Best Covert Poems
GPS and I have a covert relationship. She is my operative, I am her mission.
She seeks to get me places I am supposed to be, and she often does a great job.
At these times I am her minion, happily following her,
but forgetting to praise her.
Other times the mission should have been aborted in the middle,
but she does not know it yet.
She leads me into the middle of wheat fields,
or under graffiti-laden bridges, in outskirts of nowhere.
One time my operative led me to the edge of a tall cliff,
staring out into sea, six hundred feet down.
Was I teetering on the brink of a disastrous fall?
No, but it was still horrible, and it could have happened.
While my GPS cheerfully sang “You have reached your destination.”
Do you suppose she meant my FINAL destination?
You nailed the thinnest vein in heart
You already knew stillness of blood in it
Haters are fans in disguise
And what takes up alot of there time
Is talkin about people
That are not there equal
& For that to be so
They'd have to learn how to climb
What really upsets me
Is not what they say
It's just the fact that
most of It is based on envy
Your own progression
Leads them to question
There personal value
And all that does is depress them
I have a suggestion
Maybe stop all the hating
Do a 180
And start congradulating
Your mental window’s fashioned from
Panes of glinting bright stained glass,
And through them streaming sun rays come.
Your mind conducts its private Mass.
Soft hymns and Sacramental rite,
Holy water at the secret fount.
Communion hidden out of sight.
Inside your heart, an Olive Mount.
Faint flame emergent from neurotransmitters.
The brain, a torch arranging patterns of awareness,
patterns of recall, encounters, adventures, and ordeals.
Covert consciousness realized in coma patients,
detected in vegetative invalids by the analyzers
of EEGs, the probers of the mind.
Bedridden with no signs of life,
These sufferers were long thought braindead.
The only question; when to withdraw life support.
But our deepest traces do often linger with immobility.
Our hardly perceptible scintillas send measurable signals.
They offer no bodily changes, no responses to cues.
They never give themselves away in behaviors.
Yet, science now knows them as genuine.
Are these the souls and ghosts felt by our ancestors?
Are these the wraiths and apparitions feared
by so many?
Created from the temporal, assembled from
life, is their structure entirely in the mind?
Maybe part of their energy resides in other realms,
places in and out of which they drift at our death.
Accepted for publication: The Opiate Journal, spring 2023
Covert Opportunities
The Council covered the bridge in diagonal meshing not be trashed
Too many souls had digressed from the path into now hidden depth
No more signs ‘No diving of the flyover into the poisonous water’
They were taking no chances into the fast slump of crude liability
Now downtrodden venturers had to complete a full rigorous circle
Jump into the current hold on to some concrete climb upwards
Towards the underbelly of solid traverse and covert adversity and
Only then take the leap surge into free fall of a final conclusion
Crushing descent was at once relegated to the Harbour Authority who
Now took the blame and had to harvest the bodies nevertheless
Once a milky winged stallion,
I mistook you for an angel.
I believed your majestic prowess.
Like Zeus, I too hitched my chariot.
Once the sparkling points of night,
I mistook you for sky magic.
I believed immortal your cosmos,
your dazzling namesake array.
Then your avatar sold oil.
I watched your B movie at fumy gas pumps.
I witnessed the curse of your hydrocarbons.
I lost faith in your Earth poisoning moniker.
Then your appellation found home in the dirt.
Assigned by mercenaries feeding slithering snakes,
tracking and tracing, extracting all our privacy
for any perversion of power.
I weep now knowing how far you've fallen.
I should have known.
You were always the prodigious child of Medusa.
Tribal beings
we fight fierce wars
death to all adversaries
then appears a microbe
a virus
to happily kill us all
humanity bands together
we fight back
with screams and shouts
how dare you kill us
only we can do that
Eyes think they see me.
They see nothing.
No one.
Some think they do.
I smirk at their ridiculousness.
I am invisible.
Ears think they hear me.
They do, but they do not get it.
My meaning is known only to me
Because what I really mean is held silent.
I cover up the real words,
Not trusting them.
I am covert.
Hand reaches out to shake mine.
I yell “Six feet!”
Pretending to be someone I am not
So they will not be able to get close.
I keep them away.
I am in charge.
Brexit Sonnet No.12
‘The Man in Covert coat’
What words used he, the Man in Covert coat,
Did he dare to speak of a second coming?
Of a Nation’s choice, a chance for second vote,
Or is it simply part of plan most cunning?
So ‘May be just’ I heard him say out loud,
May be there, but ‘Just’, I thinketh not.
So give me a second vote, I remaineth proud
To cross my paper and rid us of this plot.
So in these confines, let slip the dogs of war;
Cry ‘Havoc’, let carrion feed on Brexit’s bones.
And bury the deed ‘neath curséd altar floor,
To leave as dust and spare the blesséd stones.
His words flew up, his thoughts remain below,
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
©Keith Murphy
Spy game continues
Disguise deceit cheat
Expose leak tweet
Do did done
Under the sheet.
Note. Everyone deserves defense.
We run wild with our exuberance
Embracing all the exciting things coming our way.
Sailing through like there’s no bank to our excitement.
Enjoying the never-ending twilight of our lives.
Love is just a game in our stage
And no one is to blame for our play.
They love with no caution and get broken.
Like a routine they fail to learn to be awoken.
He lived in a paradise of insanity,
Having fun with whoever and whenever he wants.
The ideal definition of a play boy.
His luxury has brought filth to his door step.
A period worth reminiscing forever.
He took a sip of his favorite and closed his eyes to check reality
What if I had no luxury? he thought.
In his reverie he pondered on how they threw their bodies at him
Giving themselves to him without his cunning efforts.
Where is their dignity and pride?
Why do they corrupt themselves because of luxury?
Reality sets in and he shivered, may our daughters be safe
And delivered from this ill.
May they not date my twilight self for I hope not.
May they be good women we strive to call our wives,
And not fall into these cunning traps which we served as fragments to establish.
Let our past wave us goodbye
And our deeds remain dead to our future.
Our hearts are restless and our bodies filled with relentless strength,
Oblivious to any consequence.
He humbly pleaded,
Forgive us Lord
For we are young.
Covering the flaws and imperfections,
They're the heart’s intentions,
Outside are prying eyes,
Around are curious looks.
Twilight sees those recalcitrant flaws,
Daylight hides them behind masks and shades,
Glamorous faces await the camera lens,
Perfect looks grace the cover pages.
It’s bedtime,
Behind closed doors in a tranquil clime,
The mirror shows the real self,
An apparent self has walked through the daylight’s arena.
In the world’s eyes,
There's a price to pay,
For beauty and adornment to hold sway,
But the night is to be walked alone.
May 3, 2024.
Covert Operation
What do you know about operation 333?
An assault operation to take control
The most successful one in the history
Triple three brought red storm and destruction
This conflict left blood stains,wounds and dead bodies.
Note.Greed for power is the cause of violence...
Clandestine rendezvous beneath the moon.
Sweet kisses gentle swayed by undercover serenades.
Hush the covert fling’s asleep.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words