War Poems II

And still on the theme of war.

The Dead Wood.

Down here in the long grass

It was hard to tell

Whose side you were on.

You cut through the dead wood

And it was all the same

The medieval look

Both ways.

Couldn't kill you pretty like

Pushing a button

The two edged sword.

Frank Murphy.

Photo: Gormanston Beach Co. Meath.

New Year's Day!

Well maybe not a house in the fields, but a church!

A House in the Fields.

The crumbling walls and faded dreams

Memories of what might have been

The twilight world that lives within

Where daylight ends and night begins.

A curtain through a broken pane

An invalid's supporting frame

The laughter, sadness, joy and tears.

A gate that hangs on broken piers.

Along a winding track that leads

Down to a garden overgrown

With weeds.

And apple trees all gone to seed

With no one left to tend their needs.

And rooks that earn their daily bread

As sentinels that guard its dead

Its empty rooms and rusted tin.

A house in the fields

Too scared to go in.

Frank Murphy.

Photo: Church of Ireland Tara Co. Meath.

The Fourth Estate

A little poem for Saturday.



The Fourth Estate.



Embedded in such legalise
As please M'Lords
A little wheeze
Could show good cause
To such respect
When body politic
Dissect.

That every class
Of hound or hack
Was safely muzzled
Round the back.

Or carcass nailed
In some debate
That prowled about
The Fourth Estate.


Frank Murphy.

Photo: The River Tolka/Blanchardstown.

These Days

A very serious poem for a saturday when I could be listening to late night radio.

These Days.

Who marked it out this way

That fear crept in.

Let instinct have these days

That have their edge on you

Press play begin.

Who marked it out this way

These days,

What prey....

On reason laid

This game you cannot win

Let instinct have these days

The castaways of form

And sin.

Who marked it out this way

These days.

Who marked it out

This way.

Frank Murphy.

Photo: Trim Poet Tommy Murray

at the Knightsbridge open mic.

Cleaners

Cleaners

The sign on the doorway

Said refuge from pain

Step on into uncertainty

Escape from the rain.

The endless persuasion

Of what it all means

And the man playing soul

On the record machine.

And his voice reassures

As you stumble behind

Line following line

Blind leading the blind.

As you try to fit in

With the spirit of things

They cut to the chase

And the dealers move in.

And no matter how often

You figure the odds

When they cut to the chase

the profit was god.

Frank Murphy.

Photograph: The Yellow Steeple Trim Co. Meath

From across the Boyne.