Rich Murphy


An Adoption Agency


Exhibit A for truth decay
displays in the forced smiles
chewing, swallowing, and digesting 
facts in the jury pool streets:
Crisp Francis Bacon cuisine.

A whole culture, even under a microscope,
agrees because it disagrees
about a future direction.

The imprisoned dentists
confess to wrongful conviction.

However, voters drill into political
information cavities so that any judgment 
hurts while putting on the best face possible.

The baseline and paradigm sifted
into a gaslighted gear zeitgeist.

Thoughts, as seeds, connect in furrowed 
brows when mulling for a self-evident 
amber harvest in the disciplinary fields.
The commercial laborer orders
while the neighborhood diner gossips
using the good ol’ days tape measure.

When the verdict comes down
fresh from mass media, a story adopts
and a family begins to compose.

 

Orientations Lab


To the knees in knowing,
to the hips in boots,
the scientist unlearns
to extract so to begin again.

Stuck . . . sucking sound,
mud lacing books and journals,
careers into career.
Once on solid ground 
language recalibrates and points,

a compass needle piquing
a population through terrains
that zigzag switchback
should an observer live so long.

Deep into the cranium cave,
veins expose to flashes first
an image waiting for relevance,

a bridge to the daylight words
to be batted about by minders
before common tongues 
wag tales in the now.

 

Mindset Presents


Maybe because no Homo sapiens 
asked to live, “deserve” addresses 
from deep in the cranium as though 
some gods were left behind.

The comforts in a home
speak with surround sound volume
to the beloved couch 
where the sacrifice lounges
with no psychologist nearby.
The jumbo jet against the sky 
haves to shave wisdom whiskers.

The tense climate everywhere
on the blue cheeked planet
rains down resentment:
“If these eyes can’t have heaven,
free up the cockroaches to reign – 
Drill baby drill asap.”

The latest bomb collections display 
for citizens in any country that counts.
So maybe easy go works
enough for the brawn and brain.



First-Aid Doomer


The survivalist stacks up dollar bills
to frame a mind thick enough 
to withstand gridded resentment.

Any green camouflages for the invested
suburban lawn monetizer and garden 
assessor weighing a richer action plan
to keep feet on the soil, not in.

An ambulance wail ricochets off
neighborhood cedar shingles, bleating 
until bandaged and absorbed 
by the holly hedges and maples.

Burying any small change with hind legs
until a cancer chews through a body 
hounds for sofa cushion search parties.

The walls hold off illness and death
by accident for as long as the ATMs 
remain open and bank loans 
dare to deal with desperation.

Though the building never finishes,
the shelter doubles for a tomb
against a nuclear blast and winters too.



1968 Dare Devil


In the yellow submarine so long,
the empathy savages blubber-bubble only,
where chickens once clucked
at surface wounds that murdered.

The tender pretenders know
who the boss favors
without attending to studies;
all hopes and dreams ended.

Destination “Make Love” 
from various continent contents 
got carried into the interiors.

Nirvana, in tablet or capsule at best.

The shiny exteriors didn’t let on
even after killing the Kennedys
and a King too. Good intensions, blah!

The distractions live out loud.
Death defying accumulation rules
over the environment 
and the psyche for the self-absorbed.

Rich Murphy’s Meme Measure, a collection of poems, was published by Resource Publications at 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 for 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.

http://www.richinkworkshop.com/; https://www.linkedin.com/in/richink/; @RichInk.

 
 

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