Rich Murphy

Marge Piercy

A Lexicon Entry

A defining moment rests against
the shoulder that you now use to move
from what you might have been. If not,
you stroll on, a boardwalk's angel

or counting change. To reach the hilltop
pushing the oldest wheel, you insert bones
into the wedge of flesh that is then clothed
and tilted with new title. More and more

distant, a child wrestling everything
you labeled with disgust fades from view
as rock tumbles into stone. You envisioned
owning a marble torso someday, though

today you know that vigilance has nothing
to do with immortality. Once nearly crushing,
the lead block of all other personalities
chipped into the ball before you, bringing out

the ligaments in your name, the muscle
in adjectives used to describe you.
Your last breath mistakes the world that
opposes you for a balloon at your parade.

Archimedes

The stone has rolled down the hill
again. My shoulder and calves,
the fulcrum and lever, have
moved the world, though the man

at the newsstand is unaware.
Dew on my brow ignites the wick
of my sleeve each evening while
I read alone. To let the boulder

sit still would plug the hole
in my heart through which an oak tree
is born when the granite crests itself.

Rich Murphy’s publication credits include a chapbook Great Grandfather, by Pudding House Publications. His poems have been published widely in such journals as Rolling Stone, Poetry Magazine (2002 featured poet), Grand Street (featured poet), New Letters, Negative Capability, Confrontation Magazine, Words-Myth, Spiral Bridge, West 47 (Ireland), Aesthetica Review (England), foam:e (Australia) New Delta Review, and Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, ForPoetry, and Astropoetica. His essay "Vanishing Artist: American Poet and Differend" was published in Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics and again in The International Journal of the Humanities, "McLuhan's Warning, Frye's Strategy, Emerson's Dream” was published in Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, "Howl's Muzzle" was published in Fringe Magazine. "Spectacle and Aporia in the Poetry of Kooser and Ashbery" is under consideration.