The wrong place

 

The wrong place

 

I went to the poetry reading in Castlemaine

A once progressive town

& felt like I was in the wrong place

For a start it was deathly quiet

It was like one of those 50s country competitions

There were competent poets there

But none stepping out of party lines

I’ve rarely been in a more closed & competitive space

 

I believe in openness

We live in a society

Where the arts speak to political issues predefined rather than to life

Our artists reveal nothing unorthodox of themselves

 

There is a lack of the intimate/infinite

& the rise of secularism in art

Presents an earth of death

There’s a reason why first nations artists produce the best art today

Because they celebrate the sacred

 

But spirituality is out

Sex is out

Unless it’s queer

My poem about my spontaneous erection in the sunshine & rain was greeted with hostility

In a culture that thinks of the penis as a lethal weapon

People who’ve never had marriages of love

What kinds of poets are these?

 

Anyway,

I really wanna get away from social comment

It’s not bringing us closer together

 

Just to say,

I was hurt by the experience

An unwelcoming experience

One would think that helping a 90 year old woman

My mate Mary to read her poem

& hold her against toppling off the stage would show them that I was not a psychopath

But no

They hated me more

In tears I began my preamble

Only for a bourgeois to heckle me

“Is there a poem?”

 

As my mate Richard says

Man I can’t play

I’m just healing

 

An audience that did not listen

The twisted old prunes of Castlemaine

In their $2 million dollar homes

Enemies of the poor

 

Seeking to have it all

But one thing’s for sure

They’ll never feel passionately about life

Coz they’re competing with it

 

 

Published & Copyright by Malachi Doyle 2024.