Haibun Today

This is just to gloat over the fact that my work is to be featured at http://www.haibuntoday.com/

among bricks

among bricks

i sense beats beaten senseless, this immenseness
holding mere echoes of former cells, wisps of smoke
of former hells and, lately, scents of latex, spandex,
nomex, romex, and tex-mex. ex-lovers and ex-pats
eating corn-chex, this immenseness not near the size
it used to be, when it just held two or three of us
reading cross-word puzzle morning news, tea leaves,
nazis killing jews, nancy into sluggo, adams into eves.
just when i think the beat can’t go on, another regains
his feet, chases protons across the sub - urban lawn,
loses jesus and brain cells, drinks cribari ‘til dawn,
fawns a dew-covered lover, sees the dark ascending.

i sense beats beaten, poison meats eaten. i repeat,
seize the dark if they’ve taken all the light, why
fight ‘em if they could be slightly right, but you can
take what they don’t use, poor excuse for cities
left behind, these towns could have some style,
maybe painters and their models, heavy drinkers,
thinkers for a while ahead of the wrecking-ball.
then they’ll build some condos for nine-to-fivers,
some parking for the barking-dog audi drivers,
some galleries to show the artists driven out,
the rout complete, waiters on buses, three-piece
realtors selling the bricks right out of the street.

i sense beats beaten senseless, defenseless against
bankers & wankers & painted women with mba’s.
i sense the dark of nights and a lonely trumpet plays,
a lonely pen scratches through light of live-long days.

- ralph murre

among bricks first published in The Cliffs "Soundings" 2007

. . . these truths to be self-evident . . .

he wobbles along
his blue bicycle leaning
on its training wheels

- arem

Ascension

And the canvas waits
for her pale body
the way I’ll paint her
and the flake-white bed
she’ll be rising from

- Ralph Murre

reconsidering

and when he said let there be light

it is not certain

who he was talking to

but he stained the glass of the churches

so not too much could get in

'cause he decided he liked it dark

after all

and so he couldn't see out

'cause things were going wrong

just outside

and he made the stained glass pretty

so we wouldn't take our eyes

off of it

'cause he didn't want us looking around

too much

'cause things were going wrong

inside, too

and when he said let there be light

he didn't mean to reveal

everything

-ralph murre

So Long, Old Friend

The Great Man, Paul Sills, has left the room. Friend. Director. Stern task-master. Lover of life. Father. Husband. Improvisational theater, as we know it, would simply not exist without him. Co-founder of Second City. Godfather of countless theater experiences. Worked with Nichols & May. Worked with Woody Allen. Knew how to fire up a woodstove in a Wisconsin winter farmhouse. Liked a nice glass of beer. Liked a good book. Taught me something about acting. Taught me something about life.

Paul Sills has left the room. Paul Sills will never leave the room.

- Ralph Murre

Please read all three pages at http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/news.jsp?key=162173

pelican brief

column detail: Frank Lloyd Wright

alone not alone

with that book of history

over our shoulders

- arem

links op rechts

The sharpest-eyed may have already noticed a couple of new links in the right-hand column, but for the mortals in the crowd, let me point them out:

You should be aware that anything put together by Norbert Blei and the mysterious Monsieur K. will be worth following diligently, and Basho's Road is exemplary. Dedicated to haiku and other short poetry, the site is beautifully done and will certainly be an education. Watch it like a hawk.

I am also mightily impressed by the work I see in White Rose's Garden. Take a look, I think you'll like it. Not a weed in sight.

You know, I was once working some ground to plant a new garden, when I plowed up a steel rudder for a boat. Since I had no boat, it would have been logical to throw it away, but about a year later, a small boat came to me, and it needed just such a rudder. Similarly, I took the photo above a few years ago, not knowing why, and now a White Rose has come to me, perhaps in need of just such a photo.

- RM

Light

in sun-flooded day

tell me how to remember

the light of one candle

- arem

a few words

how little

can I say?

how much

can I show?

- RM

writing haiku with conrad

oh, turn down those lights

listen to the beat of it

this heart of darkness

- arem

And Yet

And Yet

I have walked the broken surface
of your roads
and heard commerce rattling by
I have seen the raven
dodging Dodges and Kenworths
and Cadillacs for his meal

And I have dreamed

I have cried the sour tears
of your skies
and tasted the acid in the rain
I have seen the gleaming trout
gulping amid baggies and Bayliners
and bargeloads of hybrid bounty

And I have dreamed

I have listened to Sunday sermons
from pulpits
and heard your gods denied
I have seen the holy men
begging for crumbs from the table
and going unfed and crazy

And I have dreamed

I have known the laughter
of children
and seen them by the yellow busload
going to their lessons
and rehearsals and recruiters
and heard the laughing stop

And yet I dream


- Ralph Murre

from Crude Red Boat, Cross + Roads Press 2007

hypodermic

in the sharp needles

of these green-gowned spring nurses

the cure for winter

- arem

at altitude

Black and white daydream:

the continental divide,

this old fear of heights.

- arem

or the lack of

Trespassing

"Forgive us our trespasses," we beg; to no one in particular. "As we forgive those who trespass against us," we continue, as white Americans, having no idea up until a few years ago what trespassing against us might even feel like, let alone being ready to forgive it.

I saddled up my Harley-Davidson Rozinante on Saturday, and ventured out on a little quest to another corner of paradise and saw just what I had hoped to see -- but did not feel what I had hoped to feel. I knew, of course, that I was on the land of the Menominee, but had failed to REALLY take into account that it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, my land. Because I am sympathetic to Native causes and may even have a drop of Native blood in my veins, I had supposed that my being on a land reserved for its original people would feel just fine. After all, I was entering with a degree of reverence, would take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints (and not MANY of either.) I sprinkled some tobacco which I'd brought along as a sort of spirit offering. It was not my first time on a reservation.

I think the difference, this time, was that I began to think about that word. "Reservation". Began to think about it not only as a prison where we hold people for the crime of being native, but as a tiny fragment of land reserved. For the people born to it.

Oh, I will still ignore "No Trespassing" signs most of the time, but I think when I'm on reservation land I will show the courtesy of asking my hosts' permission before wandering in as though I owned the place. I think I'll never hear "This land is your land, this land is my land," in quite the same way. This land is your land.

Forgive us our trespasses.

- Ralph Murre

Could Be (revised)

Now, don't think I've gone 'round the bend on ya, and don't be lookin' fer me down at Sunday go t' meetin'; but there COULD be angels, I guess. And I sure as hell am not sayin' there's a big G God out there, since I find it a lot easier to conceive of a lot of little g gods who don't get along very well. But when, I'm wondering, did I get so much smarter than all those people over the millenia who absolutely believed in SOMETHING in the way of a force or mind that occasionally, and maybe just for fun, screws around with our little, mortal mentalities. Oh, the true believers have done more out and out EVIL than an arena full of atheists could ever dream of, but hey, a very few of them aren't all bad. A few, even, are among my heroes -- consider the words of one of them now:

. . . I never believed in the presence of angels, but my dreams have changed . . . I asked him for one more moment of the dream, which gave me peace.

. . . Science is concerned to deprive us of illusions, though why it is eager to do so is unclear . . . What have they left us? Only the accountancy of a capitalist enterprise.

- Czeslaw Milosz, from his book SECOND SPACE

Incidentally, one of the angels in the photo above is my five year old granddaughter, who, upon returning home with her new costume said to her two-and-a-half year old brother, "I'll be an angel, and you can be Baby Jesus.", to which he replied, "No. I'm a snake." Clearly, both have inherited my genes.

Cinco at JJ's

cinco at jj's

looked a lot like this

but there were more people

and less who looked like hookers

and I weighed 50 pounds more

and the floor was not checkered

I guess

- rm

Criterion

Somewhere, there may be beauty

that is not a little sad;

but not in the ear of a poet,

not in the eye of an artist.

cedarwood

Don't know how I'll ever get a haiku right,

or how to know when I have.

Looking Up

I don't often present the work of others on this page, but I was just going through some of my Buenos Aires photos, when I remembered looking up to see the image shown above, which got me to looking up "Dorothy Parker", who is too little remembered by people of my generation, and even less by those younger. Things are looking up in the field of looking up: the Googlization of Dorothy yielded, among other things, these quotes:

A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.
Dorothy Parker
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
Dorothy Parker
I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.
Dorothy Parker
I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.
Dorothy Parker
I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it.
Dorothy Parker
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
Dorothy Parker
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
Dorothy Parker
The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant--and let the air out of the tires.
Dorothy Parker
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
Dorothy Parker

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Dorothy Parker, (attributed)
I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
Dorothy Parker, Here Lies (1939), "The Little Hours"
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
Dorothy Parker, 'But the One on the Right,' in New Yorker, 1929

Sadly, there was nothing listed for D RO HY PARKER . . .

- RM

the process

it ain't always pretty

unCONVENTIONal wisdom?

it looks like

I could drive

across the state

to be with poets

or stay home

and be a poet

- r.m.

shades

and look! there I am

with the other shades of blue

in your dark glasses

- arem

short stuff

So, I'm sitting in a coffee shop and minding my own business (as much as a writer can), when I have the great good fortune to recognize haiku master Jeffrey Winke, similarly minding his own business (as much as a writer can). We talk. I score his new broadside, That Smirking Face, AND his sensational new chapbook of sensual haiku, coquette. This, after many readings of his broader collection, what's not there. If you are at all a fan of the short stuff, you NEED these books! Visit http://www.jeffwinke.com/ and do whatever it takes to get them.

- RM

sputzies

the species of sputzies

(as the birds were known there)

would shit on your car,

would shit in your hair.

their music-less chirping

would go on all day,

as they'd perch in the barn

and shit in the hay.

the species of sputzies

(as english sparrows were called)

would shit in mid-air,

would shit on the bald.

we'd shoot 'em with bb's

and with slings and with arrows,

for we were young marksmen

and they were just sparrows.

the species of sputzies

(who just weren't very pretty)

were clouds over farms

and great swirls in the city.

they were good fun to shoot

and we had to learn killing,

for we'd enlist very soon

and we'd draft the unwilling.

the species of sputzies

(as we came home under flags)

still flew in great number

and we, in plain boxes,

slept underground slumber.

the hunted still fly

and the hunters still die,

and still,

the cold ground waits for summer.

- Ralph Murre

such a mourning

If it's Monday

I'll be reading some of my old, and much of my new stuff at Montello, Wisconsin Monday evening, April 7th at 7:00, to be followed by an open mike session in which you may be reading your stuff.

Montello Public Library
128 Lake Avenue

Be there, dammit!

After Word: My thanks, to the good people of Montello, who so warmly received me; for allowing me to stand for a few minutes in the shadows of John Muir and Aldo Leopold, and to speak my bit. -RM

and finally,

they were able to purchase
rooms and furniture so very large
that he and Eileen were small again,
and wished for someone
to tell them a story.

- RM

Try Again

from a photo by eddee daniel

photo property of Mary Durlin

We'll try again to have our poetry reading in Fond du Lac, the exceptional Mary Durlin and I, and we hope you'll be there. Originally scheduled for February, we had to cancel because of bad weather and other difficulties. So - this may be our last chance - Tuesday, April 1st, 7:00 PM, (promptly, we think) at The Windhover Center for the Arts, 51 Sheboygan Street, Fond du Lac.

An open mike session will follow the readings of the featured April Fools, so bring your stuff; let's see watcha got.

I'll Bet

I'll bet this hill looks the same

to casual observers in their casual shoes,

and the sun shines as before on their shrugging shoulders.

But here on the slope, where we rest in the shade,

and think about the progress we've made,

we see thickets and boulders

and the shining brow is so far, so far.

And the hill grows larger

and the day grows short

and my dear, you and I grow older.

- Ralph Murre

For the Season

Suffering in Translation

Ah, Spring . . . showers and flowers
birds and bees, motorcycles and
mercury rising and everything
flowing, flowing – sap and streams
and hormones and young men’s
fancies turning toward love and
some turning toward fancy young men
and Christ dieing on the cross
so we could be dying eggs of
fertility on the first Sunday
after the first full moon of spring
sing it with me – SPRING –
you know the tune – and rising again
to remind us to feel guilty forever
but he really was a nice
young man, fancy, I suppose
what with the halo and all but
when he said “suffer the little children”
I don’t think he meant it like that
I think it was more like allow
the little children ‘cause I got
some stories I wanna tell
- but you know how it goes when
you’re translating from Aramaic
into King James’ English – allow
the little children to hear the stories
and then stand back and allow
them their fancies and I really
don’t think he meant they should
suffer if some of their fancies
are different than yours or they’re
marching to the beat of other birds
and bees than you’re hearing ‘cause
if I’m wrong why would his
wise old Dad have created Spring?

- Ralph Murre 2006

published in Crude Red Boat, Cross + Roads Press

thought from the road

a haiku, you know

is not a bumper sticker

so much as a bump

- arem

Silhouette

in this late winter

more slippery than ever

walking on the edge

- arem

small town

their houses alike

a village where the road bends

and one another

- arem

Psalms!

O.K. This is me being proud and excited, announcing the publication of my second book, Psalms, in which I present a major poem in fifteen verses and a lot of new pen-and-ink drawings. Don't let the biblical reference of the title put you too far off - this book will likely offend the religious and the atheistic in equal measure. Or not - as early reactions from both seem pretty favorable. I hope the book will find a place on the shelves of art lovers as well as readers of poetry, and especially those of both factions who may appreciate a bit of homage to the beat generation.

So what's it cost, how can I get it, and etc.? The book will cost you a cool $12 bucks, American, plus $3 for shipping to anywhere in the world, I guess. Order from Little Eagle Press, 6016 Cave Point Drive, Sturgeon Bay, WI, USA, 54235 - or email me at littleeaglepress@gmail.com for details. If you want the poem (and a lot of other good lit.) without my art work for a little less money , contact "After Hours", a journal of Chicago writing and art, at http://www.afterhourspress.com/, and request a copy of the Winter 2008 issue.

March

old white-bearded man

dragging your feet through the fields

time for you to go

- arem

In The City

She was wide-eyed she said, from the country,

when in her first Chicago week

a neighbor lept from his tower

to find that he could not yet fly,

and her eyes narrowed a little, I suppose.

Not sure yet, if this is a poem, or the start of a poem, or no poem at all. It may be years before it comes back as a real poem, if it ever does. Such is the process with me. The story, by the way, is from Bronmin Shumway, one of the fine poets who I share space with in the latest issue of AFTER HOURS, a journal of Chicago writing and art.

Or maybe, it'll come back as a song -

Wide eyed she said, wide-eyed she came

to the city that scratched at the sky.

And a stranger jumped, as a stranger might,

some time in the night from his tower

to find that he could not fly.

Wide-eyed she said, wide-eyed she came

from somewhere in the sea of tall grass,

and I wonder now, as I see her smile,

if once in a while there are tears mixed in

as she looks through rain on the glass.

Wide-eyed she said, wide-eyed she came,

and a stranger jumped without leaving a name

in the city that scratched at the skies.

Be better to her, lofty city,

be better to the country lass.

Be better to her, mighty city,

do no more to narrow her eyes.

- Ralph Murre

Time Saver

Time Saver

A stitch in time – and then another
and pretty soon time is all sewn up;
holes patched with moments of distraction
and remnant ends of daydreams –
a catnap basted on over that rip
the vodka put in Saturday night –
a bit of needlework and dark thread
and the damned hole is darned
where some fool tried to save daylight.

Maybe there’s a way to reweave that tatter
you got crawling under the barbed wire
of religion’s prison-camp.
An immigrant sweat-shop sewing
fourteen hours a day might fashion
a garment to hide the amputation
of your high school years and,
if your timing’s right, you could mend
that time you tore from someone’s dream
when you wouldn’t believe.

Just you,
sitting on the calendar’s broad deck,
patching the sails of day after day
as the heave and the swell of
an ocean of years hisses by.

Just you,
putting another stitch in time.
Sewing a new watch-pocket
onto the long-legged
setting of the sun.

- Ralph Murre 2005

From Crude Red Boat, Cross + Roads Press

Don'tcha Ever Wonder About Dragons?

Ice Sculpture by Adrian Murre

Don'cha ever wonder about dragons up to their scaly knees in deep snow on Viking stavkirks, or dodging, in their serpentine way, the fireworks of a Shanghai parade, or gone all mossy somewhere in County Clare and the whole while trying to remain mythical as gods in science labs?

You have to wonder, don'tcha, about fire-breathing? About methane production and the chance of a spark before belching became boorish? About the odds of singeing a few ancients? I mean, you have to wonder, don'tcha?

And just because somebody finds their bones and calls them dinosaurs, doesn't mean you can't wonder.

- Ralph Murre

click on photo for detail

No Direction

no direction to the light

in this snowstorm in these woods

no strength for the shadow

no black for the crow

no color, but for this cardinal

balanced on a thin branch

- RM

something to crow about

I must say I like the flock I'm flying in over at

http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/something-to-crow-about/

oh, yeah

Movie Time

Scenario for a Short Film

Storm clouds part
As skiffs and scows
Ply their trade
Dotting this northern port

Messengers, sailing
Shore to shore
Through veils of mist
Sometimes appear

A piano is moved
To a house on the hill
And played by four hands
Who know it well

Chords of harmony float
To weathered docks below
Where old men tend the ships
That carry their hearts

Sweet berries ripen
In the brambled thickets
Of the hidden
And sheltered coves

While some wait there
And understand
The things that drift in
From open waters beyond

Nightfall reveals
Sistine constellation
Of outstretched fingers
Almost touching and

Those who watch the sky
Shake their heads, for
This is not the season
For these stars

- Ralph Murre 2005

Entangled In The Web

Today, as one of my friends celebrates the second anniversary of her blog, another celebrates the second day of hers. I'm very proud to know both of these good women, and to include them in the links from this page.

Sharon Auberle, with whom I've shared several publications, (most notable on-line: "Poetry Dispatch") has just wrapped up two years worth of one of the most beautiful things I've found in the width of the w w w, Mimi's Golightly Cafe. Sharon is the author of four books of poetry, and is working on the next. She's also an amazing artist and photographer.

Julie Eger has just begun her blog, Jukota's Place, but has not, by any means, just begun to write. Her poetry and prose have appeared in a number of high quality journals and she is the deserving winner of several sought-after awards for her work. I am honored to share space with Julie in the anthology Other Voices (Cross + Roads Press, 2007). I foresee great things in her blog.

Stop by and visit both - links appear on the right.

- RM

Aw, Maisy

Aw, Maisy

How do I know you
when you change so fast,
when you grow right past
the little girl you were
when last I looked?
What sort of chef cooked
this bubbling kettle,
what metal can be worked this way,
what clay can smile and joke?
What flesh and blood from mine
brings a bloom to bud,
a flower opening over mud?
Is this the part where I
compare you to a bird about to fly?
Am I too late? Can a grandfather
ever state how happy and sad
are stirred inside when
a bouncing kid begins to glide?
Grow, my dear one.
Take a hug, friend; a kiss.
You can write the end of this,
I think. You can write the end.

- Grandpa Ralph

HOLD EVERYTHING!

Sad to say, we are cancelling tonight's Fond du Lac reading due to predicted foul weather, the loss of Mary D.'s voice, and the loss of an acquaintance in an accident on last night's slippery roads. We will try to reschedule for April 1st.

Stay home, do a little reading, do a little writing, hold someone you love.

- Ralph

Landscape

again

across those far hills

when too close closes in

again

- RM

Out There

It's all out there,
you just never know.

arem