Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

  Epistemologies – shorthand notes*   Under ‘control conditions’, The Western scientific method achieves the same ‘result’ in any standardised laboratory, anywhere in the world. Its truths are external to people, as data is ‘housed’ in databases. & these truths can be repeated, generally using machines, regardless of the personal resonances & concerns for/of scientists.   In the Aboriginal Australian paradigm(s), Place (or ‘Country’) is central to truth, as each sacred site has local ‘Dreaming’, lore, law, kinship significance, et al. & its resonant science is unique & unrepeatable anywhere else: So, “the aridity of Human objectivity” (Kev Carmody, 2015) does not apply, it’s truth is living & embodied (rather than housed in libraries, databases).   Australia’s great cultural wealth is in its containing 3 major working paradigms – the Western, the Eastern & the Indigenous (for want of shorthand); Together, these paradigms ...

  The secret poem:   Anyone who’s lived under a reign of terror Will know about this Leaving out some crucial details But the word gets around amongst the resistance Which is what is so treacherous about spies   I have a disability I’ve worked with others with disabilities & sometimes do my best work in collaboration with them But I won’t tell you who or what Because no one should have to get ‘in the box’ No one should have to live in shame All people are sacred As the Aboriginals say “You’re as good as anyone But no better than anyone”     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Pub revelation: “We grow with every interaction” Heath O’Laughlin When we recognise something revelatory in what we hear It reminds us of something We’ve always known But have forgotten As we become confused  In the mire of warring ‘ideologies’ Published & Copyright Heath O’Laughlin & Malachi Doyle 2025.

  The drift of the invisible poem   Some people have spoken of the invisible poem The soul or spirit of the work That which moves beneath the surface The resonances which come to the listener Much much later As sending a listener through a portal Country poems are slow As the Indigenous say Requiring ‘Deep Listening’ Not acquisitional question-&-answer fast knowledge That as Kev Carmody says is “ the aridity of human objectivity” Much pop culture Is rootless & placeless It’s surface based Aiming at quick impact Quick uptake Which generally fades quickly Fads Having moved back to the city From the country One becomes aware of how Self important poems here are & how melodramatic & self aggrandising The affairs of people are taken to be In nature, the bucolic lives & one is humbled before it One realizes As Max Sometimes says That we are merely “food for the trees” A kind of fungus flower Throug...

  Inner city livin   Rusty pipes upstairs Vacuum cleaner next Door’s AirBNB Reversing delivery vans Beeping as they go The world is snowing In high pitched whistles Bad for the nerves Bad for deafness I just wanna Smash something’s head in Turn the fuckin High pitched sounds off Not everyone Has their fuckin Headphones on!     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Too true too true to be blue   My brother’s dying My ex-wife’s had plastic surgery I don’t recognise her & I can’t afford my psychiatrist anymore I got the midweek flat broke tear stained face 54 blues The threading has started to go in my shoes I need a night nurse to take away my pain I’m waiting for the sun to break through But it looks like we’re in for steady rain I got the midweek flat broke tear stained face 54 blues Too true too true to be blue     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.      

  A poet-artist’s advice to parents   If you are to give a budding artist one coloured pen first What will it be? Let em choose ONE & play with it with it till the ink runs out If it does Then take em to a stationary shop & let em choose two or three colours   A lot of parents kill the spark By saturating their child’s passion, their curiosity With too many instruments, lessons etc too quickly Passions come intrinsically Don’t spoil your kid's Or watch how soon they’ll quit How soon their imagination will dry up & just become another consumer in the wall Let your kid’s native passion Drive their artistic journey It’s not about you & your reflected pride   40 years later Since I first picked up a pen With no thought in mind I’m still proceeding with a supermarket pen & paper I love my instruments of postulations & wanderings & look forward to every day’s play   Oh yeah, & as m...

  A song with no words   A song with no words David Crosby geez I love that album do you find that you’re drawn to records made in your birth year? Like you eventually ditched your mother’s heartbeat for the Doors LA Woman? Just so you could hear Riders on the Storm? I made a mistake a few years ago when I talked about the first music. Obviously voice & drums, then the flute/whistle I’m not sure why the punctuation came into this slab except like the drum beat of yore I wished to communicate to the neighbouring tribes. For the Aboriginals it was the bullroarer. Apparently before the white man & woman brought the engine, the sound of the bullroarer could travel hundreds of kilometres. Recording devices in the late 19 th century formularised genres but a hundred years earlier we know little two hundred even less & so on. Apparently history began with writing. That’s what the used to say when I was at school. Of course oral history well predates that. But the Glo...

  I told her about my   I told her about my new place my ex in case she worried she wasn’t too bad about it I don’t wanna talk about that that’s life not poetry what then is poetry? something free & unattached like a stick floating along a gutter after a flooding rain turn the beat around said Gloria Estefan “love to hear percussion” so yeah the beat goes on & on like Frank Zappa’s dancing fool advice to young poets: take up the drums, sing BVs & join a brain sweet sweet soul music makes you free of course people don’t read much much harder than your husband to get along with still Frank & the deliveries are being made like I’m an old maid I’m an old man in the shade so you said hear wot? & with a nose full of snot just up from the cot of bother in a spot it’s ok said mon frere “I ain’t mad at ya”     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  The home must absorb the pressures of the world outside & the shocks & knots of childhood That twist us into weird balls A world of power’s violence & masks & the machine that produces the self We must endure without complaint To slave our lives to wage, so:   Not too much smack about your ex That’s for your diary Not for your poetry It takes two to tango Whether consciously or not We stick around Coz loneliness is the alternative In such a lonely country we live & it only gets worse The older you get A country with scant community People build high walls around their homes The men don’t talk The women point the finger & apparently vice versa Some say introversion/extroversion The beta partner & the alpha  I leave my home messy In the hope of the company Of a mouse A mouse like my late greyhound Rhonda Bear A mouse would be grouse Unfortunately, more likely here Would be a rat A rat the ...

  White & blue poem   When ur broke It’s hard to write Ur not centred Distracted & the self is threatened   What happens? Jittery, Like ur all nerves No soul, no imagination The body-brain Kicks into power save mode Everything is grey Like it was your turn To make the sky today     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

Skint… the Light: Skint no spliff last glass of wine winter All money on lentils & heat The light provided by old Fijian-Tongan-German brother Robert’s Kinky gospel 90s home 4 track cassette demo on stereo USB the sounds of his big beautiful family’s organised chaos (kids crying & laughing) in the background as he serenely passionately, ineffable that Pacifica devotional, sings & plays a handmade labour of love Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Morning Poem, Carlton, Winter, 25.7.25   It’s still, this morning You don’t hear the few birds caroling As much usually Must be nearly Spring I must admit the ducks The other day Were looking very fresh & crisp Like they’re growing their fashionista feathers     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.  

  Poetry Infinity & Work   Knocking on the door of infinity To ask something finite in return The folly of courting Or is it stalking poetry   The best words happen automatically   Poetry refuses to become work & infinitely recedes Beyond your reach Like a loss of faith   Through too much self     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Short version of a Bangin day! (for Yaru) How are ya cobber? Had a bangin day today on a wild goose chase to see my doctor.  He cancelled at the last minute But I got a fresh shucked oyster & a Tasmanian & an Irish whiskey for free from 3 people, a bangin conversation with a Nepalese guy who said, we both agreed, that God is in everyone. Love the train. Love Melbourne. Finally to cap things off, I met a beautiful woman who has a rare condition whereby she has no sensory memory. We really clicked. The beautiful irony is she won’t remember me 😛❤️ Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  A fuckin GOOD day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you!!! (love hearts I’m throwing rose petals While not native Which is bangin! (comma) Is still bangin!!!!!)     Now once coming to the realisation that I’m not a sic kunt I don’t even know if I exist A flow of energy that’s tidal & some days the high tide is HiiiiiiiiiiiiiGGGGGHHHHH! But still with a thorn With a chip   I digress, by way of introduction, Here begins the tale, as much prose as verse:   An ethnically Chinese man After a lovely gentle loving exchange Gifted me an oyster shucked Straight to my hand As fresh as it gets Opened 5 seconds before it was down My cakehole Full of pristine brine It was a good time   “God is in all of us” A Nepalese commuter & I agreed I held my hand to my heart & we smiled au revoir   3 minutes later Beautifully salty mouth I supped some water & soon after a Gangnam style Hotel bo...

  A happy thought   A small partly grey, partly white Fairly still cloud That looks like it should Amongst the blue winter’s morning sky   A happy thought     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  The counting machine   My muse is eclipsed by a feeling, hearing Murders of sacred beings discussed By ‘clever’ people as numbers,   Same as slavers talking of their ‘cargo.’   We’re so used to hearing it We do not think it strange,   Till someone we loved becomes a statistic – Unnamed, unpictured, life untold,   Just a number.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.  

  I’m paraphrasing Father Bob Maguire (RIP): That friendship between creeds & shouts/songs of joy Resound in Heaven Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Happy NAIDOC month Enjoy the hum…m…………… Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

Thumbnail of my muse   You can’t just sneak up on my muse & try & steal her for a kiss Or she will disappear But she has a good sense of humour & is down to earth & air She’s not one for flattery But I like telling of my feelings for her She’s gentle & walks lightly & she steers me when I try & rush her To know my place She is afar but not aloof She is committed to her truth As I am Still I get greedy for her under the Djaara stars But the magic happens When she seeks me out She is fond of flowers as she is of me She knows each wildflower personally She is hardworking from morning till night Still people demand more of her Because she radiates so much light At the end of a long day She needs to keep her own counsel Where she dances & drums like an ancient dream She tells me she cries But never in front of me She is sunshine Like her flowers, & rain She likes the occasional puff She h...

  A working multiculture  Is a beautiful orchestra  Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Island of the colourseeing & the colourblind   Some places are too dark Willfully dark sometimes One bruises one’s heart   --   Some places are so full of light One becomes invisible In giddyness   --   The two places appear that way As an essence Without a seeming genesis They are timeless Like a colour is   & yet even our colours Are yet to become In some places     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2025.

  Lagging (for Chris Blackman)   I’ve been pretty good for a time But then I got the flu & got lagging Lagging Don’t dope too much Don’t drink too much Don’t look at ur phone too much Don’t work too much Or you too ’ll get lagging Be careful of who you surround yourself with Laggs in small measures Be careful of complaining too much That’s a big one Mental breakdowns are a bad one They get you lagging for ages Trust me, you don’t wanna get lagging My wife & I separated   You guessed it: I got lagging “Woe is me, You can’t trust no one”: Lagging I got gout in my foot from pounding the pavement: Lagging My dogs never lagged They were aways keen as mustard Even when one had to have surgery He only lagged for a moment Before he was bounding about again My niece & nephew don’t lagg Except when they crack the shits: Lagging But I’m gonna cut this short I could go on forever & as Jesus said, ...