MINOTAUR

MINOTAUR

I believe in Aristophanic raindance
I believe in the madwoman’s undergarments
I believe in insubstantial tubes of light
That sit on the face and linger, that are

Remnants of antique worms that crawled
Over the earth at the time
Of ferns and the Eohippus.
I believe in the ghost of time

That will return at the inapt moment
To tap on the windowpane
Of our dreams so that
The yellow light invades

The courtyards of Rembrandt
Of Turner and of Claude.
As it invades the sensual
Signature of roses, leaves, trees

To be memorialised by one
 Insubstantial yet deft
Brushstroke that is also
An intellectual worm

Burrowing into fevered
Glands becoming human entrails
Dotted with blood which are also
Confessions of poems,

Spontaneous odes that burn
In the skylight of the membranes
Of vast minotaurs that inhabit
This labyrinthine credo.

TROLLS 

Men and women are like trolls
All wrapped up in hollow swansongs.
The lost hours are underneath
The floorboards that clatter

With the stamp of the trolls
The chatter of the bastards that matter.
The trolls eat, sleep and fuck
And in the midnight they can die Too.

Repay the masters in hard luck
And the trolls moo and moan.

LOW INTENSITY OPERATIONS

After Sir Frank Kitson

The sky is grey. The rain falls. The dead fall of rain and leaves. Trees scowl. All is foliage, greenness. Map 1. Jesus’s tomb Extend a lead for a CCTV Camera in there. A dial With various measurements. Breathing. Heart rate. Blood Pressure. The resurrection Will really fuck up the chief’s Plans for his new open prison, Pandemonium, scheduled to be Built in mid-Ulster. Map 2. Low key surveillance The gods of the Canaanites Are arrayed along with a funky Statue of Astarte found in Iraq Or a (possibly) neighbouring Territory. It looks very like A man with a huge firm. We sent It to Sir Frank Kitson for his approval. Map 3. Sir Frank Kitson’s entrails O fuck looks as if Sir Frank has been Brutally killed in a terrible accident With a pane of glass. This would Have upset Tacitus, Herodotus, Pliny, Plutarch, the minge Of the Venus or Praxiteles, The orifice of Apollo. Ask Sir Frank For his autograph…. Paul Murphy

BERTOLT BRECHT BEFORE THE HOUSE UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES

BERTOLT BRECHT BEFORE THE HOUSE UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES

 In my nearby canal an unseemly mess: 
The death of a soap star. 
Her torso is all that remains. 
There's her picture on the poster in my little local shop. 
Naturally a pornographer has confessed. 

Brecht stooped mightily over the Landwehr Canal, Berlin. 
There was some more odium to resolve. 
The toothbrush moustache of quantum mechanical knowledge 
Had rid Germany of decent clean beer. 
Now his navy is cleaning up 
The seven seas. I am in clover. 
Bertolt Brecht is in California. 
He wants to confess but stops. 
How did He sever her head, hurl the fat torso 
Into the rat infested black water? 
Why did he gaze back with such a plaintive quizzical look? 

Bertolt Brecht! Are you listening? 
Pay attention! You are in danger of failing! 

The Reichstag lists to one side on history's even keel. 
It has heard you are ruined. 

Bertolt Brecht are you ruined, are you ruined? 
Pay attention! You are in danger of failing! 

Paul Murphy