Ars Poética (Life’s Ingénue)
I always wanted to die like a hero, but I was never helpful enough.
So I switched to being a genius,
but my time ticked away with the infinite scroll.
I developed a talent for acting and so you casted me
as your life’s ingénue.
Now I’ll be remembered for my endless stream of verses about feeling unmoored.
To live like a poet means to hide the insurmountable
behind shades of gray,
so behind every anaphora, assonance, and ballad
there’s a little bit of you, the pièce de résistance.
And did you know poets weren’t merely entertainers
in the olden days?
If I were a man in Anglo-Saxon times,
I wouldn’t be your royal buffoon.
Instead of being a court jester, I would be tied to the oracle.
So while i dream of dying like a martyr,
my biggest concern shouldn’t be to amuse.
Unlikely to think that you’d suffer upon my departure, my lover,
my owner, my muse.
And when I run out of illusory verses and come to my senses,
lover, you’re on your own…
upon waking
no upon the waking
this waking neither first nor last
cold floor
a warm bulb shivers
the alley cat
still feral
counting its own lives
already half made of sound
arriving before it arrives
casts what your february
in its orange persistence
cast before
the hour of the lamp
is standing without you
one thought
and the thought that will not come
something there
has sunk its canines into
the syllables
your syllables
syllabub curdled
frothing
the syllabus
your mother birthed you with
wet and new
red-ink margins
not rehearsing them
no never rehearsing
conducting them slowly
as an orchestra pit must
when all the musicians have gone home
dry and gone
and no one answers the downbeat
and no one
and no one
two three four
the downbeat has no one left to strike
you lift your hand
the cat walks out of the sound it made
already elsewhere
leaving where it will return
leaving before it has left
After Raymond Carver’s “Bankruptcy”
Thirty-seven, trick shoulder &
a sultry appetite still (exempt)
I wait for you
impatiently (exempt still)
listening to the towels tumble
as my hairy belly moans:
we are rebounds
to true pleasure.
Forgive us, (I pray in enormity)
our reckless improvidence.
Today, my heart, like the front door,
awaits unlocked
for the first time in years.
Yeah Right
If poetry is so easy to write,
drop a Choka, tercet, or a quatrain slight.
So remember the rules and keep things tight,
let’s see how easy it is to get right.
By
Josehf Lloyd Murchison
Story Structure
Some writers leave a story at the climax,
like an adolescent male leaving the reader not totally satisfied.
Other writers never bring the reader the climax, of their story.
Good writers take the reader with them.
They start the story with an introduction to the body of characters.
Learning every nuance and curve of each, the writer brings them to life with every stroke of the pen. Gradually easing the reader into the main body of the story.
Building page, by page, and chapter, after chapter,
until the readers are unable to restrain themselves from turning the next page.
Slowly the reader becomes the main character.
Living every moment, feeling every pleasure, pain, and sorrow as slowly the reader reaches the climax. Then after the reader is spent, the writer eases the reader down slowly with the epilogue.
Ending the story with the reader in the afterglow of the tale.
By
Josehf Lloyd Murchison
you say I am a poet
I tell you I am nothing
you say I craft words
I tell you I build nothing
you look confused
imagine how I feel
that with a mere smile
the raise of an eyebrow
you push the words
right onto me
that's right
don't you see now
I am your paper
you are 1000 words
waiting to be written
100 feelings
waiting to be had
I lay myself bare to you
an empty page
just awaiting the
spill of your ink.
©SamHarty
Sitting,
Alone and uninspired
Ruminating on my throne
Of the tired
Freezing,
My heater, broken and retired
In a building whose condemnation
Remains desired
Searching,
For some deeper, elaborated meaning
To a poem procrastinated
A cause for my demeaning
Sulking,
I lack muse and direction
I can only imagine the forthcoming drear
Of this poem’s lection
Drinking,
My hot chocolate keeps me company
As I mull over this poetry
And choose a word that rhymes only subtley
They nagged him till he'd had enough.
His one remaining joy was snuff.
Beyond the post that ends his race
he has found a better place.
This is no time to joke or laugh
but to write his epitaph.
Art is long but life is short.
I lack the time to more report.
Short and snappy were his days,
short therefore to him my praise.
Archibald MacLeish 'ARS POETICA'
E E
M P
A
H G
S I
I swallowed an apricot seed when I was younger.
Everyone told me it was hard work to grow fruit trees
especially when winter marches south and tries
to pry all those tiny orange dots from stubborn
wooden hands. I kept it safe, though, tucked away
in the pit of my stomach where despair and embarrassment
lived. I fed it reassurances: I swallowed strawberry
sunsets and ate the pithy vernal blossoms of childhood.
I even drank the recommended 36 ozs of filtered water
every day. Years later now, its branches weave their way to my brain
alongside curious blue blood. Apricot juice seeps
into my veins and fills my body with sweet, yellow-orange
nectar. Fruit falls out of my mouth, staining snow white pages
in splotches of nostalgia each time I sit down to write.
Poetry is a busy crosswalk downtown,
when everyone moves together with elbows
held a little wider than normal.
Poetry is a middle-aged man, creased
and folded, sprawled out on the neglected
weeds in Woodruff park, eyes wide shut.
Poetry is the free fruit for children
podium in between the produce
and clearance aisles, oranges
and apples withered to marbles.
Poetry is a crying baby
at the 3 o’clock movie theater.
Poetry is a young boy in the park,
battered by curiosity, in a fight to the death
with furry flowers, their guts filling the air
with each oaken swing.
Poetry is giving a nod to the mailman.
Poetry is the unintentional eavesdropping
of the worst idea for a screenplay
ever fielded.
Poetry is the gait of a man recently
in love, thinking of hands
suddenly adored.
Poetry is the enigmatic ether that fills
the summer air so thick you have
so do the breaststroke just to
get back home.
And how can you ever think to write it
if you are stuck inside behind
grating blue screens or
painfully white paper?
If a poem you find you cannot write
Don't struggle with it all through the night
Concentrate in the day on what you can do
That way your talents will surely shine through.
Living musicians compose
Dead musicians decompose
The title is Latin for:
'Art is long; life is short'
Ars Longa
It finally happened!
Someone in the East Wing
Goateed a Madonna and redid a Rembrant
a la de Kooning.
A blond with Vogue patterns
is crouched on the hall--
She's eyeing a Van Gogh
eyeing her from the wall.
We judge from the blushes
of blue-rinsed ladies in fur
Rude comments were made
on the audio tour.
The guards commandeer
Donatellos for targets
and are cleaning their pistols
with snips of Vermeer.
The staff in the Art Shoppe
is selling originals
and hanging the copies
in Gallery Five.
They're burning the Monets
they've tattooed Apollo,
crowds clamor outside
to get in on the fun.
Cars circle the gallery
in infinite coils--
curbside parturitions
here a boy there a girl.
The wheelbarrow of Prince Prospero
pushed straightaway, like an arrow
it's passengers a motley farrow
not worth much more than a sparrow
it's aim and goal so very narrow
'tis horrifying to the marrow
Sub Categories
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