Lizz Murphy - Poem 366: Head XLVI - On the guilty pursuit

And one more for the road ...

Medium: Oil pastel & found text on paper. Size: 30 cm x 30 cm.

ON THE GUILTY PURSUIT

Back at the wharf,
on the guilty pursuit
I sallied forth
With the sun dipping low

Each time, the story deepens,
"Older thinkers had been wiser
Myth was no mere
stoush

Mystically I offer
years of human history
suspect of sins.
handle it.

In my life, I have had opportunities
"I am very grateful for that."

                         Several steps more

 
--
This is not an ending, this is a beginning. Thank you Kit Kelen and all the Project 365+1 contributors. It's been wonderful - even the days that had me cursin. Happy new year.
 

Lizz Murphy - Poem 254: Train v.

TRAIN

v.

Trying to remove a jacket in the restricted space

reminds me of the bird preening in the fork end

of a branch trying not to fall off and the poet I met

in Belfast talking of the pull since retirement the

busyness of not being busy the lack of writing

‘It picks up the sky’ who said that

what a heavy load

must break all baggage weight limits

Lizz Murphy - Poem 209: Lilt xxiv. Hard life

Photographed at the Ulster Folk Museum

LILT xxiv.

 

HARD LIFE

A woman with a hard life on

her face and a note in her hand

I have two children in Poland

mistakes me for the rich as I 

dream on the precision of Watermarks

at the window of The Pen Shop

How can I tell her

I'm just a writer

P.S. Cottier #26 (flogging a dead haiku)

flogging a dead haiku
with a cat of three tails
no aha! moment here

P.S. Cottier

Lizz Murphy — Poem 151: In the frame (with Sarah)

In response to Sarah St Vincent Welch's With Lizz

IN THE FRAME (WITH SARAH)

A long awaited coffee

splash of red framed by orange

Old time’s sake

precious writing mornings

What colour were the 90s

A scarlet man on his smart phone

The memory of a raptor’s hindquarter

framed in my car window

A hawk like torn tan bark

its catch limp-winged

The reflection of the barista

In the corner a chuckly breast-fed baby

Sarah is laughing I am laughing

her eyes searching out a poem

poking it into her phone

She thinks I’m writing about testicles

(honestly – they were kestrels)

Note to self: improve handwriting

She is serious now

hair hooked back

Concentration

The tangerine saucers walk me again

through 70s suburbs

Orange is a happy colour we agree

but I still hate those orange curtains

Lizz Murphy — Poem 106: Touch (after Susan Hawthorne)

after Hiding by Susan Hawthorne with thanks

Lizz Murphy — Poem 82: Paperbarks (thanks to SSTVW)

with thanks to Sarah St Vincent Welch and her New Acton Ekphrastic for the prompt

Lizz Murphy — Poem 74: No way yesterday

NOOOOOWAYYYYESTERDAYYYY
Thunderblazes/tiredeyeglazes/

inmedazes/wrotenotadot/completeforgot

Lizz Murphy — Poem 64: When I am asked

WHEN I AM ASKED

after Lisel Mueller

No one had died

not then

they’d mostly gone

much earlier

Though part of me

went into the ground

with them

Paper merely fluttered

like Mueller’s deaf lilies

in my hand

I already had a pencil

knife sharp

in my pocket

My eyes were open

to new landscapes

the play out

of people’s lives

their grief

my own

Wind has no history

there is nothing else I can say

when I am asked

how I began writing poems

Lizz Murphy — Poem 48: Project 365 + 1

PROJECT 365 + 1

I woke up dreaming

of colour and art

and a man stepping

into a poem

I woke up dreaming

of a step I might take

into a poem

I woke up dreaming

with thanks to all the 365 + 1 poets and artists

Lizz Murphy — Poem 46: Settle

SETTLE

I can’t settle

Broken time

I can’t settle

Broken ideas

I can’t settle

Broken thoughts

I can’t settle

I write

make-do poems

This is unsettling

I favour poems

That are unsettling

To write poems

that are unsettling

I require

an unsettling

It’s the essential factor                        

In making unsettling

poems

This is unsettling

To be unsettled

Is unsettling

I can’t settle

Lizz Murphy — Poem 30: New work no lines

after Mikaela Castledine's Number Thirty

NEW WORK NO LINES

I’ve been thinking the same

the sense of keeping a diary

a record

of what is thought

not thought

written one day

not written another

Some days there is new work

but no lines

and you have to post

You scout elsewhere

flick pages 

scour streets

eyes on the sky

eyes on the road

on the road again

another record

comings and goings

The mind takes journeys

you don’t really want it to

but you have to post

so you go there

memories your bored with

more childhood stories

hospital gloom

another moment in nature

a form past its use-by-date

but you have to post

You shrug your shoulders

get on with it

some are words or ideas

that have sat about for a while

and now they’re on the page

more grown up 

not always so glum

okay I’ll post

Some days still 

there is new work

no lines

they have to work up to it

all part of it

this 'getting work on the way'