I?! Amn’t I?! Tre…tre…tre… Tre…mendous. Ah yes, It’s a good day For us An IMPORTANT day Important, yes?! Important, yes?! Important… yes Day! Important day! Important day Yes, what an Important day It’s been today Don’t get too involved, ok? Yes, it’s been an IMPORTANT day! Yes, it’s been an Important day! Yes, it’s been an Important day . Hasn’t it just?     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.