For Tierney. February 4, 2012

I’ve been a poet longer than I’ve been a writer. Like little Tierney playing the piano, little Em was drawing pictures and writing accompanying poetry.

Tierney loved my poEms. You know those friends who encourage your art and the hopes and dreams within? One of those people was Tierney. I wrote a few poems for her over the years, to cheer her up or because her spirit inspired me.

And so it’s not morbid or gloomy, now that you know the backstory, to write Tierney out of this mortal coil.

I believe these two particular sparks

will meet and cause a fire someday,

Crackling warmth, laughter dancing up the walls

of this little red schoolhouse of the heart.

 

For Tierney with love. x0x0

This is not a time to die

But to soar. Just another turn of the

Spiral, not the end nor the

Beginning, but the middle ground

With all its slippery slopes.

One bird, like one thousand birds.

Every breath a raindrop

Dancing off a tin roof.

Love, the definition of never-ending

And a fire burning within

And a place to begin.

It can take one hundred years

To peck off this shell, this

Growing while we’re dying, this

Heart beating for real.

It’s a leap and then a crash.

A sore and then a soar.

A Grand-Canyon-sized ache.

A wing breaking into song.

 

Snow! December 2, 2010

The Muse’s Fire September 12, 2009

Morning:

The simple facts are naked and pink;

a reviving number of sun-lit breaths,

a second helping of morning,

golden opportunities to make time fly  

or scratch the dog’s back in lazy circles.

 

Noon:

Coffee rising. A non-option, really,

those stale afternoons littered with yesterday’s prayers

that smell like old rain and stomp the stairs

going nowhere fast. Waiting for the churlish skies

scrubbed childlike and new, waiting for the newborn worlds

to cry a fateful tune. No need to fret —

the Universal antennae adjusts itself,

the frequency frequent enough,

the bright, cellophane words busting out

of pinata souls written in half.

 

Night:

Rushing Saturday off to endless destinations,

coated in foreign scents chasing dog-eared adventures

while trees typed on windowpanes that weren’t your own,

voyeuristic roots exploring uncharted, fecund soils,

time unbridled and galloping off as time is wont to do,

shadows growing older in the solitude,

crock pot seething on the counter, forgotten,

dogs fogging up the windowglass to see what you’ve begotten

while the evening grows colder as you grow braver,

tossing extra logs upon the Muse’s fire.

 

Poem and photos by Emily Murdoch.

Ouroboros September 9, 2009

 

Knock knock (on the stars).

Who’s there? Some form of God —

The wise old man who paces the sky as his floor.

The merciful mother who etches her face into tortillas

and cries down the cheeks of statues for her true believers —

 

How can you tell it’s real?

How can you say it’s not?

When the moon foreshadows the weeping days

and the sun breaks all night long.

Because the heart quickens when it sees it,

the face of its beloved flickering with hope.

Because where else does love come from, my dearies,

before its sprinkled upon the earth?

 

 

Poem and photos by Emily Murdoch.

Bless The Querying Writer. March 9, 2009

 

the deed is done

the gauntlet thrown

the friend of yes

the foe of no

and while their fate

in limbo goes,

bless the querying writers

in between

a rock and a hard dream,

wearing their stories

on their sleeves

and just returned

from imaginary lands

still warm to the touch

of their trusty pens.

 

 

Poem and photos by Emily Murdoch.