The Syllogism of Away Games

dear posse of assembled truths,

where I work invokes quarters
of slaves laving enclosures
ergo when I work I am en s laved
again as birth per usual tends
to interrupt this broad
cast with impeccable affection

I used to touch the working
premises aligning point A
with an assumed point B
as chap (t)er one begin(s) with brisk
replies that trace resplendent
lance light probing visual entanglements
intended for an audience beheld in sequence
after somnia

at this age rotator cuff embeds the stillness
of what supplies a guiding glut of thorns
amid the roseate delinquencies
one calls one's place a patch
onlookers want to verify
as one thing
leads to tender
offers

one holds quiet in elastic ways
desire prompts open
individually sated magic plants
waive care and strongarm
the gestalt of edges
bonding to ward off
cinder sounds that underline
division

truth is silver as a sine wave
one can hear reverberation
resist rust in time
and stretch to make shift happen
where it will with or without
a chain a lead a blatant
chord eliciting encyclical endorphins
nearer home than the etherial array
of points due north deemed temperate

_________________________________

aspersions cast to light the sea

even a thin fine particle of summer
buoyed by thick clusters of grapes
becomes immersed in tones
that lose their vintner veritas
as space and pulse and germination
forecast a tempura crisp
after the rain dance
thought to mint an everest of summer
brought to an inimitable and transparent induction

are there any of us close enough
to breeze across the sea's elastic
is there sufficient mist to cover
secret after secret mirth disguised
by aviary docile mornings
with the blinds closed and the messages
between gestation points
still sweetening the air and ivy
of a sequenced leisure
for those soft young weeds with flowers
that elicit sudden acts of kneeling

something needs to pace the dark
to mark off sample size for quiet
as a point of reference blurring
lines of sea scape
possibly as real as wash draped
on the plastic line seeming an act
of the imagination
despite dance gestures firm within their row

are we true to life apart from
these renditions of fresh dance
are we enclosed in decibels
indistinguishable apart from one another
and the history of faculties we export
to other pairs of eyes of thought of hearing
come to an immodest standstill
where the film of sunlight musses
wheels and footpaths and desired delirium
where waking is the same as speech

 

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Sheila E. Murphy's book manuscript Letters to Unfinished J. was selected in this year's open poetry competition sponsored by Sun & Moon Press, and will be published by Sun & Moon. Dennis Phillips was the judge. Falling in Love Falling in Love With You Syntax: Selected and New Poems has just been released by Potes & Poets Press. Recent works include A Clove of Gender (Stride Press, 1995). Murphy's work has been widely anthologized, most recently in Fever Dreams: Contemp orary Arizona Poetry (The University of Arizona Press, 1997) and The Gertrude Stein Awards in Contemporary Poetry (Sun & Moon Press, 1994, 1995). The Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series recently brought out an autobiography of Sheila E. Murphy, including photographs of Murphy with family and friends.

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