Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  SONGS of Freedom   Hunter S Thompson was once asked by his illustrator Ralph Steadman “what’s the meaning of life?” Hunter raised his temper & basically told Ralph never to ask that question. As a political journalist he knew all too well how deep corruption goes in our world & so ideas & idealism, great in theory really hold no water. I was just reading about a human rights lawyer who was able to win a big environmental damage suit for an Amazonian Indigenous group over a mining company who'd polluted their water supply (sound familiar?). The mining company of course has paid nothing of the fine & what has happened is that the human rights lawyer has been counter sued by the mining company for more than 50 times what the mining company were sued, has been held under house arrest for years & has had his passport confiscated (so he can no longer fly to the Amazon to work with his Indigenous clients). Apparently the judge in the countersue case has share

  2pm & hanging for a drink   The thing is I don’t enjoy drinking that much, it’s the effect I like – as a way of making time pass with less friction, less pain, less loneliness. In short, pleasure. Because I don’t want a couple of drinks, I want to obliterate my mind. As Beefheart put it “God, fuck my mind for good!” Being is hard work & life has little pleasure when not tricked up by booze. As Georgie Best put it “I tried not drinking. The most boring 20 minutes of my life!” Because life is a joke. Yesterday I watched a video about Lagos, Nigeria. It focused on how hard people work over there, what with a corrupt political class, the argument is that you either sink or swim on your own. Quite frankly I’m with Camus on the absurdity of life & the importance of being a rebel. To resist the status quo. To seek out freedom. For however much these people earn, mentally, they are enslaved. I see the irony of course. Because here I am working at something. I do it, however,

  I visited Australia once   I visited Australia once, he said, terribly conservative place. & he was right. We really haven’t grown up. The teenage nation playing grown ups. Still happily ruled over by a foreign king. You see us mispronouncing foreign words in restaurants by night talking about reality television & social media. You know, ‘sophisticated.’ Terrified of liberty. The teenage love of cops & robbers. Lock em up! we cry. A herd mentality of yays! & boos! A frightened people clinging on to the last of the stolen land as our economy shrinks by the day. Fiercely anti-intellectual. Anyway who thinks differently is a pariah. Debate reduced to symbolism, avoiding the existential. A land without God or philosophy, its solution: avoidance of the big questions. My Irish father was a writer. When he sent his Joycean manuscript to the publishers, he was told “keep it light. Keep it light.” Because Australians aren’t serious about anything other than rules & reg

  Country towns   Country towns gang up against outsiders that’s just the way it goes they did the same to your parents who’ve fought for liberty for 800 years Country towns murder intellectuals anyone who thinks differently they are hostile to democracy one sitting member stands they spend their days talking about others & are a stranger to themselves Tribalism tribalism the orthodox & their shalt nots & they will die stunted lives having never tasted the sweetness of glorio of aspiring to freedom the passion that the rebel knows is his & hers alone.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.  

  Dizzy in the head coming off booze cold turkey   Dizzy in the head coming off booze cold turkey I feel dead just an animosity directed towards me All I can remember is bad memories The curtains make strange face like shapes in their bunching A riff from a song plays repeatedly The birds outside bring me small relief Like my mother’s cool hand on my fevered brow All I can do really is lie in bed Doing time as they say counting down the hours to sleep-time I can watch a video I watch Anthony Bourdain 10 years out of date This is a poem free of inspiration As John Lennon sang “Cold Turkey has got me on the run!”     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

  But how opposites attract   The Nu’rons’ Hurry Up Tomorrow plays on my stereo. Man I just want to listen to love songs, the Philadelphia sound of the 70s & 80s. Puppy love. It’s tantalizing the tentative. Having a crush. Feeling brave in shyness. Suitable for RnB pop. The aesthetics of love. When everything is new. Sleeping on fresh sheets. Melancholy when you see that it's not going anywhere. She’s a closed book. I’m not the guy for someone who doesn’t share their inner life. I am a poet afterall. I’m impatient for emotional intimacy. 25 years of therapy. We’re 1 step forward 10 steps back. It’s not working. Like a lot of stoners she’s emotionally unavailable. & I’m emotionally demanding. Chalk & cheese. But how opposites attract!     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.