Who Are You?

You, you who wage this war
spatter children in the rubble
piss on your conquered enemy
torture and humiliate your captives
speak lightly of 'collateral damage'
while pieces of families
are fumbled from crumbled concrete
Consider this.

You are an accident of your birth.
It caused your allegiance to your country,
to the fundamentalism of your religion,
to a taught hatred of an enemy
whose birthright is also accidental
who hates and wants to kill you
because of where you live
and the God you believe in.

Strip away your flag.
Remove your pious garb.
Forget for a moment
Your ancestral dead.

Who
Are
You?

Opaque Resume

Unconsidered by the scornful young,
Who's eyes see only crimson, black and white;
Feared by the world-weary aging
To them a symbol of their mortal plight.

I am the shade of sense and reason
of tolerance and compromise -
Grey areas, which most ( whose narrow spectrum
shows but vivid colours ) despise.

I am the hue of contemplation,
The colour of the mighty sea at night
I am the shadow where events too
dangerous or nefarious to take place in light
are enacted by the courageous and the lost.

The dusk where clandestine lover's tryst
Unveils true beauty without distraction of surround
Enhanced with only ethereal mist.
I am the flawed or genius cell inside your brain,
the formless grey miasma of your dream.

I am the ash to which one day you will return
When tincture fades, and shades of grey redeem


P.J. Murphy
(c) P.J. Murphy 2005

Note: This was an entry for one of a series of Allpoetry.com contests with colour themes, this one being 'Grey'


pjmurphypoems.blogspot.com

Sinecure

He remembers a time
when he was the centre
of the circle.

A social hub, a club
close colleagues, no -
more than that -
firm friends...

Spontaneous
sojourns to the pub
on Friday evenings
...just for a quick one.

Rolling home
at Eleven-thirty
bursting with
camaraderie
and a full bladder.

A pleasant institution
in their voluntary
institutionalised
Public Service
sinecure

So hard to
stick a pin
in the point
of change

Drive.
Disillusionment.
Disinterest.
Dismissals.
Dispersals.

Deaths.


All leading toward
this unfamiliar place
sharing space with
strangers with names.

Hearty
hallos
in halls.
Hollow.

Next Friday
they will
toast his health
tell bawdy
half-remembered
stories, badly.

Exaggerate his
achievements.
Present him with
their heartfelt gift

( travel vouchers
he will never use -
he has no heart for travel
since he lost her.
How would they know? )

Monday
the alarm will ring.
He will turn it off
one final time.

He will accept
well meant
invitations
to future
Friday frolics.

Until
one Friday
the strangers
will have no names.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was an entry for an Allpoetry contest where the prompt was the line "strangers with names", and won the Bronze trophy for 3rd place in the contest

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

pjmurphypoems.blogspot.com

You Know Who I Am

Commanding the stage 

and the fine musicians 

bestowed with the honour 

of accenting your wisdom 

you spill your honeyed words 

into our eager consciousness s

erenely smiling like a holy man 

In your seventy-fifth year 

you sing your psalms and stories 

with the voice of a God 

but soothing now, no questions asked 

but an acceptance that there are no answers 

You were the crutch, t

he mainstay of my thoughtful youth 

a comforting validation 

that someone more austere than I 

could strip away veneer 

and see the sewers and the sunsets 

the sinner and the sainted 

and cosset them in blankets of words 

rendering them timeless 

Thank you, Leonard.

pjmurphypoems.blogspot.com

Bull

Ok, so we've
lied a little

They need our lies -
our reconstruction
of the fables
is what keeps them
hanging on to
the dream


The faithful.
Bless 'em.

Follow us
on the
fast-track
to Heaven


They swallow it all
- transubstantiation
( literally...)
the whole
omnipotent
omniscient and
omnipresent God
trichotomy

explained
expertly,
excursively...

ethically
morally
mystically


Divine Mystery

Say it often enough, it acquires substance
Two thousand years of repetition
create an article of faith most absolute
for those in fervent need of absolution


We make the world
a better place
as fear of Hellfire
and damnation
( did I mention 'Vengeful?' )
keep them in check -
a docile flock
the Good Shepherd
ensures
the silence
of the lambs

So we will continue
to fire our canon
at the ninety-nine
who suckle on it's
outpourings
perpetuated by this
Papal Bull.

Ah... Men...

~~~~~~~~~~~

This was an entry for an AllPoetry Contest "Take a step back ( Round 2 )" http://allpoetry.com/contest/2374596 and won Gold for 1st place


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