Sheila E. Murphy

Hesitation Envy

I would postpone if I could.
Look at you, kicking the pebbles and boulders
Down the street to match what you have seen.
What might the legacy be?

Whose posture are we slinking through?
The memorabilia inadvertently slights
A sightseer claiming to have captured
The outer layer of the seen thing.

Are you ready to disport unearned gravity?
Whose harness would you say this is?
Surely not mine, untwined or otherwise.
There is a limit to how much rope . . .

Somewhere within the margins of hope
Lives a damsel wearing a pre-owned red dress.
No redress for her! Just look or listen,
And decide for yourself? Whose fault this lagging left.

 

I Never Let Anything Be Pretty Enough

I never let anything be pretty enough
I thought I had no taste failing to realize 
It was classic the way I now see
The lines the curves of a body and a room

I relax my breath my quiet my sadness even
The rain comes to wash me the otherwise 
Atmosphere subtracts distractions
I absorb the poetry of the trees

I finger in the key of D major I limber up
Belief in what is possible again
Soon amber holds toward autumn
I remember again the ones who left in September 

I remember polished walnut wood and trees
And limber moments I climb the stairs
I whisper back to autumn what I remember
I remember the absence of wind and the quiet wind itself

 

Sonnet

I wait for ginger turmeric tea to cool
To feel the precipice of experience
From the plaything of another experience
The stars are wonderful and if I could
I would relive them differently
Following a well-honed conscience
Full of you and the simplicity we craved
For this life for another life hand-made
Not mass produced like simulated snow
Only the view of breath against the window
You could draw your name on
And remember then how lovely
The moment was as it still was becoming
This

 

Sheila E. Murphy. Poems have appeared in Poetry, Hanging Loose, Fortnightly Review, and numerous others. Most recent book: Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). Received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003); Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland). 

Her Wikipedia page can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy