The Tribute
Who will furnish the garb of the warrior
arm him with helmet and spear?
Who's crest on his breast plate and armor
Who's voice shall the warrior revere?
Who will send him into battle to wage war
with purpose unclear?
Who will stand by his grave mound in tribute
never touched by terror or fear?
I will stand by his widow and cover her face with a shroud
and stand by his orphaned children
as the drums and the cannons applaud.
It is me the purveyor of weapons
it is me the pontiff of State
I paved his path of destruction
and armed his trigger of fate.
I was the voice of a nation, it was me who sent him to die
but you will not here me say this
for I've mastered the telling of lies.
Someday I'll have need of his children
and they will not ask me why.
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poem by George Murdock
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Anyone's Grandmother
An impression boils and vapor coalesces on a broad white leaf
Like the rendered nectar from a delicate dandelion
Brushed and vibrant cascading in the dawn light
Her soft silver hair tied back in a knot and skewed with a whale bone
Those delicate fingers snatching the skein
Flitting about like moths round a gaslight
Fashioning a fine barbed steel brocade
Or shaking out the weavers with a yellow straw broom
Watching them disappear over the roof in a startled cloud
Rolling the callow in flour
Dropping them like pink dumplings
Into the crackling oil
The smells that stole from that kitchen
I'll recall to my dying day
Apple cinnamon fritters
Buttery steaming hot rolls, perfectly tanned
Ginger bread babies with red gumdropp eyes
I miss your bent form
Shrieking 'Rock of Ages' like some
Tortured squab in one of your pigeon pies
poem by George Murdock
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Framed
The lots are a collusion of lawn tools
Rakes bark at sidewalks
Mowers ruminate, roaring in fescue
Pink flamingo statuary and black jockeys
Vie for spritz from rain birds
The straw hat ladies sit on wicker benches
In a garden of sculpted shrubbery
They sip tea from painted dragon china cups
glinting in the summer morning sun
Moving in arcs from laced limbs
The gentry and their servants
The fingers and the cup
Possessing themselves for eternity
“I’m thinking of a tuck”
“ I don’t think a tuck will do you”
“ My God your catty”
laughter erupts from calamity
from an assembly of uncommon alliance
“ I think body replacement would be more like it”
silence warps from light hearted bantering
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poem by George Murdock
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The Scions of Spring
The iron gates lay broken,
The fire bricks scattered and pitched
Where once the setting’s fierce roar
now silence.
Once while the chimneys billowed the stench and smoke of slaughter.
In the background the sounds of trains and shouting men.
Fierce dogs strained at tethers from urine stained alcoves.
While jack boots thudded on brick paved causeways,
behind the panic of bare feet and ragged breath,
the rutting continued.
like salmon swimming up the sweet stream, the rutting went on,
behind shipping crates, in mountains of excelsior, and beneath the points
of fixed bayonets, in straw heaps of barns and sheds.
Years after the grates lay frozen and the stench of the dead night
gave way to the lilt of peach blossoms, we lay on a plaid blanket together,
staring into each other’s eyes, conjuring the scions of spring,
caught in the gyre of the helix.
poem by George Murdock
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Ariel
Ariel
Oh troubled world what will be done?
What will happen if Ariel dies?
Will we settle into sleep?
relieved of his bluster and contempt,
spared from his smile which could be
no less sincere.
Will we escape the narrow eyes?
of a man who has never lived
with clean hands.
Will we coast into Bethlehem?
in the middle of Passover
our spirits crushed
by the wailing
of hired mourners
and a dirge of device and reparations.
Will the clanking of armor
ever cease under his dread auspices,
the noise of war and wailing,
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poem by George Murdock
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Sysyphus (an ode to a working man)
The sun lent its fire upon him
as he wound the tape in a rapid motion
Taking the stub of a pencil from his red ear
which trumped the rim of a ball cap
he scratched the marks on a dog eared card
damp with sweat from his breast pocket
Day by day with his dusty pipe
hanging unlit and clenched in his teeth
he paused to wonder leaning on the fender
of his aging truck
how many more days neath the sun
will it take until the till be full
the debtors sated
the children flown from the nest?
then can he lie down
in a green valley and take
a breath of satisfaction
I visited his grave last week
I stooped on the green coifed carpet
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poem by George Murdock
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El Dorado
The half-lit wilting and leafless white Birch
against the pink and gray Pinatubo sunset,
their fragile contrast to the skyline like haggard wraiths.
We sit on a cement bench on the shore of the artificial lake
made of gunite and filled with reclaimed water,
pitching choclate raisins at mud hens.
Watching them tip on end to
retrieve the morsels in the dark slurry.
There is a constant sound of rushing water in the distance,
as if the cement river of the San Gabriel,
became confused with the roar
of the river grade freeway.
Wandering out we came upon the perfect circle
of brown and tan goose feathers, laid like a wreath
or a fairy circle.
The content of this symmetry fed a hungry predator.
This thing construed to provide illusion.
This stand of planted trees and sewer streams
can’t in its failing exhibition,
replace the wild and natural country
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poem by George Murdock
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Science at a Glance
He sat on a bench in his wrinkled suit
And stared for a while into the night
seeing for the first time
and embracing the theory of everything
He walked along the weather beaten sidewalk
Knowing somewhere beneath
Were pipes and tubes which fed homes
And trees with equal efficiency
He saw the oneness of it all
And the isolation of each
He saw the mercury vapor
Boiling in its glass pot
And spewing the yellow sheen
Urine colored and voiding light
Which was the light of modern living
He knew the principles and the reasons for each article
For plumbite and graphite for halide and aldehyde
Nothing escaped the fusion of invention and inspection
He heard the sounds and knew why
Sound traveled with his steps
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poem by George Murdock
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Heat
One summer day while jocular spare toothed old men
Played bocce in the park in their sleevless shirts
And drank beer from brown paper bags
While a scorching late afternoon breeze
Wafted odors of frying onions, ground beef and wax peppers which stung the flared nostrils
Of mothers pushing baby carriages, fanning themselves with newspapers
Which declared the heat wave of the century
While jagged edged loudspeakers played music of the Rancheros
from the door of a record store
While shrill voiced children ran through the wash of a fire hydrant
While wine pissed bums slept in alcoves and trolley cars clanged along the boulevard
One day as the summer sun sank steamily into the depths of the west coast
From the spectacle of light and heat arose a languishing solar flare
which licked along the walls and alleys, igniting the city
with a light the sun can never shine
And from nests come preened falcons and nightingales
warbling love songs in the hot endless night.
poem by George Murdock
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Stonehenge
What can be said to the stones
the deaf blocks unyielding to tenderness.
Question them and expect to be assailed
by a tract, by a jingoistic reply
Expect to come away bruised
broken by the heedless conformity
lines crossing the heart of the crooked sky
no more relevant to this vital world
than their acrimonious retorts
to your soft pleading queries
What can be said to a grieving mother?
asking softly why her son is dead,
that she is insincere in her puzzlement?
of the craggy forms
of emanations of nonsense
blatherings from a hidden teleprompter
grasping reason and feeling
ripping them with archless grace
with stoic poise and scrubbed stone
through piles of rubble, treaties, and rotting flesh
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poem by George Murdock
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