Lizz Murphy - Poem 336: Preambles

PREAMBLES

This couple lean and worn in who never leave their home town have travelled wait not so patiently for the next stage They’d just be having breakfast around now and another three hours to go Some flick magazines young men poke at the net send texts one up very late stretches yawns lolls low on one elbow he might as well lie down Others stare ahead for a long time you wonder what each is facing A daughter attempts cheeriness her mother one foot in a velvety slipper one in dressings as white as eighty-five year old hair She slumps now in her wheelchair The vascular team arrives a leggy registrar poses giraffe-like is excited to be in the theatre gets to watch over shoulders might get to hitch a stitch or two

Lizz Murphy - Poem 335: Rush

RUSH

They are concreting near a new building on the hospital campus a beaming worker stands his two feet in enormous gumboots freshly poured cement up to his calves like a small boy hock deep in mud I want the story I want a photo Like everyone else here I am in a rush

Lizz Murphy - Poem 315: Going down

GOING DOWN

Going down he jokes

You’re doing a good job as lift attendant

Cushy job standing here all day drinking takeaway coffee

Talking to people about Trump

Everyone is shaken up

I don’t have anything to add

Lizz Murphy - Poem 310: In the health centre underground carpark

IN THE HEALTH CENTRE UNDERGROUND CARPARK

He props against the car

waits patiently expectantly

She lugs his fold-up wheelchair

out of the car

Not enough disability parks

her space is cramped

He sits in the wheelchair

She attempts to adjust a footrest

bends from the hip

to save her back

hair not quite sweeping the ground

cheeks flushing

Caring is like that some days

tangled

arse up

not caring

Lizz Murphy - Poem 179: Volunteer community driver

VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY DRIVER

Excuse me you’re not waiting for someone to take you home?

No thank you I say to him then wonder after about that offer

Lizz Murphy — Poem 124: From a notebook

FROM A NOTEBOOK

At the lift a leg in a surgical steel contraption has been here for weeks months wanted her it cut off but a cleaner said she’s seen bigger and better holes than that watch what you wish for She can do skiddy moonwalks in her wheelchair now The only time you ever squeeze a pimple  the teenager drifts off A woman built like a sprung spring sofa • A walk through earlier poets • Young doctors in stethoscopes and patent boots tots in pink pyjamas firm mothers old plebs in a line-up If you can walk to the café you can pull pants over your underwear remember the white gown opens down the back even men’s thighs can be fat and cellulous • Mystery laughter and grave voices • He pushes her in a wheelchair today Something has changed it’s more than Saturday he wears no shoes and odd football socks • Love is an abundant thing a bird flying across a small cloud • There is no god. I am God and I said it. Now all go home and stop this singing badly. The bumble in the bee the hair of the hare the feather in the weather • New T’ai Chi fan Drill screws • What size is a fragment anyway  I thought I’d talk about frags make up a new word but it’s already a hand grenade as if words don’t cause enough trouble

 

Lizz Murphy — Poem 68: Mourning

Lizz Murphy — Poem 38: Flips

FLIPS

My homeless boy

My homeless boy

Strokes his white forelock

My homeless boy

Another crisis

the carer’s brain back-flips

You are not really homeless

I want you to know that

The carer’s brain flips back

Lizz Murphy — Poem 31: Calling