Drawing by Judith Wolfe
MARK MURPHY

Poems


      The little princess coming out of the book of fairy tales

      I come to you alone with a single wild rose
      held tightly in my right hand.
      You cannot know it. How could you?

      But I come with a heavy heart.
      I am not unlike a mermaid emerging
      from some ocean for the first time.

      I am a stranger here, saddened
      because my nightly vigil
      will not keep you from harm.

      Oh, if only you had left me
      in that other place, that other world
      where memory never fades.

      You see me arrayed in blue
      like the vault of heaven
      but you see with eyes closed.

      Look not upon me as a princess;
      in the depths of my being
      I am the silence of starlight.

      Lay your hands upon my golden locks,
      dream me away to some distant
      shore where souls can be at rest.

      We were never meant for this
      encounter, dream me back
      to the land of grand illusion.

      The Conversation

      My dear friends, the art of conversation is dead
      Hurrah for the magic lantern which has replaced
      the need for dialogue. All conversation has proved
      to be utterly meaningless, utterly pointless.

      If you awake in the middle of the night
      feeling the need to talk, forget about it quick.
      Turn on the T.V. Take a drink, anything,
      but don't venture to take the time of day.

      You will only be disappointed. We have talked
      it all out before, talked it all out of existence.
      All dialogue has become an excuse in itself,
      the wasteful intervals between silences.

      Long live ignorance! Long live silence!
      Imagine if the whole world stopped talking.
      Hurrah for the silence which is blossoming.
      Unquestionable quiet is the new dialogue.'

      The Chair

      I warn you now, this chair is all my work,
      my own doing, my undoing, my dirk,
      my invention, my perch to view the sky
      and some days my only reality;
      every man and his dog must sit elsewhere.

      I'm, precious about little else, my chair
      is a chair of a chair, my lair, my affair,
      my security against the night's lie.

      I warn you now.

      A man's chair is his castle, his panacea,
      his last refuge against the unfeeling stare.
      You know the story well. I am Hockney
      of the chair, the Bradford bombshell, he
      of the painted interior. Take care.

      I warn you now.


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