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

Big Deals

Big Deals

one . . . two, I suppose
thirteen . . . sixteen . . . eighteen
twenty-one . . . sixty five
and, I imagine, one hundred
one hundred and anything

~ RM

Pablo, old friend

pablo picasso, 1937

On Picasso's

Weeping Woman

with Handkerchief

-

Pablo, old friend -

You've given her eyes to cry,

but can she see?

You've given her a mouth to wail,

But can she sing?

You've given her pain;

did she give you pleasure?

-

~ Ralph Murre

-

first published in Hummingbird

bang!

Part of the Deal

was that you owed a good death.
Whether you were a good guy
or not, you had to die right.
If I came out from behind
something and pointed my finger
and said bang! before you did
and cried gotcha, you might
say no y’didn’t or gotcha
first y’dirty Nazi,
but in the end, we all had to die
with awful groaning and kicking
and many spasms and rolling
back of eyeballs and ultimately,
as anybody who’s ever seen
a dead guy knows, the tongue
must protrude, skewed
from a corner of the bluish lips.
And then, you had to stay
really still and painfully contorted
‘til you got bored and came back
to fight again or play red rover.
But it was not part of the deal
in the bang-you’re-dead wars
of South Sixth Street
that you got your balls shot off
or came back to play
wheelchair red rover.
Nobody on our street said
bang-you’re-screwed-up-for-life
the way it happened when some
of us fought on other streets.
No amputees on Sixth.
No psych ward on Ohio Avenue.

- Ralph Murre

"Part of the Deal" was first published in The Cliffs Soundings and has subsequently appeared in my book Crude Red Boat (Cross+Roads Press) and in Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine.

A Note From the Orbit

spinning but not

out of control

another planet

circling

in the long night

~ arem

This is now included in Henry Denander's cool new mail art site; http://hankdmailart.blogspot.com/

what path?

clues, that's all we get

no arrow pointing to the path

no path, really

maybe the trace of a footprint

in dust

maybe bent blades of grass

a disturbance of dew

and a lingering doubt:

did the ones we follow

know the way

or were they lost, too?

~ rm

Java

Do yourself a favor, and become acquainted with the excellent blog, Coffee Spew, (http://coffeespew.wordpress.com/). While you're there, of course, I really hope you'll take a look at the review (http://coffeespew.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/psalms/) coffee-baron Robert Wake has written of my book, Psalms, which is still very available from Little Eagle Press. Reviewers of poetry books rarely receive the thanks they deserve for contributing, as they do, to a discussion of the state of poetry; which I believe is, in a word, thriving. So thank you, Bob, not only for words of praise, but for bothering with words at all.

Incidentally, the webpage for Psalms is http://lileaglepsalms.blogspot.com/ , and you'll find ordering information there.

northeast

a pasture of horses

like weather vanes this morning

all looking downwind

presenting round rumps

to the cold northeast

~ rm

Buoyancy

Yes, I'm aware that it's nowhere near "Thanksgiving", the day that is, with the capitol T, but it feels like a good time to offer a few words of appreciation anyway, to those that have given me the much needed buoyancy which got me through the winter, that dark season that tries to sink me. My friends, and you know who you are, both close at hand and far removed, have pulled me up time and again, and so has this peninsula, the home of my heart, the home of my bones. I give thanks daily for this place - its woods, its shores, a Great Lake, eagles, swans, coyotes, and crows - yet my thanks don't seem enough. We who live here pay a price, to be certain, in diminished earning potential, in high-priced goods, and in distances traveled to obtain certain bits of what we feel we need, but we reap a harvest of riches, too; dividends that feed the soul in a way very few places can, I think, and dividends that most people in cities not so far away are willing to pay dearly to try to grab a share of.

I can think of nothing better to say than simply, thank you, once again, to my friends and to my watery little corner of Earth, for getting me through to another Spring.

~ RM

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

O.K., O.K., the poem's a rerun; having appeared on this site before, and originally in the excellent but now defunct Cliffs Soundings, but the drawing is new!

As a Clam

What is it,
don't you sometimes wonder,
that keeps clams so happy?
The ocean view?
Quiet neighbors?
Or is clamming-up
its own reward, lost on poets?
A friend clammed-up
some years ago,
or got clammed-up by A.L.S.,
that condition of Gehrig and Hawking,
that robber of muscle control,
that creator of clams.
Maybe the happiness of clams
comes from silent acceptance
of what the sea brings,
but that's hard for humans.
Wordless so long,
our friend climbed from his clamshell
the other day, and flew.
Here on the bottom,
we'll look to the sky
and watch for him,
finally soaring.

~ RM

In memory of Jeff Kaufman, who clammed-up only vocally, but continued to speak by whatever means available. Please learn just a little about this quiet hero at:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/obituaries/87541862.html

details

detail - louis sullivan

i forget now

dont you

if its the devil

or the divine

that dwells in details

they look a lot alike

hiding in history

sweating small stuff

- r m

Just a note to say ( or brag) that my poem, "The Way the Light Shines", appears on Poetry Dispatch, in an article honoring Linda Aschbrenner and her 100 (!) issues of Free Verse, and Sarah Busse and Wendy Vardaman, who have taken up the reins of its reincarnation, Verse Wisconsin. Have a look at http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/linda-aschbrenner-verse-wisconsin-issue-101-winter-2010/

Seeds

(c) Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

all these people

over the road

but in this garden

just one

with his thoughts

~ arem

All Right

I can take you to houses of housebreakers
and homes of homewreckers.
I can take you to the edge of the sea.
I can show you where to sleep under bridges
and tell you not to.
I know 28 ways to get warm,
but none work.
I can sing the first lines of songs
and hum what hasn't been heard yet.
I can show you a billion stars
and name three.
You can show me dancers
called Staci or Wanda or Michel.
You can take me to that little place you know
with good chili. And cornbread.
I can tell you how all of this looks
from over there. Or up there.
We can drink with abject objectionists
and stand out among insiders.
You can take me to Green Mountains
and Death Valleys.
You can show me
the red-rimmed eyes of believers,
show me where they've knelt
before high priests and loan officers.
We can dance in circles.
You can take me wading
in the deep end of the pool,
swimming in fresh dew on the lawns
of the desert and the deserted.
We can be quiet as Quakers
as we meet with madmen.
You can tell me everything,
or at least something, will be all right.
I can believe you.

~ Ralph Murre

That first line was prompted by, which is to say stolen from, Alexander McCall Smith.

Go Figure

But, Daddy . . .

Murre, DeGenova, Rossiter, Koehler

But Daddy, I can't sleep . . . are you SURE there are no poets living in our town? Maybe even right here on our street? What does a poet actually look like, Daddy? Pretty scary, I bet.

No Dreams?

. . . and those people who don't believe in gods . . .

do they never dream then?

Plastic Ekphrastic Post#400

Wassily Kandinsky

On Kandinsky's "Painting with Red Spot" 1914

In this grey

Great Lake

February

Wassily

how I long

for color

the flame

gold blue

blooming orchard

amber field

U.F.O.

red spot

sailor's warning

sunrise

orange mountain

terror

of your painting

But Wassily

to be fair

sometimes

it's O.K.

for me

to be here

you there

~ Ralph Murre

Yes, this is my 400th post to this site. And , this would be a great spot for me to say something rather profound. No such luck. I thought a little about trying to tie this into "The 400", meaning, I guess, the elite of society, but I am obviously in no position to speak on that subject. Then I thought about the Chicago & Northwestern's "400", the crack passenger train that traveled, I believe, from Chicago to Minneapolis in 400 minutes, which is still a rather enviable speed, but I realize that speed records have not much to do with this blog nor with my life in general. So, after my first 400 posts, I will simply say Thank You to those several of you have followed along, and I'll say that I hope to continue, in my not-so-elite and not-so-speedy way, to lay a few thoughts before you.

sketchbook

Postcard

From Paradise

This minaret of dolomite, cold-water flat, artist’s garret of a peninsula appended to the broad side of my state, this bit of rock with life oozing from every fissure holds my heart, holds my thoughts, carries my prayers. Floats body and mind from fertile farms and second cities, away, into the cool of the lake. Here, to be a member in good standing of sunrise and set, to be part of rainbow’s arc and thunderhead’s roll.

Here, too, the rush of commerce, the haul-it-in, haul-it-out retailing of the gross world product in the shapes of lighthouses, gull-like geegaws and fishing boat fol-de-rol. Lodgers in plaid shorts replace loggers in plaid shirts. Where cedars live on rock and hope, and trilliums announce the season, signs of spring also include “for sale”, “private beach”, and “own the dream”. We’ll each buy an acre and mark its corners with bright ribbons, to show one another where the dream ends.

in a leaking boat
someone from paradise
rowing hell-bent

- Ralph Murre

first published, in this form, online at Haibun Today