Dad
Here's to you Red,
a life selfishly shared, to nights of lust spent with her,
which pulled us from her into your world,
into your long withdrawals, and long absences,
into the cramped apartments,
and drafty haunted bungalows.
I toast the heedless woodpecker Remington
striking broken keys of incoherent wine rants,
and the sound of crumpling dreams.
The pall mall smoke curling
up through the chimney of a lamp.
The curses erupting, the fights with her
in the wee hours of school nights.
Here's to you Red and your goof balled friends.
Stumbling in drunk and loaded
like rum soaked pirates.
Taking over the kitchen table.
Scraping dishes, plastic flowers and coloring books
into a heap on the linoleum floor.
Lifting me in a frightened coil,
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poem by George Murdock
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Tubular
Think about this he says;
“Life is tubular”
I chewed and swallowed
and listened to the globular pipe fitter
A road taught philosopher
Who had reduced living to it’s banal functions
“You masticate the polish and egg burrito
And send the contents down the esophageal tube
Where upon it enters the mouth of yet another tube
and the contents begins its journey
Through 25 feet of tubing
Small tubes gather up the nourishment
Of fat and proteins and fiber
“It’s tubular from beginning to end he says”
The seed shoots from the tube
The egg descends from the tube
The seed shoves its head through the wall
Tubes begin growing
“Think about this too” he says
like some seated sage
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poem by George Murdock
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The Terminator
“I too am an immigrant’ he stated
when I came to Ameri ka
I had nothing “
He paused and sucked in air
adjusted the priceless tie at his bobbling apple
recommenced in his broken English
in the splendorous works
of a German Argonaut camera
“I want to forge a future in Kaleefornia”
he said with his square metal jaw
flexing at its hinge
and in that moment he was from Austria
standing on the frozen apron of a platform
where broken humans filed from trains
below him
with crossed arms holding shopping bags
or condemned children
and he swatted at them mentally
with a horse switch at his thigh
But the ones he addressed now
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poem by George Murdock
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Feng Shui
One day it was familiar but not home
it had turned that way
while he was at work
the first thing he noticed
were his matching sox
arranged symetrically in the corner
of a drawer which only contained sox
he searched several drawers
before locating his drawers
which had been assigned two levels down
he tried to find pattern to this arrangement
which hadn't been in thirty-eight years
usually he could find his drawers in a pile
nested near the unmatching sox
and now he straightened and noticed the bed
which had been turned, revealing darker paint
where the head once was
'It faces north now, the way it's supposed to'
He gazed at her in the blue lotus flower kimono
and she said ' You really should take off your shoes'
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poem by George Murdock
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Godman
His visage is that of a bristling sardine.
His suit the impression of wet scales.
His mouth draws rushing currents of air
across hidden guilt slits.
His face is reddened with rage and self-righteousness
“Surely” he should not have to share his world
with the likes of homos and reprobates,
befouling the waters of his kingdom.
Love is mentioned in this castigation.
God’s love is mentioned in the same gasp
as the condemnation of mankind.
The vicar has described in the greater sense the
Love which pours from the speared heart of Christ
and brimstone which erupts from the furnace of Hell
as he would describe the administrations of any
Schizophrenic parent sparing the rod and ruining the child.
Lovingly “beat the devil” from the body
to save the soul for eternal paradise.
He is looking at me somehow
our eyes have opened in the soul
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poem by George Murdock
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Aloft
She hauled out onto the crag faced wrackles
Gasping from the strain for a moment
From her seawind lungs
From the topsail stay the sound of her voice
Spilled across the seaward haul
Whispering of lost men drug across her tethers and timbers
Of souls burned by love's needle sharp indentations
There in the parlors of opium crazed artists
Lips purloined and pinned with gold and diamond smiles
And ink blacked meaning
Seawitches and hearts pierced on arms marked forever
But that was not her name and something then it became
That was not her voice the one which called him to her bed
Where he lay breathless and dizzy
His ears ringing from her songs and whispers
And promises of further pleasure.
It was not her voice now as she pleaded for his heart
The heart which had been pierced by her name.
. He listened now to another bird which soared aloft
On perfumed winds and warm fair spirits who would not demand soul for payment
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poem by George Murdock
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San Jose
The ruts of the calle ran through the breast
tear through the canopy on one side
of the copper and red mud road
Serpentine down the muck of puddle and gulley
To the flattened valley of coffee plants and fruit trees
Below the cotton puff clouds and gentle mist
below the sleeping and cloud hidden volcanoes
Where life is an allusion to paradise
reality is sweat and blood
And feckless bread winning
The compas work in the downpour
Repairing a wooden bridge which
has given in to the insistent river
Their eyes hidden in ponchos
remain downcast to the work
We inch along the remaining timbers
Our eyes wide and wary of the breach
of the dancing frothing mixture
a slurry of earth and need
a perpetual dance which goes on to the sea
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poem by George Murdock
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To Someone Who Knows Everything And Wants Nothing
Speaking above them they could not hear me
as I raged and shrieked in tongues
my head was like a fountain
words like feathers floated down
I was weightless filled with lyrics
no one else around me heard
If I could I'd fall upon them
though I'm nothing but a bird
I know they sometimes hear me
when they look up to the sky
see my shadow cross the highway
inside their cages rolling by
I am smoke, I am illusion
yet I appear as hard as stone
I am reeling in confusion
in my wisdom I ‘m alone
you can't read the sacred letters
which I've written in my heart
these secrets can't be given
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poem by George Murdock
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