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