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Keith Murphy Poem
Homage to Catalonia?
Policeman wielding batons or shedding a welled up tear,
Flag waving populace or staying home in fear,
State defence of self, or defending an historic lie,
Should we pay homage, or should we just weep and cry?
Turning out to vote, or disobedient serf,
Democratic abuser or defending right of birth,
Violent state repression or debating reasons why,
Should we pay homage, or should we just weep and cry?
Hurried lines drawn on maps or quite beyond the pale,
Land up for rental or permanently for sale,
Freedom of expression or state to look and pry,
Should we pay homage, or should we just weep and cry?
Part of bigger state, or standing on your own,
Wired in kit at home, or mobile telephone,
Going with a third, or vote not home and dry,
Should we pay homage, or should we just weep and cry?
©Keith Murphy
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2017
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Keith Murphy Poem
Brexit Sonnet No.7
‘Words Escape Me’
Have you seen them, can we track them down?
Words escape me, on the run, or lost.
We had them once, now they can’t be found,
This Brexit friction hides a fearsome cost.
Pluralism can’t be seen or traced,
I’ve looked real hard but not a sign from May.
Binarism has won that crucial, crazy race,
Whilst Tolerance, my once best friend has gone away.
What of Inspire, our fine Olympic friend?
He was there to share that great event,
But now, Falsehood’s beat him on the bend,
And where was Multiculturalism sent?
Camerooned we are, left to shout ‘In’ or ‘Out’,
Our Language, Culture, Country – now in doubt.
©Keith Murphy
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2018
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Keith Murphy Poem
Brexit Sonnet No.5
‘To Clothe The Wreck’
A game of chance, the climb to rule this land,
As much a slip of others as trip of yours.
Oft’ ruled by chance events, not thoughts well planned,
Same for freshers new, as time-served bores.
And now we see the cards in shuffled deck,
Prepared again to face the green baize cloth.
Plans anew prepared to clothe the wreck
That’s Brexit, now sad without its champagne froth.
But cards are dog-eared, faded, worn and ripped
With two faced jokers squirming in the pack.
The dealer haggard, drawn and ill-equipped,
Can’t stabilise for strength they plainly lack.
Quantitatively ease this wretched, worn out pile;
Print more talent and from Brexit, please resile.
©Keith Murphy
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2018
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Keith Murphy Poem
Family Tree
The family tree grows tall and true,
Its leafy branches cradle me and you.
Like every tree it has a season
When branches drop, sometimes without reason.
Our tree has suffered great distress,
Not merely damaged, but under major stress.
Our central trunk now counts the cost
Of our sad and undesired for loss.
A life remarkable, lived through war.
Lived with grace, not counting score.
Instead counting strokes across the greens
And fairways of pleasant Surrey scenes.
A life devoted from age nineteen
To his fellow traveller, through postwar dream.
From East End roots to West end shows
And musicians’ diaries the fixers chose.
Abiding memories we all must have
Of generous parties, good times and bad.
Of cups of tea in which spoons could stand
And Embassy & Senior Service suddenly banned.
His driving skills were leant in tank
But skills passed on, two generations thank.
On the phone he’d say before he’d bid us bye
“I’ll just pass you over now to Vi…”
Another season awaits our tree,
And future blossoms we’ll no doubt see.
Our tree’s robust and will bloom again
And deep etched in bark, we’ll see his name.
A life well lived provides the feed
For our tree to nurture future seed.
Goodbye to one loved by you and me,
It’s quite amazing is our tree.
Keith Murphy©
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2017
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Keith Murphy Poem
Our newest entrant, our newest nation, forged in fiery code
Bubbled like red hot lava from a net of connected phones.
This nascent nation, transcending any boundary road,
Passing ports of entry into our domestic pleasure zones.
Is there no folly to consider here, no rampant beast?
Who, we ask, released it from its lair?
How long had this giddy, gyrating force been there?
Is there need, is there greed, is it time to despair?
Did that wingéd patron god of financial gain release
The beast, enabling the mean, to become the mode?
We sit comfy in computer chair, glazed in fluorescent glow,
We reboot, pass the word and wirelessly our blogs upload,
With our mouldering dark suspicions pushed far below.
For our new nation is a force for good, bull not bear,
A force for good, a force for all, a democratic lion to share.
Forces now darkly gather, looking in, rooting round
For sight or sound of hesitation, repetition or deviation.
After just one minute they think they’ve found,
Something wrong, something perplexing, defying gravitation.
Our new nation fights, fights hard for her Liberty.
Advocates and orators, lawyers and barristers rage,
Fanning the crackling flame of their inflated wage.
This Nation with no flag will not go back in her cage.
A migrant, an itinerant, but once met, here for perpetuity.
She has no planes, no ships, no boots on the ground,
No home front, no crying of havoc and barking dog,
The click, click, click, not gun but her keyboard sound.
Her defences invisible, as if lost in coastal fog.
We have this gift from others, a child to raise.
Chains she should not be in, Freedom must turn her page.
©Keith Murphy
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2017
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Keith Murphy Poem
On Stopping Big Ben
Our bell is silent now;
Silence marks the passing of each hour.
The tower has no comment, makes no sound
Despite thirteen tons of primeval power.
Our bell is silent now;
The sun dimmed in mute protestation
The day it stopped, the day life turned
Into a sentence lacking punctuation.
Our bell is silent now;
It used to speak, same call to all,
No misunderstanding, no spin of truth,
Unlike those below in marbled hall.
Our bell is silent now;
Our voice diminished across the sphere,
Our orb and sceptre have played their part.
This isle now travels in hope or fear.
Our bell is silent now;
For four long years it will draw its breath,
And then exhale when hammer strikes,
To mark the tides of life and death.
Our bell is silent now;
Its tone and timbre oft in doubt,
Cracked and flawed like us all.
We’ll all miss his freedom shout.
Our bell is silent now;
Its silence diminishes us all.
As clods are washed away by sea,
Who does the bell toll for?
It tolls for thee.
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2017
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Keith Murphy Poem
Sutherland No More – A Proclamation
Sutherland Springs from the pages of my media feed,
A story of guns, grief and the need, for no more.
Sutherland no more.
The innocent and the free sitting in their Sunday Pews,
Little thinking they would be the news, on the door.
Sutherland no more.
The white squat steepled church reaches to the sky,
The congregation and world asks why, whilst the tears pour.
Sutherland no more.
‘Fortunately somebody else had a gun’, the saying goes,
That was equalising those bullet flows, from ceiling to floor.
Sutherland no more.
Freedom to Bear, Freedom to Speak, Freedom to seek
The solution to these nightmares in our sleep.
Guns cause the rift and opinion must shift.
When you’re gone,
Will you send back a letter from America?
X.
©Keith Murphy
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2017
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Keith Murphy Poem
Brexit Sonnet No. 31
‘The Greatest Showman’
What a shame we could not launch and hold,
Those Brexit plans in Falcon’s heavy grasp.
Sixty four tonnes of payload so we’re told,
Canst it yet be done, who should we ask?
I’m sure some space in car we could have found,
For Brexit’s backseat drivers; we do have some!
A flick of switch, then whoosh, a roaring sound,
And Elon’s car with cargo heads off to Sun.
The Greatest Showman’s crown has just been claimed,
Three stages used to get this drama done.
Two stages land but one missed at what it aimed,
A ‘super majority success’ by two to one.
Now space is ex, hats off to Mr. Musk ,
Make Brexit ex and scatter plans like dust.
©Keith Murphy
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2018
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Keith Murphy Poem
Brexit Sonnet No. 26
‘It’s you must Brexit kick’
What will be done at Brexit’s final tack,
As doors and ears and eyes do closeth shut?
Why have we set our clock on backward track,
To push our crippled cart through backwoods rut?
When will this demented set of mixed up notions,
Be dumped in history’s rotting landfill site?
How can this politic, this rage that crosses oceans,
Be stopped; no more our children’s lives to blight.
Where to make your voice of protest heard,
Your choice, there’s more than just a page to turn.
Who can lead us, armour clad and spurred?
For he or she that pricks intent we yearn.
Enquired I have from honest serving six,
But truth be told, it’s you must Brexit kick.
©Keith Murphy
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2018
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Keith Murphy Poem
Don’t Lower Manhattan,
Keep your heads held high.
Don’t have any truck with evil and
Let West Side show your best side.
We all come to you,
We’ll still come to you.
We know you can show us,
The city with a pace and a grace
That will get you through this outrage.
Don’t alter your sidewalk geography,
Don’t falter on the altar of exclusion or
Illusion of a yet more secure existence
By locking all the locks and freezing your liberty.
For those who remain, it’s the struggle
To balance freedom, and tame
The terror and the tantrums of insane
Acts by dangerous people.
For those who have gone, you will long
Be remembered in the city that neither sleeps,
Nor forgets.
Copyright © Keith Murphy | Year Posted 2017
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