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This page has audio. Click titles then listen.
chopped flowers used
to hover where
breath
becomes the silver after-
noon again angels
thought imaginary
dazzle mind meshed
tresses
wind kind near
stay-at-home
keepsake qua
melodic minor
downsized
harmonic dream
touch would rise
on imprimatur
of its verdure
cap- in throes
))))))) [[[[[[[[[ pale]]]]]]]]]]shores(((((((((
pale()()()()()()()()()()()() religion
}}}}}}}}}}}}}qualific[[[[[[[ cauldron
section))))))stone[[[[[[[[[[ retentive
lurks))))))))adjective[[[[[[ duplicity
tensile)))))altogether[[[[[[ imbibed
spokes))))))reneged[[[[[[[[[ sopapilla
machiato safely[[[[[[[[[[[[[ park
derive ))))))))earniture[[[[ confer
matrix )))))rhododendron[[[[ upon
stalks ))))))))wholesome[[[[ wholesale
whole ))))))))))))vagabond[[ in
here ))))))shortage[[[[[[[[[ break
duvet()()()()()()()()()()()( spackles
marnivore ()()()()()()()()() derby
teak ))))))))))))blond[[[[[[ time
lengthen)))))))))))spore[[[[ tall
horn )))))))))tatters[[[[[[[ lake
terrain ))))drive[[[[[[[[[[[ temp
anger()()()()()()()()()()()()modific
loose ))))))))))labor[[[[[[[ love
phrasal ))))being[[[[[[[[[[[ what
stake ))))))))topaz[[[[[[[[[ vagrancy
lux ))))))))))))dimes[[[[[[[ weigh
spry()()()()()()()()()()()() shores
lintwisticies
vicare votre wayaround multaminate inventric
seesaw pacem lacing faraway palazzo
sound of the saw surrender renders
parmesan where least bed twitters with
the last onduty eyelash
oh to mood through anchor trillflirt
more from the mornay of wiltsauce
than the rind to trip upon mid-day
where light condones convex confumist
while the trilling lions elocute their way
past present and to come refueled
as summa cum laudate quite beneath
the magic carousel perfumed to season
the epitome of summer
so I whisper yet to you twelve little wisps
1. I say you ,you sleep through anything at this hour
of the antidote
2. and in response and in repose and in recurrence you
diminishingly pose for *docile duvet* magazine I watch
3. I watch carte blanche be neighborly
4. I watch the foreground of the cardboard underlie
this cover of this fancyassed notebook I watch my
penmanship comprise its contents (don't anybody dare
term this real time)
5. who becomes content (accent on syll 2) :doyoudoi
??
6. one syllable's pure magnificence her(e)now
7. dream a little hyperlink of me
8. meridian is not the root word for de medici
9. ergo ,condone my zone
10. superbole accounts for that one shirt he always
11. afterall it's your draft beer
12. say a little more here in this trumpet spoked into
me little ear
I'm cLIMBing out of nectar
as my sleep concises its way east
this season offers salt to brain the paved tone rubber
road for meeting
(after meeting)
summery chalk conveys some something yellowlined along
the struts of reflex sans its ology
okay mr. amendment take your film back
I am cata
(loguing)
(tonic)
(pulting over)
your one
choice and I will symbolize
for me
inferring fully for you
stainage vast
the lambent insulin is lorry-prone
now that our windows have been fogged
all night the wipers swash
the rain from rain
to make a vaccination two-dim
on my innocence
it's late as any silo now
and wind dried on the tops of roofs
pronounces not a sound
Poems on this page © Sheila E. Murphy 2005-2006
Sheila E. Murphy's most recent book publications include INCESSANT SEEDS (Pavement Saw Press, 2005) and PROOF OF SILHOUETTES (Stride Press, 2004). Her home is in Phoenix, Arizona.
What's your
favorite poem that you've written? Care to share it with us?
Then music got up and walked out of my
life. I didn’t hear it tiptoeing away. My hands and feet numb, I
sat moving paper almost silently from a tall pile onto a shorter
one. The world seemed the world, was all. I didn’t hear it resign,
only the paychecks stopped. Free time, nothing to buy. I thought
the monovoice of every neighbor a smear of carbon left on white soap
cake. Stopped reading newspapers to keep clean. Shoved the windows
closed. If birds sang, I did not know them. It grew so quiet I
thought the card catalogue no longer included composers. My
composition was “adapt.” I became the color the walls, then
curtains. One day when coal burned warmth back into me, I reached
for the dry sketches I had performed above the calendar. And saw
that I was 33 years old. The flute cold in blue velvet, inside
leather case. And shyly tampered with house silence. Found birds,
laughter, aimless humming. Underpinnings, arpeggiated softness.
Perfect hearing.
Coolness, rehearsal a return, first new
song
Every poem that Gene Frumkin ever
created is worth reading and feeling and learning from. He should be
studied everywhere. I will quote a passage from the
poem "About" in COMMA IN THE EAR (Living Batch Press, 1990) as one
example:
About
To say I am about this or that
compares being
to its preoccupation, what one was
before the serious
invention of the self. This takes
time but no one knows
where. The heart remains
monochromatic despite grazing
among the deepest dyed gentians
on the loneliest hillsides.
So no one is about. An occupation
the weather will do,
the caramel skies that stick to the
teeth. Before, however,
is about the height of it, tall in
the marrow, a growing out
toward those desires that describe
us all,
reg
the numbers of self. In going on
about our weaknesses
a shell of daylight huddles through
the night, and what one remembers
is the before when romance
occasioned reveries
beyond sustenance, ungovernable
emulsions of the heart, stubborn
sureness in thought, as if the self
were several bodies to be chosen
like this or that melon: all those
opportunities to construct
a time and busy dimensions. To say
I am about, about time.
A disturbance. A question of this
thing. This astute
whistle range that refuses to be
blown up by lexical maneuvers.
About is hidden in a neutral
thought, last year's
night-blooming cereus. no word
edges between you and me. we lie
forgotten
in a foreign index. i feel
catapulted, a comparison forever left unmade.
How to say this without displacing
regard, looking with care into
what about cannot express. So much
remains sexual: the body's words,
their seamlessness zipping open the
camera's gaze. They imagine
themselves
in others' delight, pleased to be
the tension defined. Words
hide other words in tensioning.
Sexual clothes speak rudely
to the interrogator. What about it?
you are so much the woman
of constancy, who in the most naked
flash witnesses
my longing. i cannot see what you
are about or say that I approve
of my reflexive lingaming.
Expression disturbs if it strikes the head
without regret, soley as the stated
question of its engendering.
the poem continues . . . . What poets have had the most influence on your
work? Gertrude Stein because of her
brilliant mind and what she demonstrates is possible. Peter Ganick has
demonstrated exceptionally fine commitment to daily practice, and has
shown me the value of accepting what my subconscious is doing, with or
without me. Beverly Carver, who in contrast to the two others cited,
writes very infrequently, has influenced me by comprehensive and
ever-deepening understanding of what's behind the work. What's your favorite print journal and why? I don't know. I've made myself very
familiar with print magazines since the late 1970s, and continue to find
exceptional features in many of those newly emerging or continuing. I
love a keen editorial eye, and it is very clear when one has located
such an intellect behind a publication. There's a sixth sense going as
to what is good work. That informs me and others, I know.
What is your favorite poem by another poet
(still alive still kicking still publishing now).
What's your pet-peeve in a poem? (ex. comma
splices, obscurity)
Do you have a writing ritual? Care to share it?
Do you ever break this ritual for artistic reasons? If yes, how does it
change or improve your method?
