I assume much the same as you assume,
& I regret as much as you do,
but I’ll be damned before I rocket a brutal stone
above the eye socket of innocence.
I won’t do it,
& if you know what exists in the uncertain hour,
just before, just before,
just before, just before,
& after all that,
before sliding fetus-like into the ether,
just before & afterwards;
afterwards I promise
I’ll sing the blues
like Muddy says, It’s nine below zero with nowhere else to go.
Joan Beebe (left)and fellow contributor Michael Robinson
When I am alone in the early morning darkness,
My mind takes me back to the times when
I was growing up with my family.
It was a time of nurturing, tears and laughter.
The warmth of love, encouragement and the
Sounds of a family taking care of each other.
The house was always filled with the kindness of
My mom and dad who took in friends, a relative and
A family who was forced out of their home due to
The flooding of our river each year.
Time has passed quickly and I only have my memories
But they are sweet, comforting and full of gratitude.
A bird flew just touching my head over
It flew away flattering its feathers
I looked again and again
It spoke to me how and what I do
And should do
It’s my love, O bird
You wanted to whisper that I can’t
Flew away over my head
The shade before my eyes
While flying to the sky
Draws hundreds and thousands miles to go ahead
I observe and move forward till I reach my destiny.
Whatever outcomes are realised by errant dreamers,
love shall transform the season over and over.
Phenomonology of the Soul
Where is the soul of man to be found?
In dreams? A boy prays,
struggling with the thought.
“What if I should not wake tomorrow,
but continue to dream
and if I should not wake
from that dream, but find myself caught
in a perpetual dream-loop,
then what of the real world,
father dear and mother?” As a younger child
he imagined himself unable
to escape his world of dreams.
Now he believes he is still dreaming
when he thinks
he might be awake.
“Perhaps I’ve been stuck
in this dream for as long as I am
able to remember.
Perhaps there is no way out.”
His heart leaps within him, stirring his soul
to doubt God.
As a grown man, the former boy dreams
of waking from his trance,
no nearer to finding God,
his only consolation
to be found in the music of his dreams,
between earth and sky.
Precept and Prayer
for Helen Bullas
Town full of revelers, couples, beautiful girls.
Not a soul to step forward for me,
Except for you, my most beautiful friend.
Your tears hurt me more than I can tell,
But I’m still capable of bravery,
Laughter and forgetting, like a man
Who hasn’t entirely lost hope.
Sometimes there’s nothing to do, but write
Our poems as if it really made a difference.
As if, somehow, it mattered more than a jot.
At last, I beg you not to cry for me
Because my feud with god isn’t yet over.
So come pray with me now
And all the unbelievers, as if praying
Were the only sacrament missing from our lives.
Law of the Past
This poem is the only artefact that’s left
after all the years
of my loving you in secret. Even now
we hope to hide our identities
from the world. You are still L, and I, M.
This is how it must be, with all the resolve
of heaven and Earth.
Perhaps this will be the last thing
I ever write about us.
Remember when you played guitar for me?
Now you are married with a family
and wish to forget.
Only the past has a way of catching up,
catching us off guard, forcing us
to account for our strange, conflicted selves.
Dead Dog Paradox
Was the dead dog man’s best friend?
Did the dog deserve to be burned alive?
Did the dog deserve to be beaten to death with a stick?
Did the dog deserve to be poisoned to death?
Who set the trap to cut the dog in half?
What was the dog’s name?
Was the dog troubled with rabies?
Did the dog deserve to be hanged in the street?
Who sanctioned the killing of the dog?
Had the dog played at ball in the fields?
Had the dog run wild in the woods?
Had the dog run amok in the town square?
Did the Mayor pay local citizens to murder the dog?
Who threw the first stone?
Who beheaded the dog?
Who skinned the dog alive for its pelt?
What had the dead dog done to warrant such cruelty?
Self-Portrait, 2019
for Frank Bidart and for Nora
He’s no longer young at forty-nine, but looks younger,
or does he? Certainly, he feels younger
than his years, but the baggage under the eyes
has justly recorded a decade of sleepless nights,
the greying hair, the almost white unkempt beard
betrays
his exit from the world of bodies, but signifies
a wider, more pressing change of heart. The one time asexual
poet, grieves no more for the pejorative virginity
of yesteryear, but looks at the tear in his right pupil —
not as the symbol of a once broken heart,
but a super sigil, denoting and demanding a rare optimism
in place of doubt and denial. In the mirror, nothing
is missed, the yellow worn out teeth, the metaphorical
lumps and bumps of ageing, his mother’s sensual mouth,
his father’s Roman nose, the desire still to be loved.
Mark A. Murphy is the editor of the online journal, POETiCA REViEW. His poetry collections include Tin Cat Alley (1996), Our Little Bit of Immortality (2011), Night-watch Man & Muse (2013) and his next full length collection, Night Wanderer’s Plea is pending from Waterloo Press, UK in 2019.
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, wondering where the lonely housewives are. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Record Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, Mad Swirl, Word Dish and Rusty Truck. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
