Sheila Murphy - the-hold.com/may 2004

sheila murphy

recipe for returning to the home town

take a loaf of risen bread
turn back your watch
remove the yeast
allow a speck of window light to touch the bread
leave the house at once
become involved in washing every verb you've spoken over the last two sounds
bereave the recent past
interest your friends in echoing your sentiments
return the act of feeding in the house
request a miracle
pray if you are accustomed to prayer
accomplish what you had hoped
erase what you have known
unveil the as yet unknown

a modest fluency near middle age

someone with very firm fore-
fingernails has creased the m and n keys
from the lower left up through the upper right
on each key
plus everything to the right of w
and up through a pale y
plus all keys to the right of that through p
are now invisible
and everything to the right of j up to the semicolon
has been erased plus c and v

from and of this distance [a way]

b/less/less/less/less
f ever ed
few windows to
ward of
f
sacred shadows
iff

with little weight
s till
c haste n ed

Sheila's new ebook:
pressure on the spine her spine your spine my spine
BlazeVOX Publications

Sheila E. Murphy's book manuscript Letters to Unfinished J. was selected in this year's open poetry competition sponsored by Sun & Moon Press, and will be published by Sun & Moon. Dennis Phillips was the judge. Falling in Love Falling in Love With You Syntax: Selected and New Poems has just been released by Potes & Poets Press. Recent works include A Clove of Gender (Stride Press, 1995). Murphy's work has been widely anthologized, most recently in Fever Dreams: Contemp orary Arizona Poetry (The University of Arizona Press, 1997) and The Gertrude Stein Awards in Contemporary Poetry (Sun & Moon Press, 1994, 1995). The Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series recently brought out an autobiography of Sheila E. Murphy, including photographs of Murphy with family and friends.

Sheila Murphy co-founded with Beverly Carver and continues to coordinate the Scottsdale Center for the Arts Poetry Series, now in its eleventh season. Murphy is President of the management consulting firm Sheila Murphy Associates. Since 1976, she has made Phoenix, Arizona, her home.

• grafitti messageboard •