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 (?)

Sour Grapes?

Contestant

And at times in my heart there is a music that plays for me.
~ J.P. Donleavy

Yes, you too? You’ve heard it? Sometime snare of drum, penny-whistle, nickel-plate, quarter-note? Hum a few bars of a new tune; bring in a viola d’amore to this baroque adagio – unbroken, unbeaten, to play a song for a new season. It may be as well not to enter a poetry contest, a dance contest, a salon d’art.

clean-shaven young man
harsh light of the arena
the expectant crowd

Is it treason to suggest that in his condition blind ambition is deafening the inner ear? Competition is not improving the species, but robbing it of its art? Is it wrong to think that if he listens, if he hears that music deep within he can begin, at last, to write the score, to pen a few notes on a clean page? Is it outrage to suppose that not everyone has heard this rhythm, not everyone goes dancing to the same beat? Wooden hearts clicking like castanets for clay feet?

climbing the stairs alone
an oddly-dressed man speaking
another language

~ Ralph Murre
Sure, it's just a case of sour grapes, isn't it? After all, three pieces of my short fiction just went without notice in a competition. Yet, I'm not sure . . . earlier this year, I served as a preliminary judge for a prestigious poetry contest, and realized that someone with something truly original to say - or with a truly original way of saying it - would have a very difficult time. However, I put such a piece forward and it wound up winning the contest. So, am I putting down the idea of arts contests? No, I simply don't think they do much to engender the creation of anything new, and I think that's largely because most of the entrants don't want to take risks. Someday, we'll get into the discussion of the NEED for anything new, the NEED to take risks.

Canyon of Misunderstanding

Among the Lizard Mounds of his innocent age, shaded by maple, acorned by oak, he had trembled and been the boy who had to look beneath skirts, had to see what was hidden, to glimpse the forbidden. Now, under the barren sky near the other side of the broad canyon of his life, he has become the man who buys tobacco which he does not smoke, but sprinkles it with ceremony he does not understand, on sacred ground and the graves of old friends, hoping for forgiveness of sins he didn't know he committed.

.

someone mowing grass

over his grandfather's coffin

listens to a ballgame

~ Ralph Murre

In Those Cars

In those cars, those V-8 cars and those six-cylinder, six-pack, church-key cars ~ back seats fertile as Iowa itself ~ in those cars we loved each other and America (See the U.S.A. . .) and the road. In those cars with Dynaflow and wontcha blow your horn and Body by Fisher and hormone flow and bodies with fever reproducing like Ford's assembly line and Mortality just another cop snoozing behind a billboard in a black & white; in those cars we drag-raced through the uncertain light of a nation's adolescence and our own, in those cars we loved and came skidding into night; in those cars we loved.

...

drive-in movie

dusty projector pointed

into the past

~ Ralph Murre

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

The Cliff

I 'm not much of a mountain climber (or a social climber, but that's not today's story) although I imagine that from time to time, when scaling a steep cliff, you must trust your tenuous hold and lean back for a bit, to refocus your energies and to survey the way ahead.
Yesterday, I leaned back. I fed my loyal Rozinante eight gallons of the good oats for which she repaid me with 432 miles of the grand beauty of this state when it is ripe for harvest. And I found solitude. So many miles without words beyond answering in the affirmative to "would you like fries with that" and later, a "Sure. Thanks." to the fellow ferry passenger who asked if I'd like him to snap the photo above, while we crossed The Wisconsin at Merrimac.
It was a cool and glorious day of the road. I relaxed my grip and didn't fall from my place on the face of this cliff.

the spotted cows

teaching rumination

their great wisdom

- Ralph Murre

U.P. North

south in green summer
around the foot of Green Bay
a green car turns north

As we’ve done before, and I’ve done before that, we point toward the Keweenaw – once copper rich, now dirt poor – the Upper Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. North of Green Bay and the Fox Valley’s fortunate, farmlands fall away quickly, and so does any evidence of recent prosperity. Forest and bog slide by a million trees at a time and we get into the big land of Tookaway. Took away iron. Copper. Silver. Took away first-growth timber and First Nation people. Took away everything of value. But the invaluable remains, flourishes. The rivers flow. The trees grow. A few people eke out a life.
In Houghton, browned men and yellow machines dig at the pavement. The dirt. The history.

an old man walking
as if bearing a great weight
his soul enormous
through a thin jacket
against the cold of summer

The railroad tracks have been removed from the lift bridge to Hancock; the taking away complete. Quincy smelter ruins of the past fight for the right to co-exist with condos and other ruins of the present. Wavelets of blue water make a chuckling sound as they nibble at foundations.
Climb the long hill to Calumet. Behold glory gone so quickly there was barely time to screw-up its old quarters. Barely money to re-muddle the red-on-red stone and brick of the place, now deemed unsuitable for Mom, Pop & The Oh-So-Average Kids, but not yet vacated by the denizens of depression; the drunks, the drifters, the drop-outs.

from a red stone stoop
in Sunday morning brightness
his unshaven stare

In a nation that’s just getting back to hard times, behold a place that’s harbored them for a couple generations since the mines have played out. Behold the look of uncommon wealth gone away. We may all get used to it. But look at the handsome buildings left behind; left for the taking. Look at the epitaph of The Good Life. Look at the good folks fixing up in spite of churches out of business along with their parishioners, dance halls along with dancers, milliners with mills.

in an empty street
as if something might happen
a cameraman

Even some of the taverns have closed, unlikely as that may sound. Even some of the best of them. Elegant emporiums of leaded glass and leather-backed booths, of mahogany and madness. A few remain.

the darkened windows
with their neon signs gone out
Sunday morning bars

In the vacuum, after the great sucking sound of the removal of resources has subsided, come the artists and poets and other marginalized people with imagination, drawn by the low rent and high ceilings of the place, drawn by the Big Sea Shining Water so close at hand, the Woods, the Cliffs. Drawn by the very fact that this is a place away. They fix things, some. They fix more. It starts to get pretty nice. They win a few. They lose a few. If they win too many, they lose it all, because property values go up to the point they can no longer afford to stay. They find a new town, I suppose, and make it safe for realtors and re-zoning. In the meantime, Calumet is just the mix of heaven and hell that I like to visit when I can.
May our friends, the fixer-uppers on the Keweenaw Peninsula, stay ahead of the forces of gravity, entropy, and the tearer-downers; but not so far ahead as have our friends on that over-priced peninsula of Wisconsin, which we call home.

south in green summer
around the foot of Green Bay
a green car returns

~ Ralph Murre

The Greatest

While I live about 100 yards from a perfectly acceptable Great Lake, every now and then I take it in mind to go feel the cool breath of THE GREATEST. And the breath of Mother Superior was indeed cool this time. Set off yesterday on my mighty Rozinante at about 1:00 PM and rode ~ spent the night in Jim Harrison country ~ and was home by 3:30 PM today. Slew no dragons, didn't even see windmills. There were lighthouses. Derelict vessels. A really big lake. There was cold and rain, in tolerable doses. There was food and drink in tolerable doses.

a motorcycle

in the Michigan morning

of blossoms and rain

So why ride well over 500 miles to spend so little time with the object of my affection? The ride, my friends, the ride. It is a new season, and I rode to where it is even newer, backing up time just a little bit. That's enough for me.

~ RM

Haibun Today

This is just to gloat over the fact that my work is to be featured at http://www.haibuntoday.com/

Thanks

Back in our drive after 1500 miles of discovery
and recovery from the tameness that's called life.
Some bruises and some smiles, some aching and
some joy, and the road. The long road of husband,
wife. Thank the spirits that you know and thank
the ones you don't if there's just a little aching and
some joy and husband, wife. Beware of too much
tameness, and thank the spirits for the road, and
please thank the one you're with for sharing life.

winding pavement
a remembrance of lives
shared in the wind


- arem