Amber thrones Wearing dark robes they send their light Down / \ below / a bird / note / rises / up
Category: text
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sans it is all ceremony it is all the cloths all gathered-in it is white tailor’s chalk in a neat triangle it is the blanket-stitch before the machine it is the neighbour woman with her bone-pick pulling stitches one by one from the curtain lining the [bone-pick] is ivory coloured a little larger than a [tooth-pick] nubbed to cradle under the silks and lift them up so she can snip it at the ties the little knot hidden in back of the material stretched out across her knees is silver the thread is doubled-to her material is some floral-stuff on white laid onto a cream skirting she will rinse it out in cold water later and hang it on the monday line the blue-blue rope of the monday line the length of material is clean / sweaty from her handiwork she will hang it over the gauze of her nets which are always immaculate her effort is blind she does not need eyes to feel her work her gathering-to of the pleats Copyright 2013 Chris Murray Published Southword Online URL http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword/Issues/25/murray_christine.html Collected The Blind, Oneiros Books, 2013
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bow down
a harrowed tree
nest-ruined
tangled leaf
Its bough down
bow down—
a-flowering-tree
(still, it flowers)
Submarine blue is
where dawn occurs
(South/South-east of here)
Dawn’s lightbox runs
from north blue
to south warm
The point between
is lit-not-lit
(nor) seamed
a bas-relief.
Copyright 2016, 2018 Chris Murray
Bow Down from ‘bind’, first published York Literary Review, Issue #1 2016 https://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/yorkliteraryreview/files/2017/05/2016-YLR-for-download.pdfOnline URL https://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/yorkliteraryreview/
Collected bind 2018 https://turaspress.ie/shop/bind-by-christine-murray/
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Seed Willow, cut to its hidden houses. Something secret furls unfurls its stem-self seed slopes slews under crystal skin (its) flesh blooms to tone – coralling a milky alumben in water’s distress, floats, |stays| alive winds its silver thread in brine – fleshed frond & secret, still – a silver thread pulls-up willow’s ochre curtain. Truncated cut, yet I saw it — willowGrove willowGrief — winter / flower / blossoms lie on wet ground bereft of their generations seed will lie | seed will lie | Copyright Chris Murray, 2021 First published Timber Literary Journal, September 2021 Online URL: https://timberjournal.org/archive/seed
a note about the text
the poem seed responds to a series of poems (seed, cells, hunger) first published in the blind (2013). I have taken the blind out of circulation as I am working with the text at this time.
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Notes on panic Shall I regard the dark knowing it is past? Enmeshed in the ‘once was’ certain– scored, a stampede carrying thunder into my corridors, chambers, a knife– Revistant Pass!
In the dark I feel, dark edges pressed-down ridged— tight-laced-seals Soul is unquiet – its speaking voice is the sea— Rain, rain falls on all things— awaiting dawn’s song, her joy glosses |joy glosses| this inundation with light, pearls beads— whitelit, Green—
Small bird voice Pipette piccolo in a tall, the tallest tree How high it climbs How tall the vault – small-bodied-bird small-voice-vessel La sua voce! his silver notes at pitch tip-tail-trill He weaves his threads round, He reaches the loftiest branches wren-warbler carrying his small song garden-wide.
Copyright Chris Murray 2021
First published Revista Itaca, Vol 35, September 2021
…excepting the poem small bird voice, first published Gold Friend (Turas Press, 2020)
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Lily crowded window her not-breath, mine signs our presence at the glass, | hers and mine, our presence | Blue Milk, the cooling sun plays her opaques, leaf speckles, variegations. Retreat now, She drains into winter’s dark work July-begun. She drains North. Setting to rest yellow-tips brown, Sun-held-once. Something in secret furls, unfurls its stem-self a creamy-gold, lit. © Chris Murray 2020 / 2021
lily crowded window was first published at FormaFluens Journal, April 2021, Editor Tiziana Colusso
Online URL https://www.formafluens.net/
Downloadable PDF URL https://www.formafluens.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/formafluens-magazine-n.1_2021.pdf
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moi et le Village (d’après Marc Chagall) Version française, Elizabeth Brunazzi La rosée découle en jade une lune aux trois quarts L’Amour O l’amour! Ta fleur arrachée embaume De son parfarm ma main, bientôt bientôt me rappelant une certaine musique- Mon destin a toujours été de quitter le lieu où la lune dansait avec la subtile Neptune! Tout se dissout- sauf le souvenir de ton visage, ton rire en pleine rue et ta danse pour la lune! Tes bagues de jade et ta fleur sont mes bijoux, nuançant toutes choses d’une teinte de vert, de pourpre, d’un bleu profond. La rosée découle en jade une lune ornée comme un bijou, Sa fleur blanche fond sous le bleu. Je me souviens d’un visage, maintenant fixé en lumière, maintenant un ton, une bague ornée de bijoux, une certaine nuance brillante. French translation Copyright Elizabeth Brunazzi 2013
i and the village (after Marc Chagall) Dew drops into jade a three-quarter moon. Love O love ! Your uprooted flower dissipates Its scentedness onto my hand, soon soon recalling to me a certain music - My fate was always to leave the place where moon danced with subtle Neptune! All dissolves - save your remembered face, your laughing in the street and your dancing for the moon! Your jade rings and your flower are my jewel, shading everything green, and purple, a rich blue. Dew drops into jade a jewelled moon, Her white flower dissolves under blue. I remember a face, now caught into light, now a tone, a jewelled ring, a certain bright hue – Copyright Christine Murray 2013 First published Recours au poème, Issue 74, 2013 Online URL https://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/i-and-the-village/ Collected in Cycles Lapwing Press, 2013 Online URL https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/home
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narcissus not step twice into, not step back from stream. its nets are storm blackened, narcissus’ flower is a cut out. it has shut in cold, skeining back into his bud echo and, outbreath. he skeins back his thread the blind buds are always. step (not-step) back then. step (not-step) back then, from the black river nets. stalk the open ring stalk the open ring, this waystation. others speak him out of chrysalis, it is voice brings us alive. it is an unearthing of voice, brings us alive. his hands bound by feathers, red wings, a difficult birthing. Copyright 2017 Chris Murray Online URL Compose Journal, Spring 2017 https://composejournal.com/articles/chris-murray-two-poems/
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hunger outside the ragged bird tears dead flies from the window nets and it is not clothed right - it claws the glass suspend I from the mirror architrave float down silken threads they are not blackened yet from the branches they reach down laden with fruit out on the limb birds beat them for their dessicated meat making sweetmeats for desperate bills a man is clipping the edges with steel season’s treachery suspend I from the mirror architrave float down silken threads they are not blackened yet from the ceiling hooks float down wisps of red thread - almost cobweb light she is arched back unsure whether to suspend burnt orange silks cover the shutters there are children in the street she is nonetheless quite bound-up in red ropes from loop at nape and length of torso it is peaceful, still. being spider-rolled webbed-in and arched as if. a bird swoops down behind the orange silks shiftshape-in suspend I as if she were an exotic fruit a seed caught in breeze from the mirror architrave float down silken threads they are not blackened yet cobweb light she is arched back unsure whether to suspend in the red threads that loop at her nape down the length of her torso dividing and opening her out achingly if she moves the threads will tighten the harpies are perched in the suicide-trees
ceremony the red rope is looped around the neck and brought down the back to the bra-line it tightly binds across the top of the chest and is looped down to the cunt lips separating them held-to and pulled in the back arches back bow-bent as if its wood had seasoned in an iron girder above hot embers and released steam onto a still lake the hook retracts when the dress slides into a blue ripple onto the boards there are six hooks embedded into the ceiling stockings catch up the desert breeze on a small balcony , a strip of silk portholes the room and sutras are tacked into the walls the hooks do not look as if they could carry the weight of an inert body spider-rolled silk-skeined red-cocooned the bird panics spider-fruits from under dry eaves these net-webs are laden with the small dead best not to move he is demented with hunger. © C. Murray 2013, 2021 Copyright 2013 Chris Murray Published Ditch Poetry Online URL https://www.ditchpoetry.com/christinemurray.htm Collected The Blind Oneiros Books, 2013
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Preamble Break the glass that shields morning's flame. Proceed from your room— Ferns, once We awaken in our bodies, again. Their smooth hurts. Winged, for the pigeon wakes too, her back to the City. Mourning dove. Notes towards an image Iron ring copse within. Leaf // settles Jewelling | nowhere her Garnets, Emeralds. Side aches to unclasp this constriction, this leakage of things– To want to be in the world, to want to be of the world. Crown the jewels crow Red all || Mouth City as frieze. Pillar Ravenful, haven of claw. Dawn’s fluidsong dissipates— Rise up, regain Light — Dark and down, My song is more than silhouette. To bring light, lightsong, O Brightsong, to soothe my ancient sing to pierce the breast. Soft, the softening rain Sing to pierce the breast— Sing to pierce the breast, nighthooks brim to split. Sing to pierce the night— Sing to pierce the night -hooks brim to split. Dawn’s contraction, slow the opening— orchis-white a Yellow toned song to loosen the gum that holds peony’s ample heart. leaf // Settles Jewelling | nowhere her Garnets tempering | Scarlet on steel the Sky— a Leaf there is Lares Break the glass that shields morning's flame. Proceed from your room— pause– I am night (dark) afraid begin now, begun my mourning for what was– (not) slaked by light’s coming The lares of my house is twice-lit: dawn’s advent, night’s candle. Copyright 2020 The Lares series by Chris Murray First published Indelible Literary Journal PDF download https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A05d41b1f-bcd4-45b0-a75f-fc6e26fced00 This series was dedicated in gratitude to Eavan Boland 1944-2020
Chris Murray 