Gerry Murphy

"Under the Dog Star"

Imminent synchronicity wakes me.
I open my eyes as the digital clock
displays 3.33.33. a.m
Beyond the windo
a gleaming curve holds up
the dark weight of the moon.
Further out fierce starlight
glitters through from 1347,
Even the dogs are silent -
shot, knifed, and bludgeoned into silence.
Thinking of you,
I begin to imagine you
slipping out of the satin hush
of your underwear
into the chafing din of my arms.
Trouble is, you are probably awake also,
busy in the sealed-off archives of memory
shredding this fiction.

Finally I admit to myself
that you will not call
and apart from burning offerings
next to the silent telephone,
apart from racking the postman
until he snaps and coughs up
all those letters you insist you sent,
I can do nothing.
So, I sit in the gloom
unravelling steadily,
the gleam of a demented smile
growing brighter and brighter
as I disassemble the rose-
shelovedmeshelovedmenotshelovedmeshelovedmenotshelovedmeshe-
reassemble the machine-pistol.

This is where I peel your name
from that much battered, much travelled suitcase-
the heart.
Where I dissolve whole reels of memories
which played and played
in that obsessive, all-hours cinema-
the head.
This is where
I switch off the individually-lit photographs
and burn down the dreary warehouse of regret.
Where I walk out
into the sweet empty air
into the desert of myself.

More fragments.

Open Mic at BJs

Nevada pours over his notebook
twirling his pen as
another name on the list
is crossed of. Ink over ink.
Pen top over ball point.
Ink over ink.

A cycle of BJ's Good Grub
Eat.

-

'Eros'

Like the stiches that make my pocket
you hold me together and
my keys (to keep others out)
the broken cell phone, I can't see the screen
but I know I can put it to my mouth
and dial --- 8233 and you'll answer,
asking if you can find me.

Find a self-proclaimed poetess
at 4 AM throwing plates at
the wall because it's blank -

like your smooth white skin
I mouth punctuation on your spine
the question marks drip off my lips
and turn into exclamation points dotted
with your freckles.

We speak in smoke colored sentences
punctuated by sin but the only pause
is an ellipsis ... for good taste.

Dashing and dotting eyes, spillings Ts
our relationship is gibberish that no one
but us can read.

But, y9ou always strike me classically.

Your lips a bow, tipped with
an arrow of nose.

struck

I whisper your true name,
Eros
into my pillow.

----

Monday doesn't like school
the other days of the week tease her
so she applies herself extra
diligently to her studies, turning
her books and pens into
surrogate buddies.

At night, she looks at the moon
and wonders what about her has caused
other to focus on its dark side.

Mondays remembers the days before
classes began, when she and the other kids
played together.

Friday used to braid her hair,
before Saturday and Sunday came between them.

----

A Poem for Alarm Clocks

Destroyer of Dawn
you mutilator of morn!
I hate myself for turning you on
that fucking beep I scorn!

Everyday at 7 AM, you take me away
from my lover
leaving me longing for PM,
when I can crawl back under the covers.

--------

I need to update this more often. Blech.

"Paper is Poor Company"

Paper is poor company
these letters, vowels
meant to be read aloud
but silent, without sound
bloodless ink upon the page.

I write poetry on napkins
bathroom stalls and to people
words dribble from my pen
all lost and disconnected
without a set of eyes to see

But some see, then don't read
so all that is left are holes
in the body of me, my corpus
a line of footprints in the snow.

The poet wanders -
Sandaled, chucked, always bound feet-
with no place to go.