Mel From Melbourne - Music & Words

 I feel Great & Terrible at the Same Time How do you feel? Published &Copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.

  “No Smiling”   Rewatching the great documentary on street photographer Martha Cooper. Good ideas & interesting questions arose. It was joyous & lacking the pomposity (a pompous word if ever there was one! Ha) of many current day docos.   When, after decades of pioneering work (most famously the first documentarian of the emerging underground Street Art/Graffiti/Hip Hop culture of the 70s up to the present), Martha was finally accepted into the Fine Art Galleries of New York, the curator in the film said “No photos of people smiling. It’s just not done.”   Martha has spent her life photographing disadvantaged communities, locating the innovative ways people create culture out of detritus & extremely limited resources. How they reclaim their neighbourhoods, create new movements & locate joy.   The fact that the Fine Art world is so hostile to such themes seems part & parcel of its failings, no doubt anchored as it is to the ...

  Coming off alcohol   Coming off alcohol Best go to bed As the chemicals in the brain Shift   Endure the dizziness The light headedness & the light sensitivity I’m cheering for myself For the first time in my life   For too long I’ve been mistreating myself Punishing myself that my trauma Is largely vicarious: nearest and dearest   For my whole life I’ve been in different carer roles My wife, aging people, as a school teacher Counselling my father In the shower from 2 & 3 years of age   On why beating the family was unacceptable  & that he must cease He must change his ways I had to tread so carefully around his rage Firm but acting calm Riding his mood cycle   Like Herbert Simmons A boy into “…Man walking on eggshells” And eventually it worked   Nevertheless I was only struck twice in the face So survivor guilt The others fared so much worse Mixed with my co...

  My oral fixation gets me in trouble Drinking smoking eating talking It is the main difficulty I suffer with Since the breakup of my marriage It has redoubled its power over me Calling me “fat” hurts Would you think it wouldn’t Or are you just a cunt?     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.

  Art Shall Be Free (For Ben Okri) It’s ridiculous that poets and philosophers are required to spend their best years Labouring at something irrelevant to their gifts As it is for all Bullying is not a gift Thuggery is not a gift Prison for us all  No wonder we rarely understand  Anything important  One must centred in one’s gift In a supportive culture. It is not a selfish thing The gift does not belong to us It belongs to something beyond What a chronic acute indeed critical waste Like so many things in this world  Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.

Krishnamurti Once wrote how The Western Mind prefers what Isn’t To what Is   What irritated beings we are!   In essence that we are hostile to life To oneself To others   We have lost what Indigenous peoples the world over have/had   A feeling that life is sacred   Acceptance Humility Unity   Now I don’t know how this connects with Domination by others & the struggle of the world’s poor But it’s  an interesting pause.     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.

  Dancing   Dancing It’s been so long Since I danced with another   I thought singing would help But the peaks & troughs Stir you up   I want the sublimated fuck That doesn’t stand for anything or nothing Coz it’s always moving   It’s always moving It’s always grooving Till you’re out of puff   Then you know you’ve really had a party & not dinner & a drink & endless talk the sedentary back & forth   Dancing is free Omnidirectional Let’s dance people     Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2023.