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Sheila E. Murphy :: Four poems

 

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy

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where is the river :: a poetry experiment is a bi-monthly poetry journal open to a variety of aesthetics, forms and experiences, with a preference towards showcasing work by emerging writers. There is no single path, nor any single way. Founded in September 2017. Edited by Kiefer JD Logan.