"I Have Broken My Own Heart," "Repertoire," and "Manage by Exception"
I Have Broken My Own Heart
Leaves float along a pond
regardless.
Light wind brushes water.
A sliver of moonlight kisses downspout close to sky.
Doves yes themselves against coolness.
Dance yields
to palpable
retreat to
a new song.
Reflexive slumber teaches
what only I now know.
What I have made
I keep making
to death.
Repertoire
I paint open
windows
on the wall
reveal one
season at a time
offer shelf life
for the poor souls
this careful
calculation
of a plot
to pare away
chipped paint
from surface
rake matted
leaves
in front
around twined
tall trunk
where a child
with oiled glove
hefts the ball
sings hi
before
I go in
and away
Manage by Exception
Nothing signs a mothwing like awaited arrondissements.
Clever babe is craving crowds. In Europe all the Lenten Waldorf lengthens slurry.
Gems installed go broke most days till decades sear the wheat.
“Pick me, pick me!”
Millhouse warms to tweets or not.
The installation’s very full of you again.
Decide to run away (again).
This lifetime. Molto allegrando.
Or . . .
Sheila E. Murphy is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for her book Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Her most recent book is Golden Milk (Luna Bisonte Prods, 2020). Reporting Live from You Know Where won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition (Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland), 2018). Also in 2018, Broken Sleep Books brought out the book As If To Tempt the Diatonic Marvel from the Ivory. The chapbook Separation Theory (Writers Forum, 2004) was just reprinted (Trainwreck Press, 2022).
