There She Sat
On the busbench, smoking
Her cigarette, smoking
Against the half haze of lavender,
Pink, and feathered yellow margin
A leftover sun dipped down
Into an evening.
The trickle of smoke felt singular
Across lived years, a quiet romance,
Things seeming simpler, easier,
Ironically more pure.
Soon the bus would come,
My car would ride away,
I would practice letting go
Of this smooth interim
Between now and something else.
his bougainvillea
I look across the street at blossoms
that are not serene
he has pruned them, manicured, and they are lush
he knows to rinse and clip and keep away
the aphids and all insectual invaders
once he turned the pepper spray on an incompetent
yard man who knew only to wave blades across
what should have been revered
the residual reliving of a war we do not talk about
has come to form a landscape
artist's history within this neighborhood
he has a record now
his flowers are immaculately bright,
they brave the atmosphere,
I wish for him that resonance,
that reputation, still and poised
and ritually feeding back
a world
soon rain
anticipated drop-
lets cleanse
involuntary
rhythm of
the beadlets
on the vent
and rooftop
thinking skin
of snare drum
rattle and
the shimmer
a whole lake
filling sky
with possibilities
diminishing
the quiet
overlay a taut
stretched skin
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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.
Sheila Murphy co-founded with Beverly Carver and continues to coordinate the Scottsdale Center for the Arts Poetry Series, now in its eleventh season. Murphy is President of the management consulting firm Sheila Murphy Associates. Since 1976, she has made Phoenix, Arizona, her home. |
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