Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  Vomitorium sonnet   Vomited all evening Feeling green for the past 48 hours Pushing myself to write Little music in my heart Other than gut wrenching Show me the person That likes to read about this & I’ll hide from them Evidently this won’t be My vomitorium sonnet     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Moon Sonnet   2 days till the full moon & my condition flares I get astronomically wild What did the postman say To his dog When he got home? We planned to dance On the full moon But we’re both unlocatable A civilized ending As ending’s invariably are     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.  

  I used to be funny Meditating on what went wrong I used to be funny That kind of surface riding that the middle class Melbournians enjoyed In the 90s Was it 9/11? That had the state & media farting in our faces 24/7 No that wasn’t it Even living in the town with the highest murder rate in the UK Couldn’t dampen it The full psychotic breakdown & the resultant heavy psych meds Definitely slowed things But I was still a sik kunt Deaths of loved ones sobered me too But I was still an idiot No it was becoming a school teacher Where I had to mute Youthful enthusiasm & be controlled all the while I had to ‘be the adult’ Whereas I woulda rather smoked pot With the troublemakers Up the back of the room I became a fuckin misery guts Marriage & being a carer for a seriously ill person Added to the mix But really Teaching The horror! As depressing As when I went to school as a kid Surrounded by disciplinarians School marms Even now As I’ve left

    Tech Kunts   The idea that a computer program makes one more creative is absurd Creativity is either in the person or not Tech is making us more distracted Unable to create on a large scale like a Beethoven or a Michelangelo Because we clearly can’t locate the dance at the still point of the universe   Apparently Silicon Valley is one of the major political donors/lobbies now & so all the tech giant transgressions & hazards are overlooked by governments & no one questions whether tech is operating in the interests of humanity or not This is prose not a poem Though the line breaks are ordered like one   I just don’t find technology very interesting Nor do I find writing about politics I really think it is a fait accompli I think Democracy is dead Its illusions might make us feel better But really it’s just pantomime Corporations control the world This is a well established fact Governments are powerless against them We are po

  Early Lunch   Wouldn’t have a clue what yesterday’s panic was about Today everything feels calm & yet yesterday I could barely breathe See severe anxiety’s chemical not meaningful It will be often triggered by meaning But in no way is it like the red hare lying dead by the side of the road Wanting to get away from rhetoric It got hit by a truck following the laws of physics Now I don’t know if the truck driver Said the hypocritical settler statement “got ya, ya bastard!”? (about so called 'invasive species') Or whether he just didn’t see the hare in the dark? Some people have strange attitudes to life & death Actually no doubt we all do A meat eater like me Or a vegan in favour of, at all costs, biodiversity A soldier in the field A surgeon or a palliative nurse A son or daughter of a dying person A morner, “what are we eating at the wake?” & then like Chagall I like this painting the best Because it has layered multip

  That losing combination of Catholic guilt & anxiety   That losing combination of Catholic guilt & anxiety fucks me up when it comes to women. I wind up in relationships because I think I ought to. So not to hurt the other's feelings. That I should do 'the right thing'. The number of bad roots with kind of pity sex. I’m 53 & still not through that shit. I tell myself stories so I can put up with my bad decisions. & I always end up looking stupid. Egg on my face. Man when I lived in S.E. London the guys tried to teach me. They were so much cooler. “Just get the pussy wet.” It’s that Mozart in the wig shop in the film Amadeus, “they’re all so beautiful, I wish I had 10 heads.” Only then my guilt kicks in & I have an anxiety attack & ruin them all & still no doubt wind up with the one I don’t want & spoil things with the one I do. If it weren’t so sad it’d be hilarious. Actually, it is hilarious. All I want to say to all the women I’ve know

  Brain Fog   I’ve started my exercise come back, after a year & half of drinking to excess & sitting on my fat arse. Day 4, like day 3: brain fog. Apparently the brain re-maps & the brain fog is expected. Of course I get my information secondhand from artists, so yunno I guess a grain of salt? What do I know of the brain, I’m melonhead & a poet, schooled in metaphysics & all that classical gas. I’ve been napping a lot since this started. I don’t know if that feels like I’m wasting the living years by sleeping. What drivel does a permed Jon Bon Jovi cough? “Stay awake while I’m alive & sleep when I’m dead.” Some might say, in fact I might say, one would be wise not the follow the advice of hair metal pop, but I had some Lithuanian housemates once, who drank bottles of vodka each night. They were living in the last 80s revisited. I guess they saw wisdom in Vidal Sassoon? Anyway, I digress, which is quite pleasant I must say. When I commence an exercise comeba

  Post hike   Post hike My mind happily exhausted Or just an airhead   --   Do I have a mind? Or is it just Chemicals, blood & meat?   --   No one at home The poet’s house Is empty   --   Springtime glory Crow flying Against the blue   --   This OCD sufferer Hangs on to everything Unable to forget – Why do you think I drink?   --   I don’t know if I like This post hike Mental relaxation?   --   When did the police uniforms change, & why wasn’t it big news? They now look hostile, militaristic. Doesn’t this expedite confrontations? Anyway, the old ones looked friendlier. Maybe back to a time when people respected one another more?   --   The attitude that might will overcome is the opposite of Lao Tzu’s, that the soft overcomes the hard. Big weapons lacking wisdom/perspective.   --   Purple irises drenched in sun Inexplicably popping up In my backyard   --   T shirt on the

  The Planets   Nice catch up:   On Planet Botanical With Messrs. Thorn, Ridge & Ocean “I’ll drive” “Baby, I got this” “That’s right. I’m me!”   Meanwhile back on Planet Castlemaine “Sorry, I think you dropped a tissue!”   On Planet Identify Pineapple juice apparently Makes your cum taste sweet   On Planet Holiday We drink pink cocktails With glace cherries   Anyway, all this planet malarkey is getting dull Evidently I’m not high enough Or the Tchaikovsky string quartet 3 is too intense & I’m without ideas All ears & empty   Vessels 2     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.  

  Journal from a hike to the Gardens & back   The following was written at the conclusion of a walk from my home to the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens & round the gardens’ loop. A distance of some 9 kilometres. I have become fat after my marriage breakup & the death of my father, the end of my teaching days involving a flare with my psychiatric condition. Blah blah. Anyway, it’s Spring! & it’s delightful to walk, following on from some of my literary heroes who walked a great deal – walking also promotes a fecundity of mind. The following was written in sequence upon returning hot, sweaty & liberated; & concluded with drinking 150 ml of Japanese vodka, which combined with the endorphin hit of the walk has left me happily fallow for a moment. & so I am typing up what was hand written. Hack work. I write after the greatest Haiku poet Matsuo Basho, who trekked in rice sandals thousands of kilometres through often mountainous regions in the 17 th Century,

  Dirt bikes down walking tracks   Dirt bikes down walking tracks On an evening walk Bearing down on me What do I do? Do I timidly wave Try & make friends with him Or eyeball the cunt? I eyeball him Something overcomes me Indignation I went to a boy’s school Fuckwits like that everywhere I’m not frightened of men I’m a sick kunt A mad fucker But women get me every time I’m defenseless     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Mammon Blues   Poverty at 53 Equals celibacy Because In the job interviews of love The ones you fancy Are looking for a business partner With my illness I can’t work much I burn out quickly So much for Neil Young   I’m listening to country music Rose of my heart All those loves songs They're beautiful But really the sentiments are nonsense A heart is not enough Money is required & really the latter’s the main thing for most   Life’s a blues & love for a bluesman Is lost love Or unattainable love & so poverty Means lonely     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Like the first bird   Lao Tzu says something about “do your work, & then move on” Something like that But I’m only starting realise In part thanks to Max Sometimes Just how Self conscious I am The last one piece I wrote I’ve held onto One of my worst traps Is my awareness Of what I’ve previously written My oeuvre If I might be so bold; Today then I will myself to forget To be born anew   This manufactured mind of mine Conditioned by my life & it’s shitstem   Rilke stated How important it is as a poet To always remain a beginner Hence his books Are all different Stylistically & yet something of the author Remains consistent Evidently I am a bad Taoist There is so much Of Christianity’s humanism in me Does the blackbird outside think the same Or has his morning Broken like the first morning & he born without shame Like the first bird?     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  Artists on their feet versus artists on their knees   In a Q & A via Al Jazeera with the artists Ai Weiwei & Anish Kapoor, Ai Weiwei talks about artists in China as artists “on their knees.” As if penitents.   Last evening, I had the pleasure of going to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with old friends. The program featured pieces by two Soviet composers, Shostakovich & Prokofiev, from the same year 1958, when indeed artists were held to extreme scrutiny, as to suspicion of promoting ‘counter-revolutionary ideas,’ the price to pay: the brutal Gulags or death.   Shostakovich was the bravest public artist working during that time & earlier, during the reign of Stalin. His piece filled with subversive codes, sarcasm, intensity, abandon & a deep pathos for the suffering of his people. He was also probably the greatest composer of the 20 th Century. He went head to head with the authorities, indeed placing his in the lion’s jaw. He lived for 20

  Upon waking in a chair   5.15am 6.15 in fact Daylight Savings has started tonight The birds are scolding their kids to brush their hair & teeth & “eat up your breakfast, birds go hungry in other places, be thankful for what you have, parental worries over money to start the day, another day at the grindstone As for me, I passed out in the chair & only woke up half an hour ago, I’ve got one beer left & a packet of tobacco & there’s no time like the present, I haven’t added to my blog in days, due to me being away in the city, was a good time, caught up with friends, dined & watered, even got a woman’s number, I will I think call her, coz let’s face it text messages are a little like hiding, you edit yourself, you can see the other texting for ages & then one line, it’s starting to get light now Feels good to be writing I been thinking about Bukowski’s response to JFK’s assassination, “I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk throug

  Zeros & ones?   A strange time indeed I’m not sure who I’m talking to when I address someone I don’t really know But invariably it’s hostile Or weird People are in their algorithms Projecting onto you They’re talking about things which don’t exist cept in social media They’re living in an invisible cyber world Not this one Radically atomised They live ‘inside’ their phones Not present in the here & now (The public realm) But elsewhere  Or rather NOWHERE    People are “living their best lives” Despite the suicide attempts & the antidepressants & the fact that very few are having satisfying sex But it’s all part of a competition To appear invincible Not sure where it’s heading I prefer keeping my own company Apart from one or two   It’s a time for keeping one’s head down Coz it’s divide & rule As the corporate elites rub their hands Conquering all the lands There’s going to be even more refugees   But yeah th