Dark Sky Magazine » Poetry

Blind Monk Crossing a Bridge

Kevin Murphy — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 03:51:50 +0000

Horrendous, now the unborn feel me
Stalking them, usually not the slightest bit concerned. Double-teamed,
They latch to the kindness of a controlling species
With lots of sentimental
Memories about itself, and I should spank them for that someday.

It’s nice
To have happy spots of my high school sweetheart. Being
Spurns a very surreal thing in me too. I don’t really exist
Because I haven’t seen me in 100 years. But then

I experience outbursts of mold in my chest. This lasts about four
Days until depression kicks in

A fingerprint without demands
Right as I’m beginning to
Eliminate sitting twice a day.

Stupendous, now heaps of voices beep.
At least half of what I respond
Rarely mistakes my bed
For a dolphin’s dick.

_______________________

RC Miller lives in Metuchen, New Jersey. He is author of the chapbooks GORE (Calliope Nerve Media) and A Large Retailer (Ronin Press).

After Christmas

Kevin Murphy — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 01:03:38 +0000

The house was far out of town, at the top of a mountain which you had to reach by winding roads walled in by cliffs and falling rocks, and passing up a steep incline through two automatic gates before entering the property. It was like an abandoned set for Night of the Iguana—and there was no cellphone connection there so I just stood by a drained pool at the edge of the woods looking out at the lights flashing through the broad distance over the opposite mountains to where I imagined the rest of the world was, listening to a silence in my ears like the perfume of wild animals, miles and miles of predatory seduction hidden in and clinging to the dark air. I felt as if time had contracted and stopped. Sometimes we see that we’re really at the edge of things — but all the things that took place before seem to be present. It is like being in eternity. Everything seems to be taking place at once. Fragments of old movies on cable television in the middle of the night were like history repeating itself over and over again — each time with newly understood nuances which seemed to be both separated and united. Disappearing voices and gestures bouncing around — like atoms of light — off the walls of eternity. Accumulating and dissipating ceaselessly, beyond control. I read the account in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, over and over, and the print seemed to be written on the walls of time like a primitive memory, a sealed envelope, a burned letter.

Sure,
Not only the Empire State building,
Not only how that woman might have looked naked in the 1970s,
but after Christmas—
coming home at night
passing the dead end streets
the left and right
mouths of streets lit momentarily
containing a passing figure
++++++++frozen bright
in motion
dying into our dashlight
fading
into the darkness, the still surge
of types of knowing
clothed and dressed in types
of gesture, types of mustaches
then back to the smell
++++++++of an original house
the lit up facades
++++++++fading in a swift douse
like flames
++++++++life burning
or like
streets that my father
++++++++played on before I
was born, before he was married
where uncles were brothers only
tracked him down
to know what they know still
I only surmise
The grandeur of each house
its modest satisfaction
++++++++humble pride
a stigma on the doorstep
++++++++of the world
where dreams and dreams repeat
crowded streets that time evacuated
and the simple shape
+++++the door of home
where visitors call
+++++and where the unfamiliar
extend the matrix of experience
to glimpse the upstairs
++++++++windows,
++++trim and closed
their other worlds
the little worlds
++not ready to disclose
the daily yearning and the daily growth

They flash like storms
+++++like flood tides
++++++++sweeping high
over the wharves of
++++++++knowing
drowning sense
in generalities of myth and type
bathing the dark with darkness
of the soul
the simple emblem
++++++++trellised on the front
and plunge through depths
+++++of similarity

(vast mingling repetitious revelry)

Also the fragments,
++++++++spiritual shards
of the new generations
++++++++taking flight
across the coded inconsistencies
of space that’s lit by
+++++moonlight, by
++++++++streetlamp
where do they go?
+++++who counts them
++++++++apart
where their conviction
+++++is disfigurement
displacing fairy tales?
+++++They shine so bright
my heart bleeds into
+++++trees to fill the dark.

The round o’s of the
+++++face of the wood sprite.

_____________________________

Ben Mazer’s most recent poetry collections are January 2008 (Dark Sky Books, 2010) and Poems (Pen & Anvil Press, 2010).

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall Again

Kevin Murphy — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:47:30 +0000

Small black cat carries
the dead mouse to the door, ice
circles the witness moon.

Under the barn floor
the dog and I hear squeaking.
Swallows guard their eggs.

August heat glimmers,
white sequins litter the lake.
I wish for fireflies.

Leaves cling to the boy’s
boots. Darkness enters early.
Windows close their eyes.

___________________________

Lisa Zimmerman received her M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. Her poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in the Colorado Review, Redbook, Paper Street, Poet Lore, Eclipse, Atlanta Review and many other journals. Her most recent poetry collection is The Light at the Edge of Everything (Anhinga Press, 2008). She is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Northern Colorado.

Dear _____,

Kevin Murphy — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:33:36 +0000

Just to let you know
I finally got the window open,
now all these screams come in,
++and red air
bearing dragonflies

when I said before, “It ain’t summer
if you can’t lie awake at night
with the windows open,”
I must’ve been living in a cold climate

you’d think I had icebergs in my veins

now I’m pretty melted—
it’s all solar tears
shining from my eyes,
a blinding white wall,

the longer time goes on
stranger the memories become,
a cat waking from a dream
++in a darkened room

one has me on Banba’s shore
inside a drizzly pub,
a small hit of hash
through a clay pipe

the rough coast

an empty apartment
viewed through a partly opened door,

you know, I can’t help thinking
it’s like it all never existed,
and now you’re getting translucent—
will you too really fade?

++++++++++++Love,

_______________________________

Michael S. Begnal is the author of three poetry collections: Ancestor Worship (Salmon Poetry, 2007), Mercury, the Dime (Six Gallery Press, 2005), and The Lakes of Coma (Six Gallery Press, 2003). Recent work has appeared in journals such as Notre Dame Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Natural Bridge, Free Verse, and BlazeVOX. His blog is: www.mikebegnal.blogspot.com

New Poems

Kevin Murphy — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:17:59 +0000

Canard

Our father called jaguars black leopards. “Platitudes are not always flat,” he kept saying. Middle age had not brought a wisdom that was practicable.

…

Though we separately married, we cannot stop staying in hotels together. We are used to the view.

++++++++
++++++++
++++++++

Xeriscaping: Two Small Decorative Poems

lapis philosophorum

milky latex a sore temptation
he threatens to find the appropriate weather

albedo

such spurge as ornaments the driveway
looks like purslane to me

__________________________________

Eric Burke works as a computer programmer in Columbus, Ohio. Recent work can be found in elimae, Pank, qarrtsiluni, A cappella Zoo, and decomP. Work is forthcoming in Word Riot. You can read his blog at http://anomalocrinus.blogspot.com/

There’s a Train Inside Watching Nobody, Nothing

Kevin Murphy — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:58:20 +0000

And clocks
++they decide
inside of every one
++of what was
and went missing
++which calls
for the newness of old
++what blood
and what skin and bone
++I’ll have a little
of that please Please
++me just this time
_________________________________

Parker Tettleton’s work has appeared in DOGZPLOT, > kill author, elimae and Mud Luscious, among others. His chapbook Same Opposite was recently published by Thunderclap Press. He blogs at http://parker-augustlight.blogspot.com/.

My Daughter Sick in Lots of Light

Kevin Murphy — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:00:11 +0000

Gleaming chrome hemostats++Bright lights
Cold lights++Brilliant lights++Lots of sheets

Why do some lipsticks
Have the color of blood
Or the claw marks of a stray animal?

I stood at the window staring at shadows
On concrete++Thinking shivery slivers
Of thought++Inventing things
Like the++throwaway paper thermometer

Or a beautiful nurse’s breasts
The sleet outside went perfectly
With the hissing oxygen
My slouch was familiar
My silence an armada of silent consonants

______________________________

John McKernan is now a retired comma herder. He lives — mostly — in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is RESURRECTION OF THE DUST. He specializes in depleted semicolons and the repair and recovery of derelict exclamation points.

So This Is Love

Kevin Murphy — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:00:15 +0000

When I thought of leaving,
I saw the neon gleam
of streetside shops, the glow
on the brown and gray
brick but I said,
“Impossible,”
and just as quickly,
the veil drew over
my eyes again.
But for a moment,
sea-salt air and that giddy
rise up of the sight
to the point where city light
obscures the recesses
of bottomless night,
that big hungry belly.
For a moment
a memory of grit of shoe
on sidewalk.
Going somewhere,
for sure.
Then back to my life,
a long long hallway
of closed doors,
boxes stacked and teetering
along the walls.
I’m hemmed in.
I’d go to ruin for you.
I’d go to ruin
for anyone.

_____________________

Mary Ann Honaker holds a B.A. in philosophy from West Virginia University and a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She has previously published poetry in Harvard’s The Dudley Review, Crawlspace, Gold Dust, Dappled Things, Hoi Polloi, The Foliate Oak, The Gloom Cupboard and Euphony. In her writings she primarily explores the transformative power of love and the intersection of the spiritual world with mundane reality. She currently lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her husband, Matthew Bender.

Reflections From a Flying Fox

Kevin Murphy — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 11:58:16 +0000

My greatest fear
is losing the will
to eat fruit.
Color vision
developed this way.
When did the plants
figure that out?
How did they know
that to survive,
they needed to be eaten?
They have no fear.
Did rods and cones
come before that?

When did the frugivores
unite and fool the produce?
Is that bastard mango
really the end of the line?
The kingdom of plants
may rise once again
and have the
last laugh.
But they depend on me.

____________________________

Steven Prutzman, a former wildlife researcher, moved to writing journalism, fiction and poetry after graduating from college, and then worked for some time as a technical writer for a software company. He has lived in Arkansas, Florida, and Queensland, Australia. He now resides in Austin, Texas.

Esperar: Spanish; to wait; to hope

Kevin Murphy — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:00:00 +0000

For the train. Estoy esperando para el tren.
For the tea to steep. Estoy esperando para el te.
For the significance of a subtle compliment. Significada.
For Janet to call and for the customer to email me back. Esperando.
For the Tylenol to take effect. For the alarm clock to ring.
For the shuffling of feet in the hallway and for the smell of
tobacco. For the mail to come with this year’s Penny’s Christmas Catalog
with new sales schedule. For 6 o’clock. For Friday. For the first sign
of salvation and for a missed call on my cell phone. For January 16 because
of the promotion, and for a sense of fulfillment despite the promotion. For the cat to die. For the moon to look through the curtains dispelling.
For blue eyes in the night instead of just yellow, for blue tears to sprout
daises when the moonlight turns white.
For daises that smell like tobacco.

________________________

Laura Drell lives and writes in Austin, Texas.