Sheila E. Murphy

Sheila E. Murphy

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).

I want to dazzle off to a repetitive indulgence that transforms particulates into a wave of luster that defines who we will be.

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as the rush of water
comes and seethes
white shush upon
​the quiet rage of need.

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I no longer hear that silvery soprano tone protecting me.
The woods, deep darkly, overcome a sheer blue sky, the color of your eyesight.
How can this impeccable quiet answer me?
A whole pure run of notes shows I have practiced imprecisely.

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He writes to say he hopes I’m smiling
Sometimes I do, sometimes
I fasten on a photograph
When he was smiling.

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The 5 was much easier to write
The ampersand, less so
With nothing to wave your hand over
As if virtual nature quite interior
Overlaps

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How is it possible the sky
Can shine across the river
Anymore, the heart beat
Purely as the distance from a grave?

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I was picturing the perfect hammock as an antidote to the mercurial endowment of the speaker’s eyes that skittered toward targets of greed. I saw firm feeling held between strong trees.

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without relinquishing hope
            even a sliver that defies
                        dark sky          guarding
    person from poisonous

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There is no such thing as weather. On the off-chance that it rains, I will remember the indelible mark upon a winter pond where we would skate to music in our heads. The lamp of God was healing to a water deeper than some misplaced months.

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