Sheila Murphy

Third Aesthetic

Punch list replaces possibilities with probability,
The thread that thrashes right before a body's face,
The lexicon of a germane land
Breaking into overlays of syllables
Paced into an alert prose aspiring
To be shrapnel in repose.

Spindly little observations gather to be doused
In brine as though one moment's
Precision were another instant's formula.
The truth diminishes capacity of imagination,
Or the truth routinely pierces,
Or the truth is marginally full of blades.

One resonates with a belief
In what is given.
Struts appeal to passively congregated
Voices votive as the pedestals
That hold small peace,
Continually awaiting breath,
Reasons for breath, reasons for reach,
Reasons for stamina that enlarge into
A swatch of time uncindered by
The routine diminution meant
To have devoured what was already true.

 

Freehand

Freehand is a kind of speech
Of inference, it is a peach
With smooth fur many peel away
But I consume with inner peach

If any kind of softness comes from drawing,
I will draw, if any smoothness
Is a face against my face,
I will begin to draw

The sweetness, and begin to draw
The face, become my face,
Freehand draws out
Substance if still visible

The face positioned where I can see it
Be that face, if sweetness lives there,
All the choices will have been
Considered there and now be tasted fresh.

 

Green Tea

What kind of a morning is a riddle
At what time? What kind of tension
Melts the weather, is there any formal
Loosening of muscle,

Is there speech, are there intended
Mountains to leave still
And simply watch? What time
Of morning is the view

Most pure, what late intention
Can one formulate from branches
And from wind, a little late
After the clouds release

Themselves and any view
From here, alternatively clear
Blue to uphold the red clay
Of the justice mountain?

 

Bless East

And trim fandango hovering
And faltering amid least sum of squatter's rights
Given a grace given a gracious limn
On curtain light's exhumed significance
Where it appears like water in the hand

Invigorate what you exaggerate,
Intend from far-away decision points,
Release the wheels and wind and levitation
Softly squealing wholeness

Feast upon the rigor more in line
With tattooed shoulder semi-urgent
Locksmith overturned
With brimming cataclysmic lore

One of these days I like you.
Unintentionally one of these days we have in common
What I want to hear from you.
You need what I have found and gladly share to vector
Happiness left home in the repeated woods.
Seventeen point six seconds in the period.
Someone in a suit to see the injured wrist.
On the way to the post-season.
Whose idea to use the word "clutch."
Everest one's summer home,
Some little nerve got pinched somewhere.
Extravagance enlivens track lighting
Listless as the thought of summer.
Absolutely shocked by what he's seen.
Humiliating the opposition on their home floor.
No time outs left.
One of these days I amplify the story of our twin
Continuation of the quiet throat.
A four-point lead, not necessarily needing a three.
Apparent wit is sagging.
Two possession game, by three.
Are you listening to me navigate these shoulders,
Cause for celebration?

What seemed to be an insurmountable lead
A man in glasses looking straight
Ahead, can you describe the transformation of this team
What happened to you in the first quarter
Whose penchant for detest is this
Uncanny opportunity
Choice words to get you fired up
Wear green
Retire
Rescind fact actuarially open to sustained
Enamored sustenance
Down twenty-one loss of a past participle
Using past tense for that
Class life class feeling
Temperate restraining order out of chaos
Pray for leaping

What if she infallibly would now dance intelligence
Across my blackwood floor leavened with
Wilderness what if denominative filters brought
Daylight what if she would drift
Would symptom fast across expensive floor
Drift over fact ribbons of sustenance
The floor uncropped the air light the impeccable
Precise point light connects
Eyes following as though continuum includes
What she has poured what she has minted
Fresh across defined place
Instantly induced and held and felt
And seasoned seemed to interpolate a space

Suntan elicits a light chill
Stars arise a gentle clock tones down
The air holds still
Some softness times the other side
To wash day drops to form dream
Now I sit with you the lamp is
Wrought the silver scent of snow
Recalled in streetlight lasts the year
The melody is that the harmony
Some four tones meshed
Beneath strings plucked precisely tenderly
Some stirring leaves also
Invite raindrops to dream
Dream edges come to sight freshly on hearing
Strum and sitar and confetti under light

 

Marlene Marlene

Most recent one played first
Bassoon the other one
Resided beside relatives
Marlene Marlene how many
Drinks led to a vision
Change is always hard
As change also is
Indelible unrelished absolutely
Swank woodwind dark on cue
Whose visibility or perfect pitch
Commotion after fact convivial as
Memory is becoming

 

Seven Lines

What do people do have lunch with daughters after fifty years.

Fraught curvature emotes a cringe and halo salience unless the priest.

Home cocooned with virtue words crocheted even on anklets.

Sojourn after sweater then the feast with reeds some singing around habitat.

A mild case of what mild dosage launches some career.

Slapdash forethought aired loosely as watched then given.

Fortitude surrounds the weigh station solo flimsy pre-rescinded.