zafusy

With each fresh sheet
cold enough to cover my face,
page upon page of winter
has set itself in front of me
and published my doodle,
my stickman print.

Though I’m up to my bifocals in manuscript,
my impressions of angels
and wide winged rainbows seem worth
repeating here as are the primitive love letters
left at a woman’s feet to illustrate
my virile ability to backtrack.

Not so very far into the rings
of this shaved white pine log before me,
my deliberate ink demands attention:
the poems into the neighboring woods,
the autobiographical novels of my automobile
all ways, with convention coming to mind.

While this snow storm bears
the same Greek column engraving as do others,
the carrot and coal want to speak
for the body of literature behind it,
want passersby to remember the confetti
of polar circles we become.

Rich Murphy

With each fresh sheet
cold enough to cover my face,
page upon page of winter
has set itself in front of me
and published my doodle,
my stickman print.

Though I’m up to my bifocals in manuscript,
my impressions of angels
and wide winged rainbows seem worth
repeating here as are the primitive love letters
left at a woman’s feet to illustrate
my virile ability to backtrack.

Not so very far into the rings
of this shaved white pine log before me,
my deliberate ink demands attention:
the poems into the neighboring woods,
the autobiographical novels of my automobile
all ways, with convention coming to mind.

While this snow storm bears
the same Greek column engraving as do others,
the carrot and coal want to speak
for the body of literature behind it,
want passersby to remember the confetti
of polar circles we become.

Rich Murphy

Spreading the asphalt, picnic blanket,
the pubescent lad smooths out its wrinkles
and uses heart-shaped suburbs
to hold the corners from the wind.

Burdened with the basket,
the lass rests nature’s conduit in the center
of love’s unconsciousness
and arranges the conversation
into streets and parking lots and plazas.

Sprawling among the plates and utensils,
the two workers feed each other and play
until sandwiched between two black sheets
and then catch a bus for the city limits.

When love is a steel erection under glass,
the evening does not reveal the heaves
and pots and blades of grass,
yet the ants parade about the cemetery
and swarm the broad loom carpet.
The perfect places are interrupted
by the clumsy feet of a poem sweet poem.

Rich Murphy

Attempting to fill its silos with French kisses,
the tongue and groove couple finishes a home
for a four-legged animal costume.
The chimera grows corn, kids, old, but leave

each fallow. The compasses for discoveries
of unclaimed hands and the dumbbells rust
in worlds without inventions,
compassion. Frozen in the arctic of the day

they met, a hole mate drags a body upon
its death. The cul-de-sac rejects
the compromise but leaves behind
hints to the tongue-in-cheek puzzle.

Rich Murphy