Absolution
He starts every email, every
conversation, every speech with an apology. It is as though he's granting
absolution to himself for having stated it. For he is not requesting
understanding. He is stating that he has made you second class and may mildly
regret what he has done but feel no remorse. He may know how little room he had
to change what is around him. He may also be aware of his disinclination to
fight for something outside of himself. His voice sounds inconsequential and
depleted of authority.
Walk the Sweet Walk
Walk the sweet
walk
after conversation
dry the hands
as midnight cools the
premises
we lark the brook
light
and the summer
senators go lithe
to reason pictures
losing frames
we lie awake
recalling
how a puzzle piece
once missed
adjusts the
landscape to mean
nothing flows again
and all the water
heard
required a little
wind
a breath at least
to move attention
past
the lines of code
the watchful pasture
of ascension
from Lauds (37)
Diagram eternity by
fondling voice prints
Deck the diamantes, press the flesh
of artichokes and you and spun shine
all across the pieced yard
where gamecocks skitter
and the weeds are still too beautiful
to chip or pluck.
The quagmire that is reason softens
ease apres the bonny nest,
while berries transpose benignity
where no one sight-sees.
Instead, the glaze above rosacea
blooms fact of the
matter
homespun lockstep adages
we norm to in our nether
sleep.
Spring
Ghazal
Triple
teeth convey the rapture in a comma
when a gnarl is frank as geometric volley.
Sink into my chair and parrot something streamlined,
that I may correct your grammar, free you from this house.
My auditory anguish rips open the sliding glass
downtime framed as minuet of splotchy steel.
Before I kiss away this frolic, let me season you.
I speak only with my turntable accompanied by eyes.
Everybody's sad to be in love today, and
as it happens there will be no roundelay.
Sheila E. Murphy. In 2020, Luna Bisonte Prods released Golden Milk. Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland). Broken Sleep Books brought out the book As If To Tempt the Diatonic Marvel from the Ivory (2018). Murphy is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for her book Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). As an active collaborator, she has worked with Douglas Barbour on an extended poem called Continuations. Initially educated in instrumental and vocal music, Murphy is associated with music in poetry. She earns her living as an organizational consultant and researcher and holds the PhD degree. She has lived in Phoenix, Arizona throughout her adult life.