Skip to main content

By the rivers of Babylon

 

By the rivers of Babylon

 

“By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, Yeah, we wept, When we remembered Zion; When the wicked, Carried us away in captivity, Required from us a song, Now how shall we sing the Lord's song, In a strange land?”

 

I’ve alluded to it but never really addressed it: that my greatest experience of loss is not to belong to a people. What am I? an Irish-Australian universalist, but in Ireland I felt like an Australian & in Australia I was Irish.

 

But it’s not just that. Australia is not a people. I’ve rarely known of a more competitive, superficial & divided place, except the US. Every person for themselves. I’ve never felt part of a we that felt authentic. The closest I came was when singing in a Fijian band in my 20s, my married life with a Mauritian woman. Then I felt a sense of a belonging to something beyond blood & my time in Lewisham SE London, a motley bunch of multicultural poor with a song in their hearts.

Even in my family the half-brother to 3 others, I lacked a strong feeling of belonging.

Sure I have friends, but they're an odd assortment, who don't have much in common with one another. Odd balls I guess.

 

I am white & yet most of the people who’ve most influenced me have been black or Asian. Now for a lot of people this may go unremarked. Build your nuclear family & build a wall around it. But many families are unhappy. Regardless, that’s how it goes. But for a poet, to have no people is an existential threat. What am I gonna do? Language games to show how clever I or my AI is? Not for a true poet which is written in the bloody soil & the stars of people’s eyes, a people is necessary. & so I’ve adopted the world as my people. But logistically, my audience is invariably Australian domiciled. & so I ‘belong’ to Australia.

 

This brings me back to my second point & main thrust: that Australia is NOT a people, but divided individuals.

How can my words rise then & take flight? I feel very little love here. Most people would prefer I didn’t exist. What kind of a people is this?

It wounds me & weakens me, till I walk like a dwarf & lay myself open to bullies. Not the place for poets. Not a position from which to build a starry tower.

What kind of a people is this? I mix amongst them & nothing, no rhythm, no music, no scent intoxicating rises. What kind of a people is this?

Now how shall I sing the Lord's song, In a strange land?

 

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

“I didn’t know!”

  “I didn’t know!”   Don’t get me wrong In a Two Party preferred system  I have no choice but to give preferences to Labor The Coalition are scum But Jacinta Allen, Victorian Premier Claimed in a Truth Telling Commission that she never knew about massacres Of Indigenous people in the state She’d never looked up The history of her country The history of the state she leads She’s Premier! She leads a department that ‘manages Indigenous affairs’ We are currently in the process of negotiating a Treaty What did she think happened to all the Aboriginal people?! They went up to live up the Magic Faraway Tree? “No one told me!” No one ever told me either I fuckin researched It was really easy Took 10 minutes There’s this new thing called the Internet & you search stuff up Like History A subject no longer taught in many schools past year 7 I deduced a lot from observing the place & how allergic we are of looking at ourselves ...

In a very unorthodox way

  In a very unorthodox way # (For Max Sometimes) In a very unorthodox way, I’m an Irish Catholic. Of course, in terms of Belfast politics that MEANS something. & while that maybe true – in Australia, for different reasons, as Fr Bob Maguire put it – when Mary first saw Jesus walking out of the tomb on day 3 of his death, she exclaimed “JESUS!!!” – the first time his name was used as a swear word. In that way of an irreverent joke, REVERENTIAL & ORTHODOX are not my way to the Sacred/Love*. For me – I’m not really into Theology – as Max Sometimes quoting me, quoting my mate Richard, quoting Bob Marley, quoting Rasta elders, said today “who feels it knows it.” & I believe that if I am to write my Mass/Symphony of Hope/Love, I must include at least one blasphemous hymn, else the vision depicted be simplistic, like George Handel’s Messiah. The Hope/Love represented or perhaps alluded to (if you prefer) must include genuine despair, dejection, transgression else it...

Though it made me a poet

Though it made me a poet   This is a superior microwave to the last if  everything has to be a competition I guess it does! In the Kafkaesque vortex Where one is trying merely to ask a question Instead one is sold something I’m monastic or have acute anxiety Anxiety is pretty cute Like a decapitated bleeding brain Covered in snails turned carnivore By the wrack & ruin of a child’s innocence The fist in the sister’s face The knife in the wall Did I imagine the latter, dream it or see it? Who threw it? Must have been the bowie Still life goes on So I went to school the next morning & got my mouth taped up For being a chatterbox Such is the life of a privileged 5 year old It made me a poet     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.