Mark Murphy
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Mark Murphy was born in 1969. He studied philosophy (BA) and poetry (MA) at University.
He is currently looking for a publisher for his MS, Night-watch Man & Muse. Most recently his
poems have been published by Poetry New Zealand, Quarterly Poetry Review Singapore, Apollo's
Lyre (Canada), Poetry Scotland, The Warwick Review (UK), Istanbul Literature Review (Turkey),
Contemporary Literary Horizons (Romania), The Paris Atlantic Journal (France), The American
Dissident (US), The Tampa Review (US), Left Curve (US) and The Stinging Fly (Ireland).
He is currently looking for a publisher for his MS, Night-watch Man & Muse. Most recently his
poems have been published by Poetry New Zealand, Quarterly Poetry Review Singapore, Apollo's
Lyre (Canada), Poetry Scotland, The Warwick Review (UK), Istanbul Literature Review (Turkey),
Contemporary Literary Horizons (Romania), The Paris Atlantic Journal (France), The American
Dissident (US), The Tampa Review (US), Left Curve (US) and The Stinging Fly (Ireland).
Night Photographer
I possess you in photographs. I possess you…
night after night your body opens
to my eye and I am silent beside you
like a man who only knows pain
lost in sad reflection and prayer.
It was no accident that I came to take you in this way.
I made no secret of my ragged heart or the tenderness
that ran in my veins for you like exhausted sonnets.
I needed your embrace like the kiss of a child.
I have mapped the lines and freckles in your face
and each tiny scar and mole that adorn your body
as if they were jewels put there just for my discovery.
I felt like Columbus bringing gold to the King of Spain,
but the more you said you loved him, the more I looked
to see if there was something I had missed, some omen,
or some clue, any clue to undo the spell you were under.
The more you said you loved him, the more I wanted you.
I wish I could hold your hand and guide you home
every time you felt lost or alone or hurt. I wish I could
ward off all the little tragedies that go to make up a life,
but I am as helpless before your past as any man
who tried to love you. You made a gift of your body.
And I am a man in possession of little else; prepared
for a battle, a war, anything. No matter, that you vanished
before the first roll of the dice. You are free now.
My wild eyed girl. My wide eyed girl…
Seems So Long Ago
I do not know how many times I drew you naked
in those last weeks before all our songs
out-played themselves on the stereo:
how many nights I called your name
from knocked out telephone boxes
and wrecked sash windows overlooking the park.
Although I have not given-in entirely to memory,
I feel undone – like a man wanting
too much from the comfort of our embrace.
When I am alone, like tonight, I remember
our touching on the kitchen floor
among the garbage and the dirty laundry,
I imagine drawing you then, as you go down
for your goal, savouring the magic
of which each is made.
We would move heaven and earth to go back
but that old road would not suffice
and we would not have it for more than just a day.
We are not mountains; only children dreaming
of yesterday. Only in dreams will we brave
the curious rain and roar of our desires.
Requiem For A Kiss
We loiter in the old shop doorway
and behind the factory wall where we grow
phantom-like in the half-dark
that does engulf the beating heart.
Unaccustomed to the gaiety and noise –
the hoof and cart of our own past,
we come together in this foreign land,
this foreign century to stand our ground.
We speak after so many years of silence,
so many years of quiet surrender
to the stars, the ragged boot and the gnarled hand
that would grab at the grubby pavements
of our forgotten dreams, it is unlikely
that any of it could make a difference.
It has become impossible to regain
what is lost in the endless, featureless nights.
Two lovers embrace, kiss, fall away
and even this moment is stolen
from the stomach-turning ground that would deny
even this most human of happenings.
Death in the Sickroom
Who knows more than children
that death leaves its own disagreeable malady
in the minds of the living siblings?
All the wringing of hands in the sickroom,
the necessary prayer, the clasping
of hands held in resignation and despair,
each man and woman – ultimately alone
in the houses of their upbringings,
ineluctably aware of their own demise.
They talk in careful whispers even now
behind the shuttered windows
where the human family gathers in unity
of purpose, whilst the bespectacled doctor
and bearded passer-by are never far
enough away from the apprehension
of their own untimely passing;
this is how it is with the pain of separation,
when we look into the green rooms
of loss with their polished wooden floors
where we turn our backs from the dying
if only for a moment, we see beyond
the wasted remains of the long endured
sickness, we see, at last, the unburdened heart;
this is what it is to love, this is the divine.
The Master Slave Trope
We shall enter into dispute one way or another,
in this we are not unlike master and slave –
my old friend, John Duffy knows this to be true,
though neither man would admit to mastery
over or slavery to any other living soul.
However, two men are not whole classes
unto themselves, to rule over or to be ruled,
they are poets, individual poets, in this instance
that are capable of self-consciousness
but not self-realisation, both men struggle for freedom.
In this we are not unlike master and slave –
the subjugation, starvation and exploitation
(in which neither man plays a part on this earth)
plays its part in our lives, if only to leave us
disputing once more, the higher unity both men seek.
I possess you in photographs. I possess you…
night after night your body opens
to my eye and I am silent beside you
like a man who only knows pain
lost in sad reflection and prayer.
It was no accident that I came to take you in this way.
I made no secret of my ragged heart or the tenderness
that ran in my veins for you like exhausted sonnets.
I needed your embrace like the kiss of a child.
I have mapped the lines and freckles in your face
and each tiny scar and mole that adorn your body
as if they were jewels put there just for my discovery.
I felt like Columbus bringing gold to the King of Spain,
but the more you said you loved him, the more I looked
to see if there was something I had missed, some omen,
or some clue, any clue to undo the spell you were under.
The more you said you loved him, the more I wanted you.
Then, I see you as a little girl
and I am drawn into you
even more surely than before.
I wish you were my little girl,
I wish I could hold your hand and guide you home
every time you felt lost or alone or hurt. I wish I could
ward off all the little tragedies that go to make up a life,
but I am as helpless before your past as any man
who tried to love you. You made a gift of your body.
And I am a man in possession of little else; prepared
for a battle, a war, anything. No matter, that you vanished
before the first roll of the dice. You are free now.
My wild eyed girl. My wide eyed girl…
Seems So Long Ago
I do not know how many times I drew you naked
in those last weeks before all our songs
out-played themselves on the stereo:
how many nights I called your name
from knocked out telephone boxes
and wrecked sash windows overlooking the park.
Although I have not given-in entirely to memory,
I feel undone – like a man wanting
too much from the comfort of our embrace.
When I am alone, like tonight, I remember
our touching on the kitchen floor
among the garbage and the dirty laundry,
I imagine drawing you then, as you go down
for your goal, savouring the magic
of which each is made.
We would move heaven and earth to go back
but that old road would not suffice
and we would not have it for more than just a day.
We are not mountains; only children dreaming
of yesterday. Only in dreams will we brave
the curious rain and roar of our desires.
Requiem For A Kiss
We loiter in the old shop doorway
and behind the factory wall where we grow
phantom-like in the half-dark
that does engulf the beating heart.
Unaccustomed to the gaiety and noise –
the hoof and cart of our own past,
we come together in this foreign land,
this foreign century to stand our ground.
We speak after so many years of silence,
so many years of quiet surrender
to the stars, the ragged boot and the gnarled hand
that would grab at the grubby pavements
of our forgotten dreams, it is unlikely
that any of it could make a difference.
It has become impossible to regain
what is lost in the endless, featureless nights.
Two lovers embrace, kiss, fall away
and even this moment is stolen
from the stomach-turning ground that would deny
even this most human of happenings.
Death in the Sickroom
Who knows more than children
that death leaves its own disagreeable malady
in the minds of the living siblings?
All the wringing of hands in the sickroom,
the necessary prayer, the clasping
of hands held in resignation and despair,
each man and woman – ultimately alone
in the houses of their upbringings,
ineluctably aware of their own demise.
They talk in careful whispers even now
behind the shuttered windows
where the human family gathers in unity
of purpose, whilst the bespectacled doctor
and bearded passer-by are never far
enough away from the apprehension
of their own untimely passing;
this is how it is with the pain of separation,
when we look into the green rooms
of loss with their polished wooden floors
where we turn our backs from the dying
if only for a moment, we see beyond
the wasted remains of the long endured
sickness, we see, at last, the unburdened heart;
this is what it is to love, this is the divine.
The Master Slave Trope
We shall enter into dispute one way or another,
in this we are not unlike master and slave –
my old friend, John Duffy knows this to be true,
though neither man would admit to mastery
over or slavery to any other living soul.
However, two men are not whole classes
unto themselves, to rule over or to be ruled,
they are poets, individual poets, in this instance
that are capable of self-consciousness
but not self-realisation, both men struggle for freedom.
In this we are not unlike master and slave –
the subjugation, starvation and exploitation
(in which neither man plays a part on this earth)
plays its part in our lives, if only to leave us
disputing once more, the higher unity both men seek.