sheila murphy

 

Torture, Rapture, Rapt

Torture, rapture, rapt
Silence pending diction
Posing as a catalogue
Of answers heretofore

Unasked, these legions of trespass
Thoroughly untidy to the touch

Despite preemptive reverence
Aligned wholesale with curt
Trails blazed where woven
Clips detail the spread of

Karma washed, unwarranted
Before, with added footwork
Where the footfalls may have lapsed
During an early watch upended

 

The Smooth Curves and the Lines of You

What a smooth day,
Evening this winter,

The cowbells tin tell
The bell curve purportedly
Afire atop the snow

Steep blue red against
Matte finish white with music’s
Dominance and kettledrums

The smooth curves and the lines
Of you, your motion taut,

My eyes akin to the line feel
Of ought to be so wintered as to veil

 

Desirable Mistakes

Desirable mistakes breach
Etiquette, coiffure, morality
Until pluck strum overcomes
Precision and collates

Emotion and intelligence worth
Miles-apart ice dance
Streaming across the figurative
Screen to music, agile,

Unincorporated for most of any
Aftermath, a buoyant speed
Coated with center memory
Spruced with maniacal

Impressions cobbled together
To form the look of an insouciance
Made whole if not
Smooth in the existing context



 

Sheila Murphy
Sheila E. Murphy's book manuscript Letters to Unfinished J. was selected in this year's open poetry competition sponsored by Sun & Moon Press, and will be published by Sun & Moon. Dennis Phillips was the judge. Falling in Love Falling in Love With You Syntax: Selected and New Poems has just been released by Potes & Poets Press. Recent works include A Clove of Gender (Stride Press, 1995). Murphy's work has been widely anthologized, most recently in Fever Dreams: Contemp orary Arizona Poetry (The University of Arizona Press, 1997) and The Gertrude Stein Awards in Contemporary Poetry (Sun & Moon Press, 1994, 1995). The Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series recently brought out an autobiography of Sheila E. Murphy, including photographs of Murphy with family and friends.

Sheila Murphy co-founded with Beverly Carver and continues to coordinate the Scottsdale Center for the Arts Poetry Series, now in its eleventh season. Murphy is President of the management consulting firm Sheila Murphy Associates. Since 1976, she has made Phoenix, Arizona, her home.



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