from October Sequence
Sheila E. Murphy
33/
He crosses the line she crosses herself
Their place is low on elbow room
They transmit signals back to
Selves neither rhythmic nor
Arythmic penetrating glances occupy
The mirror sought after the lamp
Relays conflicting stories via
Person number gender place or syntax
Yield a handmade shrine
That endows the room with
Functionality unmet as seasons shift
From universal penance to a wanted peace
A lived experience in the wake of
Known momentum while the dowry breaks
Into a dance replete with kismet minus
Kisses and the softness that would make
A kinder world a hammock of
Their mutual history left out
In the ungainly wind to topple
Saplings that comprise a newer world
34/
Future eclipses present tense live
In her mind glutted with fear she sees him
As she sees no self to fashion senses
Into fuel for reinvention after being
Lodged within the circumstance of
Keeping things smooth ironic
Hammer flattens her virtue and her breath
Her shoulders aching with imaginary pressure
She has made by inclination not by hand
But what she has observed then mimicked
For the duration of her threadbare happiness
At the highest level she could maim
By digging into hurts she wears
Until she cries not knowing how
To reason with her instinct or
To find a different attitude or altitude
To free her mindset from a universe
She’s trained to see affording challenges
To comprehend or touch and hold within
The trap of what might be stalled
As she keeps acclimating herself
To suspicions already confirmed
35/
A little bulk of metal jams along the busy
Street loud fumes barge past pastel
Sedans and taut trucks blasting
Toward unknown destinations the obstacles
Fatten frenzy and discard intention
Clear enough to see or see through
In the gray wind across cement
And blacktop painted lines uncoded
As the sprawl sans water
Laminates collective mind to mean
The always frenzied press of damage
Seeking contributions seeking fretless
Poise in music always possible to save
The damsel from undress the daylights
Crystallize the pretense and no time
Has timeless properties the world becomes
An artifice commodities perceived by weight
Inform the colloquial turn of phrase
“Tons of people” suggesting that
We weigh them without counting
36/
He requires so much attention
He points to himself and asks
How he is doing she exasperated
Speaks a sentence equally predictable
He keeps inquiring she responds
With whatever used to work
And may still work it’s all she has
And she is all he has
He cannot be made peaceful
Regardless of how much approbation
He still wants to know is everything
All right am I indispensable am I
A genius does the world see how
Imperative I am
Is there more that I can do
And is what I have made so far
The most exceptional ingredient
The universe has known am I
Imperative and what’s more
How would you describe the importance
Of my being known to be eternal
37/
I am vata you are pitta welcome
To my vegetables my dairy my permitted spice
You cannot consume nuts of any kind we find
An intersection of our tendencies
We do not label compromise we find
A higher path we heal each other
Neither at a time the scriptures
Have been synthesized my seams
Are showing do you know from movies
What that means let’s order room service
Let’s watch reruns of Forensic Files let’s
Hope that law enforcement professionals
Can do their jobs and retrofit
The pavement and the rooftops
To include the many ones we love
Let’s serve them food let’s plan
A getaway to what remains within us
We are practiced in a Labrador mentality
It’s good to glide and to decide
The ampersand is shining golden
Evermore
38/
Amenities derive from statutory innocence methinks
You might be hampered before knowing
The embrace of walls can comfort
Just as kicking up your heels may vitiate
The inclinations of the dour among us
Profiting from incessant statis
Mongrel traits immune to beauty
Tamping even shutters that allow in light
Alongside wind and chasten dabbling
Hitched to aspirations as the rain shine
Rinses tendency to under-simplify where yeast
Allows to rise our stream of breeze
In seeking and exploring how the windows
Tapped lead into homonyms as priestly
Acts of speculation winter mimes
Approach the shore and faces
Blurred by distance come to form
A lottery of patience fortified
As change leads to amorphous depths
39/
Animation gives me hives he said
I’m tired of looking at round shoulders
In blue costumes unfit for human attire
The drawl of portly little footsteps
Soft beyond intention I would rather
View a realistic patch of daylight
With some grit and heavy on the pedal
Toward real life plenty of sharp edges
To smooth the too smooth corner free pretense
As if small beings mindlessly
Invest in comfort for themselves for others
To the detriment of any purpose
Give me a saw to carve the places
Needing sharpness clarity and definition
Give me change to aggravate the hemisphere
To make it grow something beyond
The petty pretty flowers in favor of
A well-earned purity for the duration
Sheila E. Murphy is the 2003 recipient of the Green Integer Press Gertrude Stein Award for her book, Letters to Unfinished J. In 2020 Luna Bisonte Prods released Golden Milk. Her 2018 book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland). In 2018 Broken Sleep Books brought out the book As If To Tempt the Diatonic Marvel from the Ivory.