Rich Murphy


Boxed


When no longer bubble wrapped
by Atlantic and Pacific Inc.,
the American politician will suffer 
from greater damaged goods 
than from simple domestic violence.

Satellites and aerial drones migrate
and space stations guide and zap:
Pop, pop, pop and then boom, boom.
Revenge, resentment, schadenfreude 
ally to send same day delivery.

The continental balloon that magnified
the dishwasher and automobile
for inhabitants and international
peepers exhales in relief, exhaustion
when pricked by nosecones or a lightning.

A reset with a global air pocket 
might and accessories may 
handout a directions manual.



Salvage Company Only


The damaged good in neighbors
locks up houses that also aim
to open the wallet next-door.

Sugar in a cup for whom?
A dented can of beans sits
on a shelf in the basement.

By economic law, every citizen
minds for personal business
with no one else 
to blame for misfortune.

The cynical season 
with chilly-hearted hellos
stagnates for decades.
Handshakes turn into nods.

A high-pressure zeitgeist 
clutches at spines to snap
over needs wills to live.

When pressed against the wall, 
the poet tosses out 
the psychology textbook;
creation begins 
by building a house for being.



Down the Spiral Staircase


Plugged into eye sockets,
microscopes turn inward
with x-ray vision 
and submerge into the monster:
An ubermensch caper.

Conventions for understanding
wash to husks in the fluids.
Concepts flash by – lightning.
Language breaks over organisms
into naked vowel sounds
that bubble to the top: O o o o

DNA and psychic energy
butt in heads to back fill
the depression that universes
dug in the gray matters
no longer black and white.

Few theorists dress thought
in binary finery while those
who do frequent a winery.

The trauma may help
to explain the hair on bodies,
the teeth in smiles,
the jitters by the lonely species.

Rich Murphy’s Meme Measure, a collection of poems will be published by Wipf and Stock in 2022. His poetry has won The Poetry Prize at Press Americana twice Americana (2013) and The Left Behind (2021) and Gival Press Poetry Prize Voyeur (2008). Space Craft by Wipf and Stock also came out 2021. Books Prophet Voice Now, essays by Common Ground Research Network and Practitioner Joy, poetry by Wipf and Stock 2020. He has published several other collections of poetry.

 
 

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