Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  Why are there so few stories about Burkina Faso? Clearly something new is happening. Can we have it reported on? I want to be able to support Africans. But I get nervous about military governments. I’m a product of a wealthy liberal democracy, so you can infer my sensibility. I really hope it’s a positive change. The quotes sound impressive. I just want to know how minorities are treated. Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  The mirror of love   The worst thing About living alone Is that one Doesn’t live In another’s orbit So one doesn’t Have a mirror In which one is Reflected One doesn’t know How one’s travelling From another’s Reflections One is travelling Blind! One is forced to Resort to An internalised Invisible, abstract Scale: ‘how am I Feeling?’ But anyone knows How unreliable This reading is Coz it invariably Is based on mood & we know how Unreliable Moods are Of course one In another’s relationship Mirror Can be unreliable But I’d trust The judgement of One who’s chosen To invest in me Because I’m not Exactly a millionaire Nor have million Dollar looks So they must See something Valuable in me That I can’t see Unless they reflect It back at me Now she’s gone I have little Idea how I’m Going & how I can improve I trusted her Mirror Until it broke     Pu...

  Multiplicity   Life’s universe Is omnidirectional At infinite speeds Waves & dips & patterns & changes   & yet our rulers Are linear They’re accelerated end Focussed In terms of time   Time which is Mysterious An eternal time Into an exploding Present   Omnitemporal & omnidirectional Physically & Spiritually We disappear   & transform Into shapes & patterns Of appearance & yet we mightn’t Even exist   & living forces Pass through us & yet to survive Under the rulers’ Economy   We must reduce ourselves To objects of exchanges/ Corpses Our rulers hate life They hate us   They wish to Destroy They wish to Annihilate I love life   I’m a poet I have no idea What life is But it’s nice to think & feel about it   I Know it’s bigger Than anything I can imagine & certainly ...

  Plastic Flowers   I moved into an apartment pre-furnished & the previous owners had decorated it with plastic flowers Now the Northern Bourgeois Superiority Complex Snob In me threw the flowers out But the place looked sterile I’ve spent enough time living amongst different communities To appreciate the warmth of plastic flowers They look tres jolie n’est-pas? So I brought a few back & they look great They make me think of aunties & grandmothers Cooking soul food Where all the decorations are bright & colourful & in the ‘naïve’ style Now these are not naïve people Naivete is something you choose to adopt When you’ve seen the worst & are wise Not to chasten with aesthetics Or choose Art over Flesh & Blood So wisdom is in happy things Photos of loved ones The place filled with fun accoutrements A generous home Life is not a graduation exam It is the certificate you get When you’ve lived & loved...

  Conversations with Max Sometimes   Before I met you Max I thought I was scared of darkness I’d forgotten my childhood nights When darkness & I were friends & it healed me Because I thought that it was darkness Which broke me in 2 17 years ago But you reminded me that I was always friends with darkness In times whether bleak or ecstatic Darkness can sustain us Just like its twin Light The two work together When one is centred in/attuned to the universe & being   In Light you also hear lightness & it’s twin heaviness It’s in Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique   Our incredible conversations for hours Took me places Familiar & strange & reminded me & made me realize & see We plunged the deepest valleys Where few are game to tread & together we ascended mountains & flew together through the stars     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Piety   Stephen Mitchell does a wonderful version on the Tao But I don’t buy his ‘PIETY’ commentary I don’t think piety is a prerequisite for attunement The soul/no-soul/neo-soul(ha!)/the universe is adaptable To altered states, to all states of consciousness My Tao is a drinker’s Tao at times Though it is universal & naught Who knows how it will evolve?     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025. (Carlton)

  Ugly   Max says it’s feeling oneself ugly One feels oneself unworthy So one tears things down To make oneself a tattered crown King of the fools Bent like an old tool Like a dog that’s been kicked since a pup One can’t look at oneself in the mirror In a world that can’t get enough     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.  

  Frankenstein’s monster Forgetting to breathe Suppressing the primal I’m frightened of the gentle For fear I’ll break them Give me a brute A bonus if they’re cute I’m a wild one Out of balance Out of my mind As in I can’t Socially inhabit my mind It wants to express itself Through explosive gestures What is the rightful expression Of anger for instance? This culture don’t give You any advice Except just “DON’T DO IT!” In case you break a one Into a two Like a Scotch Finger biscuit Suppress at all costs But for how long Can you hold on? So I’ll stick To the mad ones The volatile ones The ones already broken With whom there are no rules About what can be done Or spoken My shadow is strong & suppression Only grows it bigger So I might be singing “You are my sunshine” But it echoes Like the sharpened nail Of the Reaper’s pointing finger     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025. ...

  On my Yin & Yang   I never much liked the guy. He was grandstander. Still he was one of ‘us’/the community & as I walked to the laundromat, we walked together & talked. Then he said to me “you know what your problem is, Mal?” I thought ‘this’ll be good,’ sarcastically to myself. But I said “ok, what’s my problem?” He said “you’re a sensitive guy, who grew in a place where you had to act tough.” ‘Shit,’ I thought, this guy’s onto something. Today I mourn the beautiful boy. He had no chance. Life was too rough. Home, school, culture. Still, I’m not sure he’s meant to stand much of a chance. I have mixed feelings. When I’m at home & feeling gentle, I feel really gentle. One thing you mightn’t know about me, if you only know me socially, is that I’m a really good listener, once trust is established. I like my Yin side. I’m sad that the world is so brutal that I must gruff my voice. In private, I can be quiet. I can cry. I can nurture. I can love. I can yield....

  In praise of cleaners & plumbers   They clean up our grease & shit A task not oft remarked upon in verse Where beauty is gleaned in clean things In this I praise the cleaners & clearers We would be stuffed without them In praise of cleaners & plumbers I once lived in a house of 10 & no one had cleaned the bathroom in years It was thick with scum I said to the off license owner landlord I’m not paying for the equipment But I will clean the bathroom back to the day it was born I went in like a ghostbuster & peeled back years of layers of grit Afterwards you could kiss the blarney tiles The Nigerian women I lived amongst Gushed thanksgiving on this crazy Australian & finally an act of justice But cleaners do this day in & day out The plumbers keep the flow going Shoulder deep in shit These people should be vaunted For allowing us to live thoughtless lives They are worth their weight in gold Resp...

  I like the human   I like the human who’s for real I ain’t into inflators I ain’t into phonies I ain’t into liars But if you’re real You can cry, spew, scream, have a psychosis, laugh hysterically, tell outrageous truths, it’s all good with me I love the human When it’s honest I love the human When it’s raw I love the human When it’s intimate & not just people yelling at the crowd Importantly, if you’re gonna freak It’s gotta have some honesty Some self reflection Some self revelation As long as you don’t touch me Or threaten me You can roll around on the floor Flip out, whatever I learned from a master My psychiatrist But I love the human I love to hear real stories I love to see people open & vulnerable Man I’ve walked the street with tears flooding my face Life is mental & some people get bad cards dealt & most good people suffer & most bad people don’t I like life I want it raw I wa...

  Writing poetry into a headwind of thuggery   It’s got really hard writing poetry into a headwind of thuggery It’s throws good people off their centre It brings fear into the home & I am reminded of Ginsberg’s poem “America”: “I won’t write my poem until I’m in my right mind” Music loses its rhythm when it’s locked in to a marching beat The war beat has no place in poetry But this headwind of thuggery Is beating up on the weak & oppressed & so what do we do? Forget beauty? Nature? The person? That’s what it wants us to do Then how do I write a beautiful line When violence is coming upon us? Think of your loved ones, the muse suggests But I can barely see them now Shrouded in the fog of war & so I write a desperate tune Of a vulnerable soul I’m so heavily medicated My ‘prison sentence’ Yet I am needed regardless, to fight Battle weary I will regather whatever strength is in me Having determined never to turn mysel...

  Stop asking me to use AI   So AI is being sold on the “acceleration of productivity & creativity” Anyone with any semblance of wisdom Would suggest that the world needs to Slow the fuck down I am against acceleration We should never go faster than beathing speed Deep breaths Down up chest, out in air Great ideas are rare If we’re lucky We get one a century or two It’s quite arguable that no ideas are new We take from the past & rename them Sustainability is the most new crucial & revolutionary idea & it was invented by the world’s Indigenous peoples Millennia ago So what are we going to create with AI? Sexually frustrated hetero worlds of the IT geeks on loop? We’ve done that It’s called the Roman Empire It murdered & enslaved & invented nothing but concrete We have that What else are they going to invent Bred on Dystopian Sci-Fi & Anime rape porn No thanks I trust nature I believe in the...

  “I would describe you more as a prose-ist than a poet”   “I would describe you more as a prose-ist than a poet” It’s true My broken heart & head Tend to leave no image For sound & sense Like I’m having to pick myself up off the ground constantly & such a soul can’t soar to mountaintops Or even muffintops He can barely get out of bed He dreads the wetness of the shower He cannot build Allan Ginsberg’s starry tower He explains things too painstakingly Doesn’t a poet work with allusion? & any poetic line That by accident arrives Will then be explained like a textbook There is no dance at the stillpoint of his turning world His centre is dry like soap left unwetted too long This arid broken heart & mind Creation of consumer culture Gameshows & despair Kierkegaard in a polkadot dress His is a digicolour sickness unto death But yunno explain it & it’s redeemed That’s the joy of prose Though I most ...

  Farewell Castlemaine   There is a circus inside my stomach As I prepare to up & leave & start again Further up the road It’s been an inward time A great place the country For self-therapy Not exactly self-therapy Because I’ve met wonderful people Way many more than the few creeps Who’ve helped me It’s demonstrated that what people have practiced for millennia A community ownership of mental health Talking with friends Is superior Both for the sufferer & for the community The mentally ill provide a function For society To open up topics oft undiscussed It makes the community more humane & human So thank you Mary, Max, David, Djinn, David, Astrid, Jean, Josh, Len, Jason, Jenny, Lwiza, Oliver & all the other Castlemainians who’ve helped heal me We've had amazing conversations & shared with one another our most precious resource: time It’s been wild & clear I’m sure our paths will cross again No doub...

  Defense of “24 hours in the life of a sic kunt” I feel a lot more comfortable with my Yin poems than with my Yang ones. But this is a Yang one. I wrote a book called 24 hours in the life of a sik cunt. I don’t feel like promoting it. Particularly with Trump pretending to be one, rather than just the profoundly limited thug he is.  The point of the book is to allow space for the mad ‘open’ adventurer & for the protagonist to realise the phony nature of his self concept (sic kunt).  Nevertheless, I’m nervous about its reception. I guess I wanted to create a wildman of the Left, which has been Wiggles-fied.  It is a particularly disturbing age to live in when a politician upsets the status quo more than any artist or artistic movement. I want to present a conscious hero-anti hero. Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.