Going Taupeless

Spring is officially here. Isn't it time you painted something? And by "paint", I don't mean beige, taupe, or ecru. A bolder shade of gray. Paint comes in colors, too. Real colors. Isn't your neighbor vacationing this week? Wouldn't this be the time to start? His house or yours.

~ arem

'88

From that granite you might have used
to mark my gravesite, carve instead a
short column too small to support your
carefully balanced weights of worry,
carve an orb to bowl over the top-heavy
tenpins of your fear, or just chip away
at that stone in your search for truth,
‘til only gravel remains. Scatter it along
the path you walk each day, and that
little pain in your heel can be in memory
of me. It is as much truth as I know.

~ Ralph Murre

Dream On

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

In the spirit of Good Used Poems, here's an old one, previously published in Soundings, in Clark Street Review, and in Crude Red Boat (Cross+Roads Press)

Going Down With the Ship

What unreliable vehicles are poems. Even the great ones rarely take you where you want to go. Poet and reader alike can only sit idly by, hoping for the best. I suppose the reader can jump ship though, at the first sign of trouble, while the writer, like the good captain, must ride her down. ~ RM

March Fourth

Remind me -- what classic text was it, that in part read,

". . . and we'll march forth, trailing arbutus behind us . . ." ?

~ RM

Just Moonlight

The moonlight behind the tall branches
The poets all say is more
Than the moonlight behind the tall branches.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .~ Fernando Pessoa

It is just moonlight, there
as a god is just a god
a hummingbird just that
with its ruby throat
tall branches not really
reaching for the sky
just the moonlight, there

. . . . . .~ Ralph Murre

My thanks to poet Barbara Larsen, who passed along the Pessoa quote.

Oscar

Joan, Juliie, and Juliette

There doesn’t seem to be a major award ceremony
for best daydreaming,
though I imagine long limos
and carpets in the streets
and, perhaps, Juliette Binoche
confidently holding my elbow.
As the giddy reporters recede
and camera men are beaten back,
( I modestly assume they’re focused on Juliette)
we settle into the thick plush
of the multi-tiered theater and
anxiously await Best Performance
in a Leading Role; Domestic Daydream,
Comic or Tragic; Male.
I am, of course, honored simply
to be mentioned in the same breath
as my rivals, and Sam Shepard
and Penelope Cruz hand me
the weighty statuette. Penelope, in congratulation,
( and a see-through gown cut down to here)
kisses me for an embarrassingly long time
which makes Juliette frightfully jealous
and I am speechless, except to thank
Walt Whitman and Mohandas Gandhi
and no one can explain why
Joan Baez and Julie Christie
rush the stage before I can be led off
to safety where I find that
I am in a laundromat;
driers slowly turning,
a light rain tapping the window.

~ Ralph Murre

previously published in Wisconsin People and Ideas

this rose

the day is gone

a garden of flowers closing

but still, this rose

~ arem

Will and Testament

Will and Testament

They’ll need to know this much – the two strong sons –
to know what, beside their flesh and progeny, I leave.
The jack pines I planted, I’ll tell them,
over a half-century old, those that survived
the first summer. It was dry.
But they’re sold with the ground
that holds your grandparents’ ash, I’ll tell them.
There are the boats I built, I’ll tell them,
the green-painted boats. But those are sold too,
I’ll tell them, with the sunlight on the bay.
And the houses, I’ll say, drawn and built
by these hands. And yours, I’ll proudly add.
Sold now, but think of the times we had.
The roof-beams and hell we raised.
And the poems, I’ll say, here are the poems.
Couldn’t sell those, I’ll tell them truthfully,
or give them away. Here – I’ve books of them, Boys.
Thin books, it’s true, with few words,
but they’re like new. Here are the poems.

~ Ralph Murre

Self-Portrait as Cliff-Diver

Self-Portrait as Cliff-Diver

you've seen our brass and bronze
plummeting
to the sea
our naked intention
that long leap from the known world
into her unknown arms
you've seen us climbing back
facing the edge
startling
all over again

~ Ralph Murre

SECOND REWRITE: the storyteller

FIRST REWRITE (rewritten) Well, O.K. SECOND REWRITE:
So I'm laid up a little, you might say, since I scuffled some with Eldred comin' outa Buddy G's 'round closing, what with the ice on the walk & all. Now, Eldred's a kind of an ass, but ever since Fat Allen's got missin' somewheres, he's the only one of 'em left, 'cept for Bickner. So Eldred feels kinda bad 'bout gettin' the best a me, or somethin', an he comes up t' my flat, gets me some supper. Brings pints of peppermint & blackberry. That's how y' know he feels bad or he'd a just brung Aristocrat. That's what he gen'ly drinks, cuz he thinks the name of it puts him somewheres in the upper crust. He even asked Little Bickner t' come over & that's who we figured it was at the door, thank y' Jesus, cuz Eldred's bin tellin' me some kinda tale ain't got no end to it at all, see?
He comes back in the room an' "Hey," he sez, "what was at th' door," he sez, "it ain't Lil Bickner, it was Magdalene. She sez come right now, Lil Bickner's hurtin' some. So I'll jez finish my story an' we . . ."
Well, I can't hardly say nothin'. but I'm tryin' to rise up from outa my chair, tryin' t' get Charlie L.'s old cane, what I won offa him, under me. Eldred sees I'm aimin' to go. ". . . yeah, but my story," he sez, "now where was I?"
"What happened to Little Bickner?!!!" I sez, in that kinda way where y' could see I wasn't just askin' t' pass the time.
"Oh, I dunno, Ralph" he comes back at me as he sits him down in that lazy boy I bought offa Suzy when Fat Allen got missin', "somethin' 'bout down th' block, somethin' 'bout that crazy fella down there, but hey, that ain't my story . . . doncha wanna hear th' end to my story? It's just Magdalene at th' door, it ain't Lil Bickner, an b'sides," he sez, "his story's bout over, sounds like."
Well, I can't get the damn cane under me nohow, so I settle back down. Pour me a little bitta that blackberry.

~ Ralph Murre

THE ORIGINAL:
hey
what was at the door
it ain't Little Bickner
it was Magdalene
she says come right now
Little Bickner's hurtin some
so I'll finish my story an we . . .
yeah but my story
now where was I?
oh I don't know
somethin bout down the block
that crazy fella
but hey that ain't my story
doncha wanna hear th'end
to my story?
just Magdalene at the door
it ain't Little Bickner
an b'sides his story's bout over
sounds like

Not a dream, exactly, but having just fallen asleep, I woke at two o'clock with this little monologue running around my head. I jotted it down exactly as I saw it, heard it, and went right back to sleep. I have no idea who these characters are, but if you know anyone named Magdalene and Little Bickner, you might want to look in on them this morning. ~ Ralph Murre

29

29 days, on a good year,

and there are so few.
Rhode Island of months,
but big enough
for the long shadows of ground hogs,
the scarlet heart of love,
the big, fat Tuesday before the lean
- big enough –
for the full face of the moon
to smile over at the climbing sun
- big enough –
to allow hope and to start seeds on window sills
- just the right size –
to stand between two-faced January
and surly March
- just the sort –
to shine a bit more light
into a dark corner
while trying to straighten out the mess
the others have made of the calendar,
as sap dreams toward upper branches,
and saps like me, toward spring.

- Ralph Murre

first published in the Wisconsin Poets' Calendar, a few years back

Something New, Something Old

Little Eagle's RE / VERSE

A poet wonders; after the little mag publication, after the chap book is misplaced, after the anthology is relegated to the back stack of the university library, who will ever see my poem again? My Little Eagle Press has just begun a new website to extend the lives of those forgotten poems. Only previously published work will be posted, only some of the best work of some of the best poets operating today. The site is just beginning on its mission, but you'll get an idea of how good it's gonna be by looking at what's already at http://littleeaglereverse.blogspot.com . Come back often. I think this one will find a place on your favorites list. You'll always be able to get there from the links list at this blog, too. ~RM

Fishing

In this strangest of all winters here in Wisconsin, where there is very thin ice indeed, at a time when it should be solid and safe, I drag out this piece I wrote back in '06:

Northern

I lead you out onto these preliminary lines
like an old fishing buddy
walking on the season’s first thin ice,
unsure we won’t slip beneath the surface,
gulping at the depth,
but certain this is the day for keepers,
gleaming in cold silver and gulping, too,
as they slip into the sky above their homes.
I coax you toward the center of this verse,
towing tools of the trade in a little sledge
that follows on faith,
bore a hole through the fragile freeze
where we wait, shiver, wait.
I try simile, metaphor, then rhyme for bait
and I talk of patience
and barely notice the nibbling of a thought,
now hooked and struggling liquid,
muscle and tooth and blood
this idea, hungry, as a lover takes a lure,
a snap, a relaxing,
and it’s swimming free –
this thing I’ll never grasp –
hooks torn from its legendary flesh,
laughter from its lips.

Smile at me, swimmer, smile at me.

~ Ralph Murre

And this morning, reading from Pablo Neruda's Memoirs, I came upon this paragraph, about a time he spent in Russia:
"The work of writers, I say, has much in common with the work of these Arctic fishermen. The writer has to look for the river, and if he finds it frozen over, he has to drill a hole in the ice. He has to have a good deal of patience, weather the cold and the adverse criticism, stand up to ridicule, look for the deep water, cast the proper hook, and after all that work, he pulls out a tiny little fish. So he must fish again, facing the cold, the water, the critic, eventually landing a bigger fish, and another and another."

BUILT

BUILT
(the song of an ancient architect)

Now that I’ve drawn the dreams, driven the stakes
destroyed deserts by division and development
crammed construction into corn-fields
built boxes in bean-fields
Now that I’ve penned the plans, fucked-up the forests
for fortune and foreclosure, plundered prairies
for profit, lost the lakeshores
Now that I’ve cantilevered cabins over cliffs and
hurried highways into hinterlands
Now that I’ve populated the pines
and peopled the pristine
Now that I’ve roofed-over the rural
Now that I’ve floored-over the flood-plain
Now that I’ve blueprinted the Blue Ridge
Now that my pencil
Now that my client
Now that the mortgage
Now that the bank
Now that the zoning
Now that the economy’s in the tank
Now that your hopes are diminished
May I rest? Am I finished?

~ Ralph Murre

Attempted Allegory

Aids to Navigation

On a fog-bound beach, a man teaching a boy to skip stones. And on the Western Sea, the elders looking back to this featureless shore where they hoped we would build beacons, where they hoped we would build fires in the night. Those voyagers, their little boats bobbing, cannot find the way back to the safe harbor of our Turtle Island. Something about ancient lessons, distant stars, something about mystery always repeating itself. The dusk is here. Oh, Mother, come back, I will build a tall lighthouse. Oh, Father, steer this way. And Son, skip your pebble well. Mark a channel for me if I should sail the Western Sea.

~ Ralph Murre

The photo is a detail from a bronze sculpture I saw in Buenos Aires. I do not know the artist. It seems, somehow, to work with this little poem. ~ RM

Its Flavor

There used to be a popular, but bizarre song which asked, "Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?" Well, in recent excavations here at the old Murre digs, I came across the little poem shown above, which was written quite awhile back, on the inside of a chewing gum package, which must have been the only paper in my pocket at the time. For me, it doesn't seem to have lost its flavor. ~ RM

Look!

Look! Out there –

just at the horizon -
the ship that carries everything
I hope for
and everything I dread.
That slow ship
that was just a dot
in the mist
seems to head this way
with the wind at her back.

~ Ralph Murre

Between

deep in the glen of winter
somewhere between this year
and that, a quiet chuckling
as clever time and stream
mock the fury of man
and permanence of rock
the joke they share
takes forever to tell
but there's no hurry

~ ralph murre

Just Because

Because they're young and short
and in parents' old robes,
are they less wise, these travelers?
Because her wings are cardboard
and a stepladder holds her aloft,
is she not an angel?
Because the star is of gilded paper,
is this not Christmas?

- Ralph Murre