poems || Sheila E. Murphy

from 'Toccatas in the Key of D'


35
Don’t sleep with anyone, just sleep.
I forward documents in place of each
Display of fact.
Give adrenaline a moment
To rush in before proceeding to sit back.
Quinine stamina portrays
The sum of personality’s inflationary
Puncture.
Case law regarding what?
Literature pulls in two
Directions stanced apart.
Leavens a brisk new feel
Pegged soprano prematurely 
With the feel of teenaged limelight.

36  
When food for thought is seeded,
A mind can be uplifted
To the softest ceiling anyone would know.
The best defense is a defense.
The major shift begins to dry.
One glandular opinion makes the other writhe.
Whatever pilgrimage enlivens will have weathered
Gestures foisted on the frontline saplings
That accrete the warmth of hands.
How many stories high are novice notes?
How many springtimes will it take to cancel happiness?

37  
Wings limber down stilled leafage dried on impact.
Several reports later,
Integers mix well with rubbed
Words, sacks of peat.
I’m almost new enough
To bear this century.
The sticks draw what still seems a film.
No matter how creative, we align with
Hesitation and pursue the endless straightedge
Of continuo.
Apprenticeship recedes amid the darkness.
Long retention simmers the way rafts do,
Steadfast in their corridors.
Some plumes seem to get wet.
Modesty as an olfactory divestiture comes home to roost.
A silhouette in time staves off the parables
Still close to burgeoning.
Hectares eke out modest dues.
A fortnight is sufficient time to have your justice blessed.   

38  
Sun is sweating its indulgence. Clothes rival
Weather slowly crystallized as pace of sweet. 
This fierce retraction of mudguard 
Leaves a weak shine drizzled over forest,
That rescinds a cool encumbrance.
Admittedly, the cream goes pale on waitlist
Half imposed. I want a wild pen to intrude upon
A thatch. A furrow, landslide, safe sex
In latitudinous apartment. Steeds
Leave home without us. Savage
Play goes out for war. The little people
Render our collaborative incompetence. We rise
To the indelible occasion.

39  
Pagination lies in state. The fortress beams 
Collective bric-a-brac until some smoothness
Dulls the edge of pacifist divulgence.
Wheat germ plays the hood for folderol.
No matter whose bed, this is certain
Paradise. A sunful of broad lane-
Changes white for lanky weeds
And stainful tolerance the more you winter here.
The more you take back what you said, 
The more a nerve is pressed. As if 
To fabricate some manger dust 
Of reason closely held. 
To keep a resonance intact. 

40  
We sprang into a forcible rapport
As though our cupboards depended upon
Reconciliation. Some couples renounce
History, in service of a gentle future.
Instant replay is a threat no one
Would willingly allow, apart from being paid
To watch and catch and relay
In the direction of the skid. No loss
Is quite worth earning, and
The sooner something round is caught,
The better sales in stands will be.
Weather often buffers relaxation,
Thus preventing anyone from being
Too far in the mood, due west
Continuing magnetic inching toward
Pacific young horizons.
 
41  
Sacrifice means you loathe a part of you
That can be given back.
These materials my theory practices
Release in water ankle deep,
As laundry. Sheets torn to
The size of easel pieces, smaller than
Hymns swollen with hurt that made them.
Why are optimistic forecasts near-term minded?
How do cares begin to while away
Our time, your time, cool butterflies
Absorbing their maturity,
With evolution pumping head games?

42  
Semicolons lapse into will points
With a texture shaming to the eyes
As axioms have been bequeathed,
One’s innocence is frayed. 
So many brackets, face left, 
Match sparse quantities.
A chaperoned small citizenry.
Approaches unconnected morsels.  
Whose pure, assorted pulse 
Is given unconnected, to the various
Thin stems. Each destined
By pro forma articles of tapestry, considered
Text where stones connect to coffers. 
The conch of reproduction
Strewn and watered once.

43  
See the grain of lark go by
Just out of range,
Blinking residue of fame gone nimble 
In a row of cataracts.
Here are my albumen underlings.
Moths that ride the lake,
Drizzle in a cup of moonlight
Bearing opulence to antidote the lack 
Of reasons monstrosities occur to us. 
We wear a favored nation stratosphere 
To keepsake where the live ones like to stay. 
All ration long, we lore our way to treasures 
In the brine and bog of silverware.
Is this the coast reputed to be clear?
Tell every one of us how this relates to salsa
Noticed in a dream whose worthiness had gone. 
I’ve kept my measure of the bargain.
Now the burden of producing some collateral
Is on your neck and shoulders.