Sheila E. Murphy & Douglas Barbour
Sheila E. Murphy actively writes and draws from her base in Phoenix, Arizona. Her consulting work involves a fusion of theory and practice in organizational design and development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy
Douglas Barbour lives in Edmonton, Alberta. His latest book is Listen. If (University of Alberta Press 2017). His occasional reviews of (mostly poetry) appear in Eclectic Ruckus (https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/).
Two volumes of Continuations have appeared from University of Alberta Press.
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Continuations CVIII:
vexed arbitrage sets new records
booked and broken
in by out rage against
the machinations no
gradations just grand
iose ambition s hit home
along splintered streets
amid less visible wreckage
staged to stifle recognition
rags to rage to
center re-enter
plump thugs ready to begin again
taking steps stairways to havens
hidden in a time warp
ed to a back thrust
lack trust a rough cant
er into newly constructed
eighteenth century polity
rust almost instructive
as in jury duty as a rough cut
of time tested steps
weighing the ways
the teeniest of centuries
can be slowed to stares
quick starts or startles
the shades in shadow
cabinets full of curiosities
sans curiosity simply (un)
questioning any thinking
toward reasoning mindfulness
full bins of trinkets
scarred with rust a curious
quest to feed one’s loved
ones and twos simply
yard full of shadow and sand
growth just postponed
past pined for a losing pro
position played out
from squares filled with anger
against all reason able to fire
a fierce resentment re-sent
through ways mean s hot
layaway is coming back
and people
pare their habits venture
to the next tier down the family
dollar store to stow more
modest portions
the Gap is not the gap
a history regenerates
from pages turned to dust
never slaps down a cover
story for that superior
Cheshire Cat grin
played overtime and played
to down the ever-opt
more generations than
our history would dust
off to show the riotous
urgent period
full stop ped all too mettle
mad unforgiving any
not for giving back
not walk away re-nay
repay that 31st floor
gold plated whore
a vortex of complex self-ing
paid for by
the minions in the millions
acts as icon to inquiring
minds full of unrest
best thing that can happen is
arrest
an ever fuller stop punkt
order courted only
to contain maintain
the walls community
be dammed up about
to burst beyond mere legalities
munitions at a lull
attract ration
ales to stain
the countryside
walled off behind
an image of imposters
who would build walls not even
fences the bad
neighbor policy
wonky as the verses versus
any turnabout turncoat
true believers say
true faith would erase the faux facsimiles
at the surface
where conned masses
demand a wall
as if to dream
acts of exclusivity
beyond the pale riders
on the storm
the barricades
built of goldbrick leaded
down whose dream
its foundations
creamy with philosophy
post-storm seen through
shields the leaded panes
idle but for primacy
incurred along the way
a proxy for a life
vote meta physical exam
what sick beast waddles
toward Bethesda to be borne
aloft on shoulders hunched
beneath a storm of intel
all jinxed by assess
biases that split their brackets
hoodwink all and sun
dry thespians appearing
alive (well, in their lofts)
yet losing every hunch
that mimics intel
is it gents only seems a reduction
redaction brings black
outs ops
for what conclave how
the unelect self-select
for a mass trained wreck
a sect to mispronounce all
manner of talk tear ducts
turn to autoclave
rain, too, needs to come
for what we used
to think we’d mastered
truth inked we’d mustered
masquerades ill manner
of balk heads up
in clouds of gory
tale told by
an ideologue
stirred soundly by
the till sweeter than the urn
and bordered by ninja
bearing out
takes qua shrill
syllabic spurts
expostulations exposed
on a hill shining
with the sweet
of the bought to the
sweat under lights
now dead oh microphone
ought to accommodate the common
shindig with a little
sweet to locate various
phonetic adages
as if to emulate
that baby’s posture purely upright
surely crying but black bird
song or banshee wail
a stand up stood up
kind of guy roped teeny
venture into capital
vain state
rappelling to arrive
induces thriving post-
waylaid diffidence
the black bird also
turns to solace via
keening as we do
Continuations CIX:
this then the long bye bye
blocked barred
a cruel symmetry
a cool cemetery
flocks charred
with ashen song dreams died
forays into past tense
eventually dissolve in favor
of here-today this one
moment as momentum
sparks a miracle amid
trusted routine
a repetition
rust requires trust tree choirs
this time of year fear
of freefalling each turn
return of color before separation
what wafts awaits dissolution
soluble rust
about to leave
stains the choir
warbling a testament
to longevity
beyond color of origin
how far back to go
to any beginning not
already redundant redone
in primary colors
this time as dust covered
every shiny start-up
once (again)
done tones loom
approaching time’s own dust
the start of
backlit shinnying
up the coconut tree
coming down a fall as said
or a fail safe on just two legs
stumbling out into savannahs
green with possibility beige
openings into eternal returns
on every new deposit(ion)
the perpetual green versus gravitas
coexistence bothers both
sides presumed unrelated
a complicated
bird tune fills the kitchen
with trills for condiments
trilliums for contentment or any
flowering evolution
revolutionary greenhouses
stand against stones a broken
mirror s(h)elves the sense of growth
behind the crowd occluded
sight unseen house
broken life forms
at a standstill
lower the bar
even when looking
involuntarily at the mirror wall
in stall nation a rewind
lacking proper intel
in gents only backrooms
a kind of mindless repetition
revolutions forgot
ton of tone deafness announced
room for proper distribution
dissolution ' distinctions
relative atonement
people come in “tons”
these days deaf
to fine distinctions
distinct on so many levels loss
leads less than (unlawful) gain
said to be tru(thi)er than
‘your’ basic hold on home
securing no lending down
that garden path to g(l)ory
thine eyesight on dash
board the gears in our
keeping on homeward
the pronouns as pathways
lean hearty on patholo-
ordinal (de)meaning new data
sets out or a part way beyond
fathom waves push
particles resist
ants in pratfalls figure a new brave
world wanting too much
to little given (thought
perched on shelves of history
sister stacks of brackets tipped
sideways enc
losing parts
and parts of speech usher
in replacements meant for
noting nothing nominal
neglect nods its hanging head
strong against never for
sworn enemies of
raison d’être
or not to beg a question
how to:
get grades get gifts
get past distracting
evermore donning the cap
before the gown
to gain not give (the enemy
positions an ever new
lost orison prayer
breakfast food for fools
capping the wells
springs the new boss
seems as bold
and focused on authority
as fast paced
along positional
retention via
with bona fide tact
(prayer notwithstanding)
pushed upon a forced feeding
in which facts dissolve
in holy waffle
error ridden roar of
rhetorics wrestling down
faraway id the deep-down
meantime a surrounding
atmosphere clouds what is
known including
flowers fed on
by surviving insects
a bit antsy they might say
clung to the higher
stems static stunned
a wealth of wise domination
falls to grasshopper philosophy
hidden in tents of percentages
sophisticated hops
or coffee to taste incentive
to raise the bar
in parallel to healthy stems
the wisdom to antagonize
where war ranted
were war fair a rant
knaves made would have
no hold barred or bared
as errant how the same
old crew caved in
craven as instructed
native opus structure reddened
in warm light
a name is given
elements once planted
define and hold
their ground
against what invasion
of what possibilities
withstood with standing
orders to defend
a wall of care
fully constructed ignorance
what might be known
apart from strictures
watched wings that draw mimesis
from young and old
in motion with emotion
the result of a desire to be
or (bits) knot to beseech
flesh as possibility
pain fully gainsaid
in such desired reproduction
or is that representation
by what dealer of what cards
arrive not quite fresh
the staid moments pass through
walls without measure
hold stains
a product of viewer
ship once shapely and now chapped
chipped off an older lock
on every vote(r) reserved
re-served as newer than any
eighteenth century
noblesse oblige(d)
to chip in
tipping many points tweens
served twice the norm of
lockstep (watch
that eighteenth hologram
revealing centuries
about to pass)
(out into
what new sick bay
moonlit wave driven
or particular rush
a way from action knowledge
meant to tell a sickening time
plastered before us
in repeated frames
riven by wish
for backlit momentum
to shift
to black
Sheila E. Murphy actively writes and draws from her base in Phoenix, Arizona. Her consulting work involves a fusion of theory and practice in organizational design and development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy
Douglas Barbour lives in Edmonton, Alberta. His latest book is Listen. If (University of Alberta Press 2017). His occasional reviews of (mostly poetry) appear in Eclectic Ruckus (https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/).
Two volumes of Continuations have appeared from University of Alberta Press.
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