Red Kite

it's as if

my little red kite

meant something

to the sky

~ arem

Quick Silver

and I said what I did

           and then you

and now

this frigid afternoon

   comes between us


~ ralph murre



a twenty-fifth anniversary, but my wizard alchemy
turned silver to quicksilver, and it slipped away . . .

Born Toulouse?

art of  henri de toulouse-lautrec

the thing about sad songs --

-- they make me so happy

~ Emmylou Harris

What is it, I wonder, that makes us love the blues, the sad country ballad,  the somebody done somebody wrong song, the dark forces of pulling apart?  Sure, I'm talking about song-writers, poets, and artists -- we're the worst, I suppose, but is anybody rushing out to buy totally happy music?  To buy novels or see movies without any conflict or struggle?

A lot of people, though, seem to be able to see the flick, get their safe dose of tragicomedy, and go home.  Is it only those of us striving to be creative who turn our lives, and those of people around us, into little operas?  I know people who appear to be continually happy, and it seems to me they must be running on some alternative fuel to the stuff I burn.  I fear, sometimes, that the urge to tell a good story gets all mixed up with living a life that makes a good story.  The problems really seem to arise when the tales of our existence are winding down and we try to get to a "happily ever after" line.  I keep writing, but some days I feel I'm getting farther from that ending .

   ~ Ralph Murre  

Night Sky with Burger

There is so much yet to learn.    

~ arem

Wonders

Wonders

and how they

never cease

like the best

geysers

fair to middling

rivers

like, let’s say

promises

Anybody loving

anybody

is a kind of

wonder

to say

nothing

of you

loving me

To say

nothing at all

of miracles

~ Ralph Murre

Better Prescription

I've got some powerful new glasses which have allowed me to see things that seem to have gone unnoticed in the past.  For instance, I took a cursory glance at the Ten Commandments and saw a footnote in fine print that I hadn't been aware of at all:

VI.
Thou shalt not kill.*

* Except if thou shalt happen to possess drones. Then it's way cool.

"Democracy as law is a fight for every day. If you don't fight for that, it’s just a piece of paper." 

~ Juan Garces 

Sonata

moonlight

the way

it casts beethoven's

long shadow

and here

the bare birch

there

dark arbor vitae

~ ralph murre

Work (?) In Progress

What I Used to Know

I understood
that dandelions
are beautiful
as dahlias and
the cheesemaker's daughter
delightful

I knew
the grace of grasshoppers
equals
the pomp of presidents
or peacocks and
pigeons stand iridescent in sun

I suspected
there is less
to people
than they
let on
and more

and I knew
my flesh was holy
as communion bread
or Wonder Bread
and Mogen David wine
after blessing

I heard pines
whisper
prayers
that
went
unanswered

I saw the early signs
the dancers on aching toes
yet I never doubted
perfection
the questions
in the eyes of does

~ Ralph Murre

note: "work in progress" refers to the poem, not the building!

La Noche

somewhere
in the Spanish night
La Abuela
her tale of great sorrow
and dancing

~ RM


Inspired by pieces for a viola ensemble, which I heard yesterday, written by Michael Kimber and performed by some gifted students of Lawrence University playing at Bjorklunden . . .

Fractured

“frig da freakin’ frackers”

I heard said

as townfolk gathered

at their poisoned well

“we’ll make some bucks

on natchral gas

but owe it

to dem crackers

what’s got

drinkin’ water to sell”

~ ol’ uncle ralph

Another Year

Running Things

Another year
Another chance to get it right
To do the things I shoulda done
Tear down that fence I built
Quit the party
Let running things run

Another wave rolls up the beach
Tumbles stones
Polishes what survives
Shorebirds -- hungry -- rush
Consume the dazzled on the sands
End the safe, crustacean lives

Another day
Another chance to see the light
To see the clouded, rising sun
Copper flame in pewter bowl
Embrace the certain, coming toll
Or be a running thing, and run

~ Ralph Murre

An old one, from my first book, Crude Red Boat (Cross + Roads Press)

Not to be Forgotten

photographer unknown

Attended, last evening, an event to honor my friend, poet laureate, and exemplary human, Bruce Dethlefsen.  Wrote this little piece for the gathering::

Forgotten

after Bruce Dethlefsen

on the conclusion of his term

as Wisconsin Poet Laureate

I forget each street by street

each road by road

your purple truck

cross-hatching

Cross Plains to Crivitz.

The joys and pains.

As if it’s out of mind, now

your Wisconsin

cow by cow

their black and white.

I forget each day of days

the Champagne flight

of word by word

that tomato

that celebrated spread of mayonnaise

all gone again.

Each morning, each memory

flying bird by bird.

There, totally forgotten

the life by life

turned poem by poem.

Your laureate, bardic ways.

italicized lines stolen from Bruce Dethlefsen,

and herein returned by           Ralph Murre

Friday the 14th

those who can sing

those who can pray

now is the time

~ Ellen Kort

The Times

Thinking of ordering a 2013 calendar, and I'm just wondering -- how did people know they were in the Middle Ages?  And how do we know we're not?  Of course, if the world ends on December 21st, or whenever it's supposed to end this time, that will clear that up, and these will certainly NOT have been the Middle Ages. I'm putting off most of my Christmas shopping, just in case.

It was easy enough, I suppose, to realize if you were in an Ice Age, and the Dark Ages? well, duh . . . nobody ever paid utility bills!  But precisely where you stood BC had to be a tricky calculation. And these people of the Middle Ages must have been far more advanced in their knowledge of the Big Picture than we give them credit for.  I have to double-check that this is a Monday.

None of this, of course, addresses post-modern architecture. The melting time-pieces of Dali.

~ RM

song of my(th)self

today

and each day

writing

the myth

of myself

believing

most

every word

~ ralph murre

Pattern

woodcut: m.c. escher

Blindside

The way we see pattern

       the way we assume

       it won't change

       The way we love today

The way M. C. Escher

       found in a pattern

       a fish becoming a duck

       The way we never saw it coming

       ~ Ralph Murre

Of Thee I Sing

Now understand me well - it is provided in the essence of

things, that from any fruition of success, no matter

what, shall come forth something to make a greater

struggle necessary.

. . . the road is before us!

~ Walt Whitman

In Late Autumn

still a surprise

in spite of mounting evidence

to find that immortality

isn't likely

~ arem

Let Us Admit

Let us admit

some of us can see dragons from here,
though we don't believe in dragons.

And some of us can just about
make out the conversations

of the several gods, though we don't
believe in them, their little indignations.

~ Ralph Murre

(this is an excerpt from a larger piece I'm working on)

a little fiction

Stitches in Time

   ~ Ralph Murre

It, too, is called a thimble; this heavy galvanized fitting I splice into three-strand hawser on deck.  Outbound tug Maria.  My old man at the helm.

But the notion of “thimble” takes me back to that other sort, silvery there on the third finger of her arthritic hand.  Grandma Maria.  Seems it’s always been there, protecting that fingertip from the little stabs she knew were coming, leaving the rest of her bare to the unforeseen wounds that would come.  There was the thimble as she pushed and pulled needle and thread, stitch on stitch, as depression flour sacks became dresses, as a spare blanket became a suit.  Stitch on stitch, still, as my christening gown was shaped.  White on white, as a tiny row of sailing boats was embroidered upon it. Rising infant to be bestowed beneath crosses of cathedral’s spires on the high hill.  And her father before her, sewing stitch on stitch, white on white, patching sails blown out ‘round The Horn, stitch on everlasting stitch, triangle needle and leather palm, from Roaring Forties to Tropic Trades, and more than once, stitching a shroud: a benediction, a blessing. Fallen sailor to be bestowed beneath crosses of brigantine’s rig on the high sea.  Aroma of pine tar, beeswax, mutton tallow.  A very old man, long at anchor, calls out “Daughter, bring me rum.”  She looks up from her sewing and agrees, “A thimbleful, Father,” as an ocean of time slides by, sewn with a meridian of stitches.

The faithful Maria rises to meet the oncoming swell. Settles. Rises again.