Sheila E. Murphy & Douglas Barbour
Sheila E. Murphy actively writes and draws from her base in Phoenix, Arizona. Her consulting work involves a fusion of theory and practice in organizational design and development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy
Douglas Barbour lives in Edmonton, Alberta. His latest book is Listen. If (University of Alberta Press 2017). His occasional reviews of (mostly poetry) appear in Eclectic Ruckus (https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/).
Two volumes of Continuations have appeared from University of Alberta Press.
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Continuations CVIII:
vexed arbitrage sets new records
               booked and broken
in by out rage against
               the machinations no
               gradations just grand
iose ambition s hit home
along splintered streets
               amid less visible wreckage
                              staged to stifle recognition
rags to rage to
               center                re-enter
                plump thugs ready to begin again
taking steps stairways to havens
               hidden in a time warp
               ed to a back thrust
lack trust a rough cant
               er into newly constructed
               eighteenth century polity
rust        almost instructive
               as in jury duty as a rough cut
                              of time tested steps
weighing the ways
               the teeniest of centuries
                              can be slowed to stares
quick starts or startles
               the shades in shadow
cabinets full of curiosities
sans curiosity simply (un)
               questioning any thinking
               toward reasoning mindfulness
full bins of trinkets
               scarred with rust               a curious
quest                to feed one’s loved
               ones and twos               simply
yard full of shadow and sand
                              growth just postponed
past pined for a losing pro
               position played out
               from squares filled with anger
against all reason able to fire
a fierce resentment re-sent
               through ways mean s hot
layaway is coming back
               and people
                              pare their habits               venture
to the next tier down                  the family
               dollar store      to stow more
                              modest portions
the Gap is not the gap
               a history regenerates
                              from pages turned to dust
never slaps down a cover
               story for that superior
                              Cheshire Cat grin
played overtime               and played
               to down the ever-opt
                              more generations than
               our history would dust
               off to show the riotous
                              urgent period
full stop ped all too mettle
mad unforgiving any
               not for giving back
not walk away re-nay
               repay that 31st floor
               gold plated whore
a vortex of complex self-ing
               paid for by
the           minions in the millions
acts as icon               to inquiring
               minds full of unrest
best thing that can happen is
               arrest
an ever fuller stop punkt
               order courted only
               to contain maintain
the walls community
               be dammed up about
to burst beyond mere legalities
munitions at a lull
               attract ration
                              ales to stain
the countryside
               walled off behind
                              an image of imposters
who would build walls not even
               fences the bad
                              neighbor policy
wonky as the verses versus
               any turnabout turncoat
                              true believers say
true faith would erase the faux facsimiles
               at the surface
                              where conned masses
               demand a wall
as if to dream
               acts of exclusivity
beyond the pale riders
               on the storm
                              the barricades
built of goldbrick leaded
               down whose dream
                              its foundations
creamy with philosophy
               post-storm               seen through
shields               the leaded panes
                              idle but for primacy
incurred along the way
               a proxy for a life
vote meta physical exam
               what sick beast waddles
toward Bethesda to be borne
               aloft on shoulders hunched
beneath a storm of intel
               all jinxed by assess
biases that split their brackets
               hoodwink all and sun
dry          thespians               appearing
               alive                    (well, in their lofts)
yet losing every hunch
               that mimics intel
is it gents only seems a reduction
               redaction brings black
                              outs ops
for what conclave how
               the unelect self-select
                              for a mass trained wreck
a sect to mispronounce all
               manner of talk               tear ducts
                              turn to autoclave
rain, too, needs to come
                              for what we used
to think we’d mastered
truth inked we’d mustered
masquerades ill manner
               of balk heads up
in clouds of gory
               tale told by
               an ideologue
stirred soundly by
               the till sweeter than the urn
and bordered by ninja
                              bearing out
takes               qua shrill
                              syllabic spurts
expostulations exposed
on a hill shining
               with the sweet
of the bought to the
sweat under lights
               now dead oh microphone
ought to accommodate               the common
               shindig with a little
sweet               to locate various
               phonetic adages
                              as if to emulate
that baby’s posture        purely upright
surely crying but black bird
song or banshee wail
               a stand up stood up
kind of guy roped teeny
venture into capital
               vain state
rappelling to arrive
               induces thriving post-
waylaid                diffidence
               the black bird also
               turns to solace via
               keening as we do
Continuations CIX:
this then the long bye bye
               blocked barred
                              a cruel symmetry
                              a cool cemetery
               flocks charred
with ashen song dreams died
forays into past tense
               eventually dissolve in favor
of here-today               this          one
                              moment               as momentum
sparks a miracle amid
trusted routine
                              a repetition
rust requires trust tree choirs
this time of year fear
               of freefalling each turn
return of color before separation
               what wafts awaits dissolution
soluble                rust
               about to leave
                              stains                   the choir
warbling                   a testament
               to longevity
                              beyond color of origin
how far back to go
               to any beginning not
already redundant redone
               in primary colors
this time as dust covered
               every shiny start-up
once (again)
               done tones loom
                              approaching time’s own dust
the start of
               backlit               shinnying
                              up the coconut tree
coming down a fall as said
or a fail safe on just two legs
               stumbling out into savannahs
green with possibility beige
openings into eternal returns
               on every new deposit(ion)
the perpetual green versus gravitas
               coexistence bothers both
                              sides presumed unrelated
                                             a complicated
               bird tune fills the kitchen
                              with trills for condiments
trilliums for contentment or any
               flowering evolution
revolutionary greenhouses
stand against stones a broken
mirror s(h)elves the sense of growth
                              behind the crowd occluded
sight unseen house
               broken life forms
                              at a standstill
lower the bar
                              even when looking
               involuntarily at the mirror wall
in stall nation a rewind
               lacking proper intel
                              in gents only backrooms
a kind of mindless repetition
                              revolutions forgot
ton of tone deafness announced
room for proper distribution
               dissolution        ' distinctions
                              relative atonement
               people come in               “tons”
               these days               deaf
                              to fine distinctions
distinct on so many levels loss
               leads less than (unlawful) gain
               said to be tru(thi)er than
‘your’ basic hold on home
securing no lending down
               that garden path to g(l)ory
thine eyesight               on dash
               board               the gears in our
                              keeping on               homeward
the pronouns               as pathways
               lean hearty on patholo-
                              ordinal (de)meaning new data
sets out or a part way beyond
               fathom waves push
                              particles resist
ants in pratfalls figure a new brave
world wanting too much
               to little given (thought
perched on shelves of history
               sister stacks of brackets tipped
                              sideways               enc
losing parts
               and parts of speech usher
                              in replacements meant for
noting nothing nominal
               neglect nods its hanging head
strong against never for
               sworn enemies of
               raison d’être
                              or not to beg a question
how to:
               get grades               get gifts
                              get past               distracting
evermore      donning the cap
                              before the gown
to gain                     not give (the enemy
               positions an ever new
               lost orison prayer
breakfast food for fools
               capping the wells
               springs the new boss
                              seems as bold
and focused on authority
               as fast paced
                              along positional
               retention via
                              with bona fide tact
(prayer notwithstanding)
pushed upon a forced feeding
               in which facts dissolve
               in holy waffle
error ridden roar of
               rhetorics wrestling down
faraway id               the deep-down
               meantime               a surrounding
atmosphere clouds     what is
               known               including
                              flowers fed on
by surviving insects
a bit antsy they might say
clung to the higher
               stems static stunned
a wealth of wise domination
falls to grasshopper philosophy
               hidden in tents of percentages
sophisticated hops
               or coffee to taste               incentive
                              to raise the bar
in parallel to               healthy stems
               the wisdom to antagonize
                              where war                        ranted
were war fair a rant
               knaves made would have
no hold barred or bared
               as errant how the same
               old crew caved in
                              craven as instructed
native opus          structure reddened
                              in warm light
a name       is given
               elements               once planted
                              define and hold
their ground
                              against what invasion
of what possibilities
               withstood with standing
                              orders to defend
a wall of care
               fully constructed ignorance
what might be known
               apart from strictures
                              watched wings that draw mimesis
from young and old
                              in motion               with emotion
the result of a desire                       to be
or (bits) knot to beseech
               flesh as possibility
                              pain fully gainsaid
in such desired reproduction
               or is that representation
                              by what dealer of what cards
arrive not quite fresh
               the staid moments pass through
                              walls without measure
                                             hold stains
a product of viewer
               ship                     once shapely and now chapped
chipped off an older lock
               on every vote(r) reserved
re-served as newer than any
               eighteenth century
               noblesse oblige(d)
                              to chip in
tipping many points     tweens
               served twice the norm of
               lockstep (watch
               that eighteenth hologram
revealing centuries
               about to pass)
                                             (out into
what new sick bay
               moonlit wave driven
                              or particular rush
a way from action knowledge
               meant to tell a sickening time
plastered before us
               in repeated frames
                              riven by wish
               for backlit momentum
                              to shift
to black
Sheila E. Murphy actively writes and draws from her base in Phoenix, Arizona. Her consulting work involves a fusion of theory and practice in organizational design and development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy
Douglas Barbour lives in Edmonton, Alberta. His latest book is Listen. If (University of Alberta Press 2017). His occasional reviews of (mostly poetry) appear in Eclectic Ruckus (https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/).
Two volumes of Continuations have appeared from University of Alberta Press.