outlaw poetry and free jazz network

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009...10:30 am

mark a. murphy | eternity’s flow & other poems

Eternity’s Flow

When I saw your face for the first time
–your innocent face–
as you ran towards me
that July morning
from the railway station platform,
I perceived my poverty
for the first time, not as something troublesome
or extraordinary, no longer the burden
of an unfulfilled life,
but as a lament against injustice.

When I awoke in the morning with you
beside me in the bed,
I could recall no other face
as I leaned over you to kiss your eyes.
I cared not then for other women
whom I had courted with effortless phrases
or the leaders of men
whom I had cursed for my poverty–
now diminished, now dwindling
between social catastrophes and the idyll.

Immolation

Wear your long hair up with your Celtic barrette
now as the little dove flies from the cedar tree at Nickerson
aLet it tell the world of a girl tortured by death
feasting on her breasts as she reaches for salvation
death as real as any vulture watching the pot-bellied infant
the kill that does not stop for any dialogue
death that denounces any reason
the kill with no intent, beyond the suicide of a girl
aaaaseated in a tree swing
Love, wear your long hair up with your Celtic hair clip
as I undress you, one more time, upon my knees.

Nausea

The rebel’s silhouette is stained
with death,
everywhere she turns she is met by death,
in the hallway and dining room,
in the garden under the red berry tree
where she buries the doves fallen from the nest.

My love is in mortal danger
and I am powerless as a man of poor means
to stop the injustice,
I cannot buy time, not even in the face of death,
I cannot rescue my little bird
from those that would lay her in the ground.

The death mongers
have got her right where they want her,
without hope,
without consolation in the desert garden
where the grass never greens
where children leave their bouncing balls in the dust.