Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Ever Widening Gulf

A quick and (rightfully) dirty poem:

Ever Widening Gulf

In that gulf
where I tugboat-towed
so long ago
from the refineries
to the refined
in their finery
from the pineries
of the impoverished
grease for the palms
of the over-rich
forever
over-reaching their rights

My days
on that gulf
of life and delights
foreshadowed
times and crimes
that would not go
unpunished
my own lust for oil
part of the spoilage
part of the death
and the blight

Yet I vote
each time
to install
in the capitol
someone else
who will not
set it right

~ Ralph Murre

Saturday, May 22, 2010

y' just might find y' get watcha need


What is Given

The likelihood of finding strawberries
tiny and wild and sweet
around your ankles
on any given day
in any given place
is not great
but sometimes
people find strawberries
right where they are standing
just because it is their turn
to be given a taste
of something wild and sweet

- Ralph Murre

Monday, May 17, 2010

bird in hand

soft in my fist
the indigo bunting
window stunned
regains itself
and
loses any need
for me if
there was any
its heart
machine rapid
with fear
or passion
or maybe
they're the same
its eyes bright
with flight
its wings ready
to push
all of this behind

my empty hand
having held
blue brilliiance

~ ralph murre

Saturday, May 08, 2010

L.M.H.

and when the time
came for scattering her
to the winds
he could not
but
sheltered ashes
beneath that little tamarack
where the marigolds
bloom in spring
.
because shelter
was what he could give
~r.m.

Saturday, May 01, 2010

May Day

After the thaw,
grass greens its blades to meet the mower,
daughters are raised, prom goers
in pinned-on flowers wilt from the nearness
of over-hot hours and days.
Sons, their hearts (and they have them)
swollen, like rivers, are unable to ever
go back, as haze lifts, descends.
Fair-weather friends smile
while plans are made and deserts storm
just over flag-draped horizons.
Now airports at night receive
flights of sun-filled boxes
and docks on the bay feel the sway
of tide on tide and May after May.

A few ships come in, there,
below the blue hills
and the gaze of gray foxes.

~ Ralph Murre