Poem 7: Nothings frightens me more than love To all of a sudden be stuck on a glass floor in roller skates & I don’t know how to skate & I think to myself “how did this happen?” Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Poem 6: Explaining the concept of ‘wobble’ to a non native English speaker All I could think of was the way jelly moves What would you say? Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
While Rome burns The further I travel into the comic realm The darker gets the view Comedy is a mechanism For coping with trauma Yet the closer it brings us To life’s tragic ironies (It is nihilistic) It eclipses sublimity One only sees the puppet strings There’s a reason so many funny people Kill themselves For there is cold comfort there Comedy is not a cry in the night A speech before heading into battle The tending to the weak & maimed It is beyond tears the muzzle Like an invalid’s crossword puzzle While Rome burns Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Poem 3: I don’t like to repeat myself I don’t like to repeat myself I don’t like to repeat myself I don’t like to repeat myself Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Hooked I’m hooked on two things I can’t get them out of my mind So I think to expel them I should write them down The first one is Albanese as “Slops” You know, as in the last guy in a gangbang The other one is triangles Focussing on triangles As a way to straighten out your mind Which frankly fucks me up further As for the former it used to be a common term For the guy in the gang Who’s the butt of all their jokes A figure of contempt & yet he still hangs out with the thugs Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Umpire I used to know how to play we used to get carried away far away then I was made a supervisor of others playing now I can’t play now I’m a fuckin moralist (vomit. yawn) Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Dubious advice: Many years ago two ecstasy nutters got picked up by the cops. As the police approached, one nutter said to the other “imagine triangles, it’ll help straighten you out.” Dubious advice. Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Sword Tree the left over oven from the transplant Earnest urchin slider under the awful Davey cutters isn’t my idea of heather You are a daisy en guarde in tennis The awful Amsterdam tripping in a vacuum Empty the dustbuster you loveable lad I don’t know who they are or they Birthing the natural way hard core To strive for the perfect dish with grilled cheese Have you a sword to police? Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Bad pasta we’re spoilt for choice The sky has lifted as has my mood I’m a mirror to my surroundings so! I say to those nature versus man fans I am nature! who said that? none other than Pollock Jackson who a tabloid has smeared with Nutella not a good word smeared is it? Does your voice go up or down at the end of a line white mothers talking to their children like they’re retards they’re my peers so I can comment been with a few when we were kids we were left to play unsupervised it was a lot more fun the old thing was don’t treat your children with kid gloves let em learn for themselves as a half-African kid I taught in an all white school told me “Sir, adults make it worse” but of course liability laws & insurance premiums have made schools risk averse so kids are micro managed & become neurotic then why Malachi do they seem so well adjusted meanwhile you’re a fuck up they’ll get there says I just occasionally I’d like a pie but there are no pie shops in Car...
Mental Slavery I’ve gotta get high man Reality is fuckin fucked My poetry has become staid “Stay!” “Fetch!” “Good dog” I’ve forgotten how to play To stop saying something, but how? The supermarket was better today I didn’t resist existence Yunno peace time Sorry guys it’s been too long since I got laid Coz I stopped playing I got sent back to high school for the second time In my 40s & 50s & it wasn’t 21 Jump Street I had to wear a chastity belt all those years To prove I’m not a paedophile A continuous police check updated weekly I guess we've all come to accept surveillance capitalism Like it's no big deal To be presumed guilty I was a good little eunuch & took my daily floggings Now I’m old & it gets harder & harder to rebel When you’ve been institutionalised so many times & were forced against your will To be a weapon of the institutions There are fewer & fewer rebellious options now Th...
Friendship 2025 & so the ego defines itself in opposition to what it’s not we find ourselves hostile to much in this needy world in search of kindness but it’s not kindness we seek is it at least the kindness we receive often feels unpleasant because we have lost the art of receiving from nonintimates at least we need the context to be right for communication & we worry about what words they will use we are worried about words & try to find the right balance of sharing & receiving a souvenir without entering into a relationship we are worried about where things might go we do not want progression we wish to protect our current status we do not wish to add any more people into our list that list is closed at least unless the list is accidentally put into the washing machine still starting a new list is daunting we’ve gotta the get the balance of personalities right some introvert some extravert some thoughtful some funny some as broke as we are some who ...
Shadow & light Outside the window Of my turret The world beyond Identifies with me I know this view The backs of restaurants Apartment blocks & the pepper tree Beneath the vault of blue I can fly out the window in my mind I am no longer confined Poetry never ceases To give me wings I read aloud ‘In Memoriam’ Tennyson at his best I intone aloud his words & feel a thrilling in my breast Poetry enriches The rhythm & the sound I believe in the traditions Since the first picked up a pen & on & on before that When fire first inspired The dance of shadow & light Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Back from the dead I get slower the more pills I take I get numb-er Else I would be wracked with rage At the evil in the world The young can take on the villains I’ve had too many breakdowns I’m no longer in active service I’m a retired warrior My job is to speak with wisdom One can still speak With reduced powers Of course I stoke the fire & should I need it A little of the old power But the rules of engagement have changed & a product of different training I am tempered for simpler battles A man with a sword Is nothing against a gun A man with a gun Is nothing against a drone & so I have changed tack To point out flaws In newer strategies I can still think I can still reason This isn’t my first war Seek me out When you are dejected I’ve come back from the dead With a rough hewn gift For those who still believe Not everything’s for sale Should you seek, I’ll avail Publish...
As for our ancestors Talking to a pair of young lovers On a glorious winter’s day We surmounted the generation gap & realised we faced the same pliers Twisting us over backwards Filling us up with shit & we each needed the same healing Laying on our backs in the sunshine Nature expels the stresses from the world Those who seek to break us & remake us cogs in the wheel But when we share our witness We realise we’re not completely mad & give thanks for human connection & nature’s gifts as for our ancestors Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Their wish It is a heating world It is a hating world Yet so much love unremarked By historians of the time On the train People help a lost man Find his direction In the hospital wards The kind words of nurses To the dying Why are not these stories sung Unless a wish to Break humanity’s heart But I will know I will remember All those kind souls Who’ve helped me at my worst I will never believe That wish of theirs That man is an irredeemable beast Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
A break from the slab My barman told me I’m drinking more than I used to His diagnosis is at least as reliable as my doctors’ Coz he sees me after business hours when I’m unchained Since when did I write such long lines? Such is the consequence of being trapped in the slab I need to break away like a square of hazelnut chocolate A break from squares a break from cells To dance on the wind with my big stiff limbs I’ll cry myself into liquid like the creek I miss Lord let me dissolve from the fucking slab There are ever increasing prisons in this bloody land Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
As bad as television was As bad as television was we were watching it with others its screening was objectively verifiable in the green guide whereas today what you’re watching you’re watching alone it accentuates your aloneness with doomsdayers in various disguises there is no description of what you’re watching it just happens before you & with tv you’d have current affairs followed by a sitcom & then a movie before the evening news but with social media you get a landslide of doom & gloom each report after another there is no balance amongst what we consume there is no variety of opinion once your algorithm is set you’re fecked it leads to the closing off of things & the only time the phone rings is when some organization is trying to get money out of you Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
A medic Poetry trembles before the shouts of war it is too subtle I hear church bells ringing I write in water mixed with tears gifts of the air & earth reflected in the fire poetry does not speak to the masses but inside the heart of each intoning lines when I was forced to do cadets as a kid I hated it men & older boys shouting at you & so I did what anyone who didn’t like it did, I became a medic & so when I write about war I write as a medic not a soldier people suffer beyond words & I cannot give them what they need I talk to them mainly offering white lies of better times because they die in my arms they die in agony it’s a mercy when finally they go because supplies aren’t coming through & world leaders don’t give a stuff coz they’re after land they’re after oil they’re after precious precious resources that make them greviously rich & so preventably they die that’s all I know of war & mothers wives husbands children & sibling...
3 rd Parties (For Perry) So we contract out our violent impulses to 3 rd parties to be managed far from home where wars are enacted on unknown to us ‘enemy’ peoples but then we don’t even need to call them enemies for that is all managed by 3 rd parties & then we can look as cool as cucumbers & pride ourselves on our civilised natures & when in our daily lives a prick behaves like a cunt we’re not allowed to tell them no we must lodge a complaint for it to be managed by 3 rd parties lest we offend the prick for pointing out he’s a cunt & then we must undergo a management procedure where 3 rd parties determine our status Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Hurt Hurt expresses itself in anger & sadness defiance & paralysis it’s much easier for people uninvolved to be articulate hurt has a block as well as a flow it’s a wound that weeps & bruises as much as it spurts eggspurts come along & speak as if it’s about them & grand narratives of right & wrong not for poet hurt he punches or reaches out for a hug it preoccupies the mind & no sooner has one moved on someone else with their angle digs it up again I saw it at school where an unsettled kid would come into my class & after they’d finally got calm someone from leadership would pull them out of class to discipline them for some long past deed over & over again time moves fast once things are over they’re over stop rehashing the other one which happens is when you’re suckered coz the conversation which you took at face value of friendship is in fact a ‘meeting’ to discuss you & your flaws an ambush of sorts & you realise the...
Since when do we have to pretend we’re all friends? Human chemistry falls into sympathy & antipathy So if I tell you to “keep walking” After an altercation Don’t keep coming up to me I SEE you man & we’re not friends You live your life & I’ll live mine I’ve been upfront with you Now BACK OFF! Come back to me in 10 years If you’ve learned something Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Rage, or Gripped by rage Even the page shudders & shakes A state of being Not a fleeting mood Unable to find any legitimate outlet Of my excess of emotions It feeds back on itself & manifests as rage Coz what is the naming of emotions Which precedes thought Is it really rage Or is it that I just feel a lot? Overwhelmed by feeling Might be more accurate & not having legitimate outlets for it This Australian reserve That muzzles that suffocates That doesn’t even realize it’s wearing a mask So fused to the face it is No the mask is the most alive thing here Beneath it is empty people Hollow people Who make this country The loneliest on earth Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
Water (#2) I walk to the sea I walk into the sea I walk under the sea So shall it ever be On the way to the sea I yodel As I walk into the sea I lilt As I walk under the sea I whistle & squeak I shall do it every week When I’m at the sea Or in the sea Or under the sea It’s nothing like high school No popularity contest I just whistle squeak yodel & lilt Like moving dream to waking Under a winter’s quilt I feel free in the sea I forget my stresses The universal womb Tears & sex All the best things are salty water Except for drinking of course No for drinking I need fresh water Uncontaminated & revitalising It helps my troubled mind Sea & fresh water In the same way I love the sound of falling rain Easing my heart Easing my brain Respect water Waiter, Naturale oysters & fresh water please Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
But never of despair As if it wasn’t enough to have authoritarian law now we’re getting bombed in Iran As if it wasn’t enough to have our voices taken away now we’re getting bombed Iranian women To have others own our bodies Tears of frustration Tears of lamentations Tears of exertion Tears of rage Tears tears but never of despair Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.
It won’t just be the poet’s slap Stand over man against the Morris & Co wallpaper of green weaving leaves with white & orange & burgundy I ain’t your bitch said Edgar Degas’ model in her cold bath just one more section I haven’t got your hair right Keep walkin mate big on your video game profile The sea through the winter’s window began to swell as the rain was whipped by the wind Close up on the conversation like a lash on a moustache This is life buddy good manners cost nothing & open up so much free space in this crazy congested world cough cough a hot toddy methinks Some say to the poet he’s only young as the cello gave way to the first violin which sings people remain what they are formed of the child becomes the man Tchaikovsky scrawled in the margins of his score once a prick always a prick one day you’ll meet your fate you’re going the wrong way & it won’t just be the poet’s slap Published & Copyright Mala...
Sunrise clouds in charcoal like a flock of geese Sunrise clouds in charcoal like a flock of geese against the blue collared with white tucking into a black brown stout I’ve been up a few hours my period on heat has passed & I’m avuncular again frankly looks a little like too much work passing with the lunatic’s full moon now waning on me for 17 years since psychosis & ever increasing amounts of tranquilizers the light shines through only occasionally the medication & the booze see to it though dreams sometimes I’ve had visions now all is broken as Zim says my mind is busted my soul is done so why guard against certain thoughts from whence do thoughts arise anyway so surrealism & absurdism have built up artillery & apocalyptics are in power the order is dangerous & art is safe not since gangsta rap has art shaken the moral order now the leader of the free world gags about grabbing women by the pussy so I don’t know what I’m gonna do while the missile...
Winter flowers Winter flowers interweave Like constellations of fire Unleashed upon forests Someone pisses out The universe Agrarian Christmases Where lullabies suffocate The leaps of the wilds The blade carved the tree Then cut up the pear What do we think About the machete ban? Reality is different In other parts of the country From the Melbourne bubble Due in no small part To the different conditions The music of the spheres Can still be heard In remote places Each day The beginning of time Like a ball running down A wheel I fall off the moon Now 5 days past full Missiles land endlessly Authoritarian leaders The world over We’re very lucky here By comparison Australia internationally silent In the bar People sing along joyously With the piano man Unfortunately the rest of the week We’re alone The bag of M & Ms split Your hand is a stained glass window The sun penetrates through To th...