Landscaped sound,
where notes bud on trellises
and ears blossom even
when the season withers
and leaves, welcomes in scale.
Without signposts a melodious
path provides for a shift
from mood to attitude,
a clef in which to lodge
a hand for a day or more.
Sometimes memory associates
and body and brainstem
discover harmony in a worm.
A dance may go on till dawn.
Beyond the seeded composition,
the random syncopated pitches
and unorchestrated storyteller
enigma from courting song
to communal warning to preyed
upon plea shuts out human feet
lost in chaos, losing the staff.
—
Rich Murphy’s latest collections Susan Constant by Cyberwit and Inside Stories by Resource Publications were published in 2024, following First Aid and Footholds (2023). His poetry won The Poetry Prize at Press Americana twice for Americana (2013), The Left Behind (2021), and Gival Press Poetry Prize for Voyeur (2008).
