water's edge

long in its cradle

a weathered boat on the hard

a weathered sailor-man

on a green-painted bench

red sun in the west

~ arem

Brief Article

found on the web, artist unknown

A Brief Article on Articles in Haiku

by Ralph Murre

(in response to a question raised by CX Dillhunt)

in the poem   the short-

est of the shortest short poems

is there room for the

Ides of August

end-of-summer sky

we call out names of those stars

close enough to hear

~ arem

Fishermen and Poets

Against the Wall 

Like the beaded-pine wainscot

of his backwoods tavern, up north,

Clarence has darkened over the years,

hearing the lies of fishermen and poets;

the truths of hunters, fresh from the kill.

He’s been scarred by bar fights and carelessness, but

cleaned up and preserved by Irene,

who sees past his rough edges.

What’ll happen, he worries,

when the shot-and-a-beer woodsmen are gone,

when the kids want him to replace his old jukebox,

want him to replace the music of his life ?

Like his old paneling,

he may be replaced, too - by some modern miracle  -

shining and impervious.

Until then, he watches and listens;

soaking it up, gaining color - and

telling his stories under a flickering beer sign:

a bear in a canoe, going with the flow.

~ Ralph Murre

In looking at some old poems, I came across this one, written in 2004, and which appeared in my first collection, Crude Red Boat (Cross + Roads Press). There are a few from that era that I still like.

Preview

Here's an excerpt from something I'm working on:

. . . you have to know that in that time and place, they were Ma and Pa.  Most everybody's parents, unless they were thought to be putting on airs, were Ma and Pa.  Baths were taken on Saturday nights.  You went to church on Sunday mornings.  Yes you did.  Public schools were mostly walked to, had one classroom and two outhouses.  Catholic kids, though, were most likely to go to St. Michael's.  Several rooms.  Indoor plumbing.  Hail Mary, full of mackerel.  We all got along fine and settled minor differences with fistfights.

   In our little school, Miss Nedra Quartz held sway over the eight grades, or as many grades as had students in a given year.  She was it.  Teacher, nurse, theatrical director, janitorial overseer (we kids were the janitors), cop.  Palest woman I ever saw, when she wasn't red with rage, which was fairly often.
   And yes, we did walk to school.  Just a mile and a half for me, through snow and rain and dazzlements of all sorts, for a few years.  Then, Miss Quartz's brother bought a station wagon which became our schoolbus.  Comfy, but without dazzlement.  Unheard now, the curses of blackbirds, the scat-song blessings of bob-o-links.  Un-sniffed, the  wild roses in fencerows, as we traveled the graveled and dusty distance in a wood-sided Ford, assuming everybody in the whole world liked DDE, DDT, and Wonder Bread . . .     ~ Ralph Murre

ZERO

Imagine my surprise, when in a shameless act of self-googlization, I learned that I do not exist. Not in these United States. 0 people named Ralph Murre. Which I take to mean "zero". But it might be O, I suppose. As in "Oh, people named Ralph Murre, why are you here, googlizing, when you could be sitting on the terrace of some pleasant taverna overlooking the sea, writing the poems that would save the world?" Alas, no, all I can see is zero. A circle of nothing. It gives me pause . . .

on this hillside

where blossoms have drifted

we wait for fruit

~ Ralph Murre (?)

Question:

from a photo by eddee daniel

when a poet

attempts to be a painter, too

how can he afford

all those shades of blue?

~ arem

Hunger Games

so much to observe

so much to comment upon

must he also eat?

~ arem

The Thing About Steel

The freighter American Spirit was in port here for repairs lately, and seeing her proud name rusting away seemed to cry out for some sort of Independence Day comment, some little State of the Union report. I think the ill-kept stern of the ship provided a fine digital blackboard and a fine metaphor.     ~ R.M.

Insel und Halbinsel

a peninsula, it doesn't matter which one

a ferry boat at the end of it

the island of last chances out there somewhere

at the ticket office, a long queue

~ ralph murre

Confronting the Big Guys

A book I'm reading says the Buddha talks about four qualities of horses: the excellent horse, who moves upon merely seeing the shadow of the whip; the good horse that runs upon feeling the lightest touch of the whip; the poor horse, which doesn't go until it feels pain; and the very worst horse doesn't budge until the pain penetrates to the very marrow of its bones. What the hell kind of buddha would say such a thing? These may be qualities of horses as seen by the cart-driver, as though the only reason to be a horse is to serve man. What does the Buddha know about being a horse? Old Arem feels that among horses, the most revered is doubtless the mustang, the wild cayuse running free, while the hardest-working Dobbin is probably thought to be the biggest fool. An even bigger fool, though, might be a person who without question follows any man-god-myth, whether the Big G., the Big A., the Big B., or whomever.   ~ RM

Arem's Thought for the Day

Of course, the "coexist" bumper sticker is the property of someone else, some genius, somewhere. One of my very favorite things.  I hope my satirical addition to the icon is slightly offensive, but not outright illegal. If it's yours, your lawyers can contact me at the address listed elsewhere on this site. Perhaps we'll coexist in copyright court.   ~ RM

No Colossus

Just knocked out a little oil painting I thought you might like to see. Each year, The Hardy Gallery, situated in an old warehouse on the Anderson Dock, which projects out into Eagle Harbor at Ephraim, Wisconsin, sponsors a project wherein a couple hundred of us do work on 6" x 6" canvasses which are then assembled into a community mosaic, which is displayed for a while, then disassembled with the individual pieces going to buyers from near and far. The trick is that the buyer has no idea which piece he or she will receive.
For an inspiration for my piece, I was thinking about some of the classic sculptures located in harbors, and thought I'd paint something based on one of them. Which would be fitting for Ephraim? The Colossus of Rhodes? Nah, a bit grandiose. The Statue of Liberty? Hmmm . . . maybe. Then I hit upon it. The Little Mermaid? YES. She fits. 
By the way, don't get creeped-out by her flesh tones, she's bronze, OK?
It sure was fun to drag out my oils, which I hadn't seen for about five years.    ~ Ralph Murre

what she's having

who’s counting

six times in the course of a conversation

overheard at the sandwich shop

a woman exclaimed o my god

which is more often

than I’ve encountered that phrase

in my several courtships and marriages

so much is in the presentation

of sandwiches and things

~ Ralph Murre

Promises

   What shall I promise?

   Myself?

   Then what shall I promise

   Myself?

   I could promise

                                                    Not to promise

                                                    Myself.

   But I’ve broken

                         so

                         many

                         promises.

                         - Ralph Murre

While I'm fond of saying that I began writing in 1999, it's not quite true, since this one, recently unearthed, is from 1986. Lost forever, I hope, are a few pieces from the early sixties.  ~ R.M.

Bound for Glory

Bound for Glory

this train of black boxcars

     raining

this rain on the too thin roof

this black boxcar blue

this graffiti blue

this hue of spray-can

this spray-can’t

     sign of times

this sign of signing

     this singing     this song

  along the rails     this wailing

of a failing America

(or is this how it works?)

this boxcar with my name on it

this train of our names

this signing

this signature

this bounced check

this stacked deck

this black cloud thunder

     under

this trestle as long as a life

this train

            this ride

                       this other side

~ Ralph Murre

hear it?

the deafening weight of disappointment

the inaudible lightness of hope

a faint sound of lifeboats rusting

and from somewhere

an orchestra, laughter, dancing

~ ralph murre

White Bike at the Cross + Roads

Mentor to the midwest and publisher of Cross + Roads Press, Norbert Blei, recently sponsored a little event in the competitive sport of poetry writing, through his excellent Poetry Dispatch . Spur-of-the-moment, drop what you're doing and write a poem.  You can have a look at the results in his two most recent posts, "The White Bicycle" and "The White Bicycle II".  Some very good work here, and I'm happy to say that while my little piece didn't make the podium, it landed squarely among the best of the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time poems.  Good enough.  Here it is:

her white bicycle

the way she rode it

as much on clouds

as on concrete

as much from as toward

on a pavement of dream

the way I saw or didn't see

the way it didn't seem

she any longer needed me

to run along beside

the way the ride then

circled back in setting sun

the thing about a cycle

is the way it'll repeat

her white bike may come back

may lean up

again against my shack

who knows when a cycle

or circle is complete?

~ Ralph Murre

Blue Traveler

Steady, As Water

spring ice-out

the long lingered goodbye-ing

dusky dockside bar

Through air the color of the pigeons swimming in it (sulfur, foundry, tannery, coalpile, salt) and light as much from furnaces as from fluorescence in this backwater corner of a blackwater harbor, drunk with old wine and new love, the second mate swings up on deck; sleeps there. Tomorrow, there’ll be a farther horizon and, perhaps, a soaring bird without a name.

port-of-call

two perfumed letters

one from his wife

Sparse beard, watch-cap affectation, misfit among misfits, trickless coyote, would-be lone wolf, would-be sea dog; living and hating his dream, loving and hating its crew.  A woman here and there.  The threat of security, the security of the unknown.  Another day on the inland sea.  Another season.  The laughing gulls circling.

winter lay-up

irregular gait of sailors

friendly front street pub

~ Ralph Murre

VIII.

VIII.
I may go back to blues, back to blue-black times
when rhymes and little pills didn’t cure the ills.
Joy-killer realities, banalities like paying utilities –
but it’s so hard to paint in the dark – back to a fridge
of don’t-know glowing meats, rancid eats, few beers,
pickled herring, pickled beets, picking up the beat
of trash-can slam, picking up jobs of poor-I-am and
picking up women in good-night dreams, bad-night bars,
rusted cars in South-Side parking-lot wake-ups, staggering
to fourth-floor walk-ups, singing blue of our break-ups,
if we’re singing at all.
~ Ralph Murre

This is Verse VIII (if you haven't guessed) from my longish 15-verse poem, Psalms, from the book of the same name, still sometimes available from Little Eagle Press. Each verse is accompanied by one of my pen & ink drawings.