Archive


New eco-poetry collection by POETiCA REViEW Chief Editor

"Ontologistics Of A Time Traveller" by Mark A. Murphy

Mark Murphy’s poems work outwards, lovingly, from the observation of two inevitabilities. First, the relentless degradation of the ecological terrain in technological society, “Perhaps we returned to you too late./Green and lovely mother.” And second, the equally inexorable individual journey towards our own passing, “So nature withdraws and descends upon us/in a domination which must end/without witness.” This is the desolate and apocalyptic environment in which we are all fated to maintain the continuity of our conscious experience. And in striving to do so we must live, plan, try to love ourselves and others, and hope that the world can sustain this striving. ‘What can I know, what should I do, what can I hope for?’ In the face of the dreadful inevitabilities, these questions still make sense, and perhaps through them we can glimpse something of a logic of hope that transcends our tragic finitude.

 

Prof. Stuart Toddington, author of Architectures of Justice


Learn more
Eco-poetry. New book. Mark A. Murphy.

Editor's Eye


New booklet NOW AVAILABLE by Mark A. Murphy & Milner Place

A REVIEW by Trish Saunders...


SEAWAKE AND SOME LAST POEMS

Mark A. Murphy & Milner Place (Moloko Plus Print, Germany, 2021)

 

Reading these lyrical poems of migration by Mark A. Murphy, inspired by Milner Place’s last poems, is to travel with the author in a lovingly built boat of homage, and drink from the same bottle, under the same night sky. As if a line exists between them, and us. Like the late Milner Place, Murphy writes with devastating brevity about the silence that follows chaos:

 

 Out of the mists

over the somnolent mangroves

one voice is heard

above the roar of a rainbow

 

By including four of Place’s last poems alongside Murphy’s, the publisher lets us imagine how Milner would reply to his friend and mentor. We have clues in Milner’s deadly-accurate poem that finishes the collection:

 

 Time is the sediment

of events

now

is the excrement

of history

 

This gorgeous collection is not sorrowful in the conventional sense. The deep pleasure in reading “Seawake” is a feeling of being in the same boat as two extraordinary storytellers, one very much alive and writing, one who is not. In the end, we will all be in the same river. Pass that bottle again, please. 

Trish Saunders


Helen Bullas reviews ‘Sea Wake & Some Last Poems’ by Mark A. Murphy & Milner Place

 

This small volume of poems is a deep and eloquent conversation between two poets: one living, one recently dead. To have the last poems by Milner Place is a joy in itself, especially the wonderful -and unfearful - ‘Last will and testament:’ a flawless gem of a poem, in which Place’s voice sings out unmistakeably.

 

These poems are prefaced by ten new poems by Mark Murphy, written in response to Place’s death, capturing the relationship between the two, through the brilliance of the images and the interplay between the poems and fragments of Place’s own work. The themes of the sea and of sailors, of the moon and of drink and of time, tie his poems surely to those of Place. Yet they move beyond elegy into moments of new strangeness that makes them sparkle. In ‘Stem to Stern’ Murphy ranges from the stars, to liquor, to an unreliable God and ultimately to a whale ‘oblivious to trade wind or doldrums’.

 

Although each poem is tinged with loss, there is a strong sense of hope, whether that is in the ‘one voice ..heard, above the roar of a rainbow’ or at ‘the mountain of miracles’. These poems work best when they at their most simple and curious – Wind Chime -despite its simple structure and repetition asks some profound questions about the nature of the world but it’s great strength lies in its eschewing of easy answers and the poem ends with the question ‘What is the sea?’

 

These poems are sensual and exotic too and are not afraid to take a sumptuous bite at the world. in all its sadness and it’s delicious beauty. 


Last will and testament

 

I leave you my breath, cantankerous

bones various organs, to sleep

in the shade of willows, in a warm bed

among ships.

 

I bequeath a blunt knife, threads

of unravelling string, nets, pointed

stakes, untended acres, the scent

of almonds.

 

I adjure you not to forget the picnic

basket, and when you come to me with full arms

bring a sprig of thyme, a bell full of grapes,

a gentle horse.

Milner Place


We welcome submissions of ekphrastic poetry, and will publish the best of what we receive here on our Home Page. However, images must be in the Public Domain.

Hunters in the Snow

 

I am no human seeker trudging through the January snow,

no hunter’s fox slung casually over a shoulder,

no panicked rabbit running for its life, no singeing pig

 

to be turned on the fire, no exhausted dog

losing the scent, castigated by its master, no sainted stag,

no pious metaphor, no child’s plaything,

 

no trophy kill.

 

2

 

Soaring far and wide above the high horizon -- we

corvid brothers live and die just as you

under the overcast sky, wintering in, shuttering down,

 

eyeing the heroic Alpine mountains, and the intimate play

of the earth-born young on the ice fields

of the Netherlandish lowlands

 

skating, curling, faltering, falling and ultimately failing,

mirroring all of creation’s creatures, capturing

the duality of our shared nature,

 

surviving the winter freeze --

honouring the hard-packed snow

as much as we loathe it.




Showcase Poems


We are excited to Showcase the poems below on our Home page, and we’ll be adding to this, as and when we receive any new work we feel deserves a nomination for ‘Best of the Net’ and or the annual ‘Pushcart Prize.’ Don’t forget to keep your submissions rolling in. Who knows, you might be next...

Mark A. Murphy




Why I Am Not A Sculptor


 

Like the poet, Frank O'Hara, I am not a sculptor,

but a poet (at least) according to my friends,

I am a man who passes himself off as a poet.

Why? Because poetry is the property of no one.

Because stone and point would not obey

the commands of a man obsessed with oblivion.

Because the light universe is no place

for a man who lives in dreams.

Because I am in awe of Igor Mitoraj.

 

I am alone in the too darkened quarries

of my imagination, picking through the debris of time,

exhuming the dead, picking through the bones

of my poor dead relatives. What am I to do

without hammer or chisel? I am too many centuries old

to start over. And I am dumb beside you

because we can no longer talk or laugh at the silliness

of being who we are. More centuries pass.

 

Because I am not a sculptor, I am forced

        on to the back foot once again.

Because I am not a sculptor, I am transfixed

by a life rendered in stone. And I say to the sculptor,

'I cannot suppress my desire to be a sculptor.'

And the sculptor answers back, 'I cannot suppress

my desire to be a poet.' And perhaps we are, each of us,

what the other wishes to be, if only

for a short time – in the margins of some other story.ragraph


Zack Rogow

 

 

 

Running through History

 

 

 

3:37

3:52

I realise

the treadmill’s blinking

rectangles of light

counting minutes and seconds

could be years of history

 

4:10 I jog through the sack of Rome

6:18 the Tang Dynasty rises

The angel Gabriel whispers to Mohammed to write the Qu ‘ran

7:11 I turn up the pace as the Moors pour into Al-Andalus

Troubadour Arnaud Daniel rides toward a Provençal hill town playing air-lute

12:38 the Alhambra’s delicate fortress rises above Granada

A puzzled Geoffrey Chaucer glances up from his writing desk

I sprint right through the Great Vowel Shift

Into the greenery of Botticelli’s Primavera

Deftly I step over the Black Plague

14:53 Ottoman cannons breech Constantinople

Columbus sets sail I race him to Hispaniola

The French Revolution breaks out to my left

18:21 Bolívar wins the Battle of Carabobo the Spanish Empire cracks apart

19:19 My parents are born and plenipotentiaries sign the Treaty of Versailles

19:44 D-Day and then the year of my own birth almost before I see it

I slow dance to “Mister Moonlight”

My first kiss

Crowds unbuild the Berlin Wall as I become a father

South Africans wave hats and hankies for President Mandela

20:12 the Mars Rover cuts me off

The present-day rushes by

Then the years I hope I’ll live to count

My daughter stands beneath the chuppah

My unconceived grandchild laughs for the first time

 

I slow the treadmill

step off

and even though I’m not moving

I’m still running

Lauren Scharhag

 

 

 

 

The Real Meaning of Inferno

 

 

 

Four winters on the transplant list,

and you are always cold. We bundle you

in long johns and sweatshirts, blankets

and stocking caps, and park you next to

a space heater, and still, you shiver, while

I sweat. I sweat the medical bills and the

regular bills and whether you have a fever

again, and if you are eating enough and how

we will ever pay for more medicine and

I’m going to have to get a second job. I burn

crimson like my grandmother’s red Depression

glass oil lamp. I burn blue-white like the

rings on a gas stove. I burn like the gold

and orange flames on the cast-iron furnace where

we used to heat our clothes on winter mornings,

and still got dressed under the quilt. Inferno

is a word that’s synonymous with hellfire,

but originally, it had nothing to do with heat. It

meant the lower regions. I think of this as I go

down into the basement of our sixty-year-old house,

past the cracked walls where slugs and spiders

and snakes slither in, past the exposed foundation

stones and the water stains where it’s flooded

each spring, past the shelf where we store

your dialysis supplies, to examine our own

beast of a unit. I’ve always thought it looked like

Doc Ock if Doc Ock had sprouted a few more arms,

if he’d grown feeble and rickety and might,

at any moment, give up the ghost. If it goes out on us,

no second or even a third job will be enough to help me

replace it. I come back upstairs and make us cups of cocoa.

You tell me how you dream of the sea, of sun-warmed

sand, of tropical paradises. I do not tell you that I dream,

too: nightmares of a furnace-less house in January

and frozen pipes bursting in the walls. Hell isn’t hot,

but it’s real, and it’s here. I crack open a window

away from you and try to breathe. I’m hotter than

particles smashing around the Large Hadron Collider.

I’m hotter than the torch Prometheus saw fit to pilfer.

I’m hotter than molting phoenix feathers, than

a morning-star supernova. If the furnace goes out,

split me like heartwood. I will be your hearth

and your kindling. Cook a meal over my radiance.

Bask in me. I will see you through to summer.

 


William Cotter

 

 

THE TAKING OF WAUBA DEBAR

Bicheno, Tasmania.

 


Your familiar hills,

Your family and the spiralling camp fire smoke

Should have kept you safe.

But, they didn’t and when they found you,

The white settlers with their guns and lust,

They gave your body to a sealer man

And probably called the trade a marriage.

 

You rescued him once,

Dragged him, with his mate,

From a tangle of surf and rigging

To the shore.

Perhaps you got a guttural word of thanks.

 

Certainly not your freedom

 

And when, years later,

You fled,

Cloaked yourself in the welcoming forest,

They found you,

The settlers and the sealers,

Murdered you,

Left the locals to bury you,

High up and alone above the sea,

Complete with a headstone

And the bay named after you.

 

You might have expected peace, then.

But they found you again, those settlers,

Wrenched you from the earth,

Parcelled you up

And sent your skull away to be measured.

 

Only the snow drops come to remember you, now,

White, perfect tear drops,

Silent and watchful each spring.

 

            HERE LIES

            WAUBU DEBAR

            FEMALE ABORIGINE

            OF VAN DIEMENS LAND

            DIED JUNE 1832



First accepted for publication by 'Polestar Writers' Journal.'

John Yamrus

 

 

it was

 

 

just

another instance

of good plans gone bad.

 

it

didn’t surprise him.

 

right

from the starts

he knew it was going to hell.

 

he’d driven

halfway to her house

behind a truckload of coffins.

 

he

liked

that line

from The Great Gatsby

that read:

 

“life

is much more

successfully looked at

from a single window.”

 

he

didn’t

understand it,

 

but,

he liked it.

 

he felt that

everyone should have a motto.

 

that

was his.

 

anyway,

when he got to her house,

she was already

gone.

 

she

finally

followed thru

on her threat to leave.

 

before he left,

he kicked in the back door,

 

walked

into the kitchen

 

and

looked out

a single window.



Nate Hoil

 

 

[I am going to capture your flag.]

 

 

One in three agents will be killed

by another agent.

 

They will not be born again unless

permitted by science. 

 

Don’t let their cuteness fool you.

They will eat you alive.

 

They will keep eating you

when you are dead.

 

I become what I am chasing.

I modify my donor organs

 

with my murderer silent behind

the shower curtain.

 

There is no such thing as karma.

 aragraph

Lara Dolphin 

 

 

December 14

 

 

Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?

My quondam dreams are shot to hell.

I grow old though pleased with my memories

I have a lot of edges called Perhaps

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

There is always something to be made of pain

I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

In casual simplicity--

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.


Antonis Balasopoulos


The Raven

 

The raven is a kind of parody;

a winged vandalism

at the expense of the letter.

Because, though we were created

in the image of a face,

we have fallen into the similitude

of a sign worn thin

by interpretations.

And so, we would have liked

to be shiny and black

and cacophonous

and to leave the traces of rakes

on the snow-covered earth.

This is what the crow is for us:

A “nevermore” darker

than the parrot’s and more decisive

than the sweet loquacity of the nightingale

a mirror we break

intentionally, despite the seven

years of bad luck. As to

what we ourselves are for the raven

I don’t know. Ask

the wires and ask the grain fields

that have gone yellow with madness

and get away, get away from

this poem.


The Birth of History in Herodotus

Onesilus taught me two things

about the nature of history: the first is a buzz,

like that between stations in A.M radio—

cries, threnodies, words

from which the articulation is missing.

The second is a bitter aftertaste in honey,

the thought, in other words, mechanically

deposited by bees as they labour

in the empty skull.

“I was aware”, this thought says,

filling the hall of the cranium

with a voice in Minor key,

“but I didn’t really know.

I looked but did not see.

And I was born too late

too late from the start.”




Anna Akhmatova Northern Elegies: Third
Anna  Moshovakis quote

Milner Place Voice Poems

 

‘TOP HOLD’

 

One of the great poems in English or anywhere in the past fifty years. I was only 22 years old when Milner Place gave me this recording in 1991. I thought that it was lost forever, until I uncovered a C90 cassette tape whilst having a declutter many moons ago, and was fortunate enough to get it transposed to a digital format recently, so I could share this prescient recording with the rest of the poetry world.

 

Under Construction

Under Construction


Miner Place Poetry Reading
Prelude in E-Minor or Milner Place Hoists Sail Poem by Mark A. Murphy

Michael Lee Johnson Voice Poem


'Redemption'


We liked this poem so much, we will be nominating it for the Pushcart...


Contact us

Email Us

Business Hours

Mon - Fri
-
Saturday
Appointment only
Sunday
Closed

Address
Huddersfield

Get in touch

Contact Us


Dedication 2 poems



 

www.poeticareview.co.uk is back from the dead after a 6 months absence, thanks to a kind patron and friend, who put the money up to rebuild the site. We can’t tell you how relieved we are to be part of the online literary community again. Illness and loss have taken a great toll across the world, whilst the editors at POETiCA REViEW have been confined to licking their own wounds, and rebuilding the site from scratch, after a cyber attack resulted in the site being deleted from the server.

 

With this in mind, we pay homage to all our fellows, who have passed through this life into eternity, and dedicate this journal to their memory.

 

 


Morning near the End of August

 

i.m. Glenda C. for Trevor, Pat, et alia

 

 

When I think of you, only laughter

comes to mind, as I recall the many times

(half a lifetime ago) we shared

 

a Black Velvet or Diamond White

in the student union, before

and after class. We must’ve thought

 

we were quite invincible then, and certainly

more street, or savvy than our fellows.

Now, we can only dream you back,

 

but our memories are young as ever,

young as you always appeared

with your energy and aquamarine eyes.

 

Old as we are, wise words are nothing

but bits of dust, debris of spider’s webs,

the dust of life, and we professors

 

of arachnids come here now to dig

the living earth, and anoint you before

your next journey to the stars.

 

Our words are used for so many things,

but now we must use them to say, 

‘farewell.’ Your shadow passes across

 

the window, and we’re grieving,

but there are so many words for grief.

Loss belongs to each one of us alone,

 

each one reaching out beyond our limits,

waiting for the leaves to turn, stirring, 

silent as moths in the night air –

 

nothing solid as we thought it might be.

 

 

 

 

Towards the Eagle Nebula

 

for Pat

 

 

Just when you thought it was time

to stop mourning,

 

time digs another hole,

kicks your chair from under you, 

 

ties you up in knots,

ties the noose by which you hang

 

as if to bury all your hope,

blind you to the stars you wish upon.

 

But time never banks on the maths

that turns the hourglass

 

on its head, the ritual act

of defiance that fills the holes

 

in the heart with soaring cathedrals

of cosmic dust.

 

Now your loss becomes an act of love

as you steady the upturned

 

chair, loosen the noose, unhitch

the knots of time,

 

in favour of the uncharted leap

into the unknown, as you look towards

 

the Pillars of Creation

where all our futures are yet to be reborn.




Addendum

We are more convinced than ever of our purpose. See our Submission Guidelines in our Need to Know section (we are especially interested in the work of marginalised voices) and get your work into us for our next edition. All good things,


The Editors:

Mark A. Murphy

Kieran Conway


 

Our thanks to Pat, for all her kindness.

Share by: