Rich Murphy 

The Days in Decades


The meteorologist forecasted
and the shifting baseline slides daily
smearing a bleak gray streak
from sky to bog.
Soon deserts, finger lakes
now a fist that clutches cities.

Heads-in-hands, scientists 
report on disgust without an audience.
And the eco-catastrophe echoes:
longitude, latitude, equator, and poles
blur with new meaning.

Old truths sift out laughable
should an archeologist survive.

The public goes on 
performing billionaire business,
drowning polar bears 
and the low land coastal poor,
frogs slowly brought to boil.

 

Pop Colony


Crossing over the threshold welcome mat
at the In-Formation Station,
commuters tune in; 
can’t miss even when trying.
Mercenaries link up a conga line 
destined for Entertainment 24/7.

All aboard! Propaganda and facts
whiz by, both blurring into apples 
for eyes – wee using fancy footwork.
The bells and whistles
monologue into shape, 
into one voice for all participants.
The frequency wave momentum
blocks out dissenters and alternative
routes to different destinations.

Breathless at some point in the fun,
mobs scramble for a few chairs
as though the music stopped.
The bodies on the floor cool the room.

 

The Inspiring Moment


Nature nets the human 
from head to toe
by snaring the nose
with something less
than a flower.

The snout on a four-legged
instinct-monster casts about,
hooks by a sniff,
and reels in again and again
a supper scent.

The rootless luxury item
on two feet plays with juices
from a garden to remind 
olfactory nerves ending not to.

An invitation to outdoor life,
where impulse and freedom reign, 
arrives addressed to the brainstem 
by airmail among friends 
and acquaintances.
  
A currier wafts through tunnels
from a nape or wrist to recite: 
“Hello, remember to wonder 
at the planet and the stars?”

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 nine other collections of poetry.

 
 

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