Inquire Within
I'll sell some land
I'll sell some books
I'll sell fishing hooks and second-hand lures
I'll sell some tourists narrated tours
I'll sell some cherries
I'll sell the orchard
I'll sell some tortured antiquities
and try to sell the shining seas
I'll sell baseball diamonds
I'll sell football fields
I'll sell museums that sell the past
I'll sell the future whitefish yields
I'll sell plastic siding
and hide the profits
I'll sell fake stones and aluminum soffits
I'll sell some photos that show what it was
I'll sell the laborer and what he does
I'll sell the oak
I'll sell the birch
I'll sell the school
and the Lutheran church
I'll sell the lake and sell the bay
I'll sell the sizzle and move away
- Ralph Murre
appeared first in "Knock" magazine
13 comments:
I swear you're one of the few poets I know who gets better. Unless this is really old of course!
Hah! Well, it's teeth are just slightly lengthy, but I keep trying.
Thanks Bruc . . . er . . . Fred.
"It's teeth?" ???!!!
Ralph - My only excuse for not reading earlier is that I didn't know this blog existed. Thank-you!. Will keep in touch regularly from now on. - DP
Hi.
Unless you have some objection I will feature this poem on april 6 at Poets Who Blog for our National Poetry Month celebration.
I will also use the bio you have in your sidebar for our readers. I will link to your poem, not copy and paste.
If you do not wish to be linked to email me at poets who blog at yahoo dot com.
Thanks!
Sara
Objection?!?!?! Hardly. This is great news, and I thank you.
~ R.
A delightful read. Thank you.
Thank you for helping us celebrate National Poetry Month at PWB.
Glad to find your blog. I have Sara to thank for that. Once you sell up where will you go? I posted a poem about moving house a little while ago. It's the fantasy of the new life that goes with it that makes it worth the very significant car boot sale you're planning.
P.S. How do I get your site onto my reading list? You don't have followers and there's no little thingit at the bottom for Google reader or whatever. This may be obvious, in which case I apologise. I'm fairly blog illiterate.
ralph- the dramatic black backdrop creates gravity to this piece. your use of repetition works well throughout and i dig your use of strong language blended with everyday nuances.
Thank you all for your interest . . . Mairi ~ I have no idea how to "follow" (and, incidentally, I'm not much of a leader either!) One hopes it's enough to post a decent poem from time to time. I guess you can just put this address in your favorites: http://caparem.blogspot.com
thanks for trying
~ Ralph Murre
Your sense of rhyme is fantastic! It never feels forced or awkward.
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