BLACK MOBY                                            
found in a concordance

Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred
black faces turned round in their rows to peer;
black Angel of Doom was beating a
black-letter,
black mass of something hovering in the centre of
Black Sea in a midnight gale.—It's the
black squares on his cheeks. They were stains of
black manikin
black borders, masoned into the wall on
black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What
black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above
black distress, I called my God,
black sky and raging sea,
black and bold,
black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?
black, and suspended by asses' ears, swung from pots too!
black little god—
black bone
black boy
black handkerchief
black little pipe
black rounding eyes—
black negro-savage, with a lion-like tread
Black Little Pip -- he never did -- oh, no! he
Black Whale; the Great Whale; the True Whale;
BLACK FISH
BLACK FISH
Black Fish, so-called,
Black Letter tells me
Black Letter, "on bended knees
black.
black above and white below.
black terrific Ahab, and the periodical
black blood
black brow
black. DAGGOO. What of that?
black's afraid of me!
black boy down here
black bisons of distant Oregon
black night an open boat
black cotton
black trowsers
black jacket,
black backs, boys; only do that for me,
black sea, as if its vast tides were a
black air without any horizon. But calm,
black as the bowels of despair; it was then that
black stormy distance the ship is bearing down
black weedy bulk in the sea
black like soot; so that from so abounding a
black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls
black forms
black hull close to the
black waters, and turning over on their backs as
black, not in any very high glee at having been
black, testily. "Silence! How old are you,
black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly
black or speckled
black and hooded head; and hanging there in the
black eyes that he wouldn't dare to show his
black bone attached to what is called the
black sand beach after some stormy tide has been
black
black limber bone of the
black pony and a white one,
black was brilliant, for even blackness has its
black head to the sun, another lonely castaway,
black as
black; occupying a
black hull still
black foam—the whale's tail looming straight
black; I knew what was threatened,
black midnight sending those gigantic moles into
black tragedy
black fish,
black, with a stubborn gloom;
black from your brow.
black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight
black cloud from which the thunder had come.
black one
black hand,
black! and crazy!
black seventy-fours
black boy's host to white men
black hawk darted away
black spot was dimly discerned, falling from that
black water!
black vomit wrench thee!—run all of ye above

black hull of the ship
black bubble at the axis

black bubble upward burst; and now

Poems on this page © Br. Tom Murphy 2005-2006

Lately this scrap of pantoum:

all references are static while we sleep
we get versions of old business and north
creeps down malicious and disrespectful
visiting silence with thick mitten material
we get versions of old business and north
suspects an illicit alliance among mistakes
visiting silence with thick mitten material
those who have acted are resting in change


What is your favorite poem by another poet.

Recently it has been one by Wendell Berry from A Timbered Choir. It starts, “A man is lying on a bed / in a small room in the dark.” But even more recently it is Supply by Jordan Stempleman.

What poets have had the most influence on your work?

Since my work is teaching high school English, I’d have to say that Kenneth Koch’s approaches to pedagogy have had the most lasting effect. Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? was a revelation back in the seventies ... and still instigates notions for the classroom.

What's your pet-peeve in a poem?

I don’t approve of poems that appropriate
material from other sources.
I don’t approve of poems that eschew
capitalization and standard punctuation.
I don’t approve of poems that can’t remember
where the sentence began.
I don’t approve of poems that want me to write
some other way.
I don’t approve of poems that want me to live
some other life.

What's your favorite print journal and why?

I don’t think I have one.

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?

I seem to need the computer ... and I feel bad about this (i.e. guilty and ashamed) for many reasons. But I seem to need the pressure to do it quickly right now straight into the blogger form without taking it too seriously. When I use pen and paper, I feel the pressure to say something important ... and I lose words that would come naturally to me at the computer. But I’m open to the possibility that this loss may not be a bad thing ... since my poems have too many words in them.