cool

of dark and light

these days of days

growing short

of lengthening night

and northbound shadow

this last-resort aster's bloom

an evening chill

---

the cool room

the cool room

the unfamiliar room

---

these blue walls

-ralph murre

Paradise Post

a dog is barking

impressions of paradise

crow and jay agree

- arem

From My Window

A young girl half-runs down this street
without sidewalks.
She sobs as she goes, a dark cloud
belying the sunshine color
of her dress. She is gone
but the street is damp with tears.
An old man prays for daughters
he never fathered.
Night is coming with its accusations,
morning with its forgiveness
and street sweepers.

- Ralph Murre

" prose invents -- poetry discloses" - Jack Spicer

In Labor

In Labor

So they let you off for Labor Day,
like the 4th, like Memorial day,
and you have a coupla beers and
you char something on the Weber,
maybe listen to a ballgame,
your team still in the cellar.
Your cousin Bob comes over
with his face-lifted tit-lifted wife
and the Gameboy twins.
Nobody talks about labor except
that of delivering the twins
and there's some talk of her working
on her tan.
Your dad was in the strike of '52.
They drive a new Infiniti. It's gray.
Also the big one in '56. All summer.
You pick some tomatoes and corn
from the garden. Get salt and pepper.
They talk about the food
at Aquavit and Blu.
Your grampa rode the rails
in '35 and '36, stole chickens.
They have to go. Country Day School
starts tomorrow.
Your gramma was in labor
in the back of a Ford in '38.
There's a union man talking in the park
just a block away. Nobody listening.
A skateboard goes by.
The plant will close in 3 weeks.
You fall asleep in a plastic chair
from China, a little tomato juice
on your chin, a lazy fly circling.

- Ralph Murre

islands

in this gleaming cove

don't they appear quite certain

those two little islands?

- arem

sea story

funny, but
on the sunny
on the sunny
siding of the sea
you & me & jib &
gollywobbler set & filled
skimmy over skimmy
over wavy under-sea
a second story
and the roary wind
a blowin'
t'gallant ribbons
blue like prizes
all the sizes are assorted
on the foamy and the briney
and the tiny tiny ocean
'neath the keel.
a feelin' of a breeze
and of jesus on the seas
salts & tars awatchin' stars
and aprayin' on their knees
and the ladders to the pulpits
climbed by climby climby culprits
always gettin' closer to the top.
& the masthead's cuttin' slices
in the blue of skyward ices
and how nice is baggywrinkle
from the sternpost to the sprit?
the dark is darkly comin'
and the white foam is afoamin'
and the roamin' are ahummin'
of the comin' of a storm
in the early bleary bleary
and they're gettin kinda teary
in their warnings
in their warnings.
and the morning's comin' red
and the sailors in their dread
are eatin' weevily rations
and their passion's
are awaitin'
in the crusted shoreside bars
and the stars are twinkly twinkly
and the ink is flowin' wrinkly
on the tinkly tinkly page
as the sage is keepin' quiet
about the diet and the grog
and i watch it all a happenin'
in a puddle on the bog.

- ralph murre

far from home?

# 300

Here I am, posting to this blog for the three-hundredth time. Perhaps it is appropriate that this is a moment at which my life has taken a turn and I will be without my regular internet connection for a while. I will still try to post, when I can, from some other locale, but I'm afraid I won't be able to include any visual images for now. Maybe it will make a better writer of me. When I began this endeavor, I had no idea where I'd go with it, and still don't ~ but if you take a look back through the archives, I think you'll agree that we've come this far along an interesting path.

in the mail box

just a postcard

with no picture

- Ralph Murre

Enough?

a shanty

big enough to write

a river

- arem

About Hidden Things

It's the way you could no longer

hear the train on its rails

in the far off of the night

and the rain, it's the way

the rain sounded on that roof,

cooling summer.

It's the book you'd start again

each time, 'til you'd sleep.

It's the way you could sleep.

It's the way rusted iron

and old boards hid things.

It's about hidden things,

I'm pretty sure, and the way

you wanted to show somebody

the bright thing you found,

the way you were sure you could

fix it up and make it work again

and the way you thought you might.

Or,

it may be about hearing another train

at first light.

***

- Ralph Murre

A Day In July

A Day in July

Why do I think of you two, now?
This hot day and your bones in cool loam
so long, it seems.
You, twins and I, a third musketeer
as we careened
through hot summers before.
Working . . . drinking.
You taking me from white bread
to fry bread.
I hear the council drum.
Working . . . drinking.
It’s concrete work. Building a bridge.
Old man Bultman driving us like slaves
that summer hot as this.
Working . . . drinking. Week-end
pow wow at Shawano and I, dating your sister.
Your dad, old Esau, quiet.
Liking me O.K., ‘til then.
And my ma - looking pretty liberal, ‘til then.
And me, backing off.
Less work . . . less drink . . . less sister.
And she to Alaska and you
working . . . drinking –
earning so early your places to settle down
in the cool of the earth.
And I,
unable to hear the drum,
do not weep.

- Ralph Murre 2005

from Crude Red Boat, Cross + Roads Press 2007

of pick-ups and prostheses

It’s not like I know you or anything,
but right now, I’ll bet you’re hoping
this is going to be the kind of poem
that talks about riding in the back
of my daddy’s Ford pick-up,
or the kind of poem that’s
about the peculiar odor
of my maiden aunt’s bedroom.
I’ll bet you’re really hoping
this will be about the way
autumn leaves remind me
of love in the woods, or
the way lying in a hammock
with you would be perfect (but, as I said.
it’s not like I know you or anything).
And, ohmygod, I’ll bet
you’re really, really hoping
this is NOT a poem about
the horrors of war, because
where in the hell is the poem in that?
Perhaps you’re hoping
it won’t be a poem at all,
maybe it will be a church bulletin
or a discount store flyer and
maybe it won’t be the poem
that mentions wars
and death and bad presidents
and shining prostheses.

Maybe, sometime,
it won’t be that poem.

- Ralph Murre

Overwhelmed

Got Away

Pretty Sure

Like any other fisherman
in a schnapps and Blue Ribbon bar
by the river,
he talks of the one he couldn’t catch -
a girl elusive as Dolly Varden trout.
He spends his pension on bourbon
and Budweiser, corners who he can,
tells of the one who broke the surface
in a silver rainbow spray
and got away,
the arc of her flight still in his eye,
the hook still in the angler’s mouth
as he watches the sidewalk stream,
praying for one more glimpse,
pretty sure she’s not a fish story
told in a bar by the river
with dull-eyed trophies on its walls.
Pretty sure she’s still in these waters.

- Ralph Murre

in the garden

these dark blooms

past, present and future

the circling bee

- arem

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