In Praise of Jikan, the Monk

Mark A Murphy

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I give you those drunken nights on Trinity Street
and the young girls in the degenerate air
although you do not wish for them.

You have your own drunken nights
among the lovelorn
and forlorn young women in their thigh-high boots.

Certainly, I am not here to lay claim
to anything beyond the dull circumstance
of my own downfall.

There are no secrets I can tell you.
I damaged every woman I ever loved.
I risked it all in my pursuit of innocence.

I used to think I could shoulder
another's pain as if it were my own,
I thought I could rescue the fallen and the lame –

when I could not even prevent my own disgrace,
or find a justification
for my wayward sensibilities.

I give you my girlfriend's telephone number,
safe in the knowledge
that I can no longer satisfy her.

If I had only one minute left to live,
I would give it up, listening to you, singing:
where do all these highways go, now that we are free…

Mark A Murphy was born in 1969 in Holmfirth, England. He studied Philosophy at North Staffordshire Polytechnic. He studied for an MA in Poetry at Huddersfield University but had to drop out due to ill-health. In 1996 he published a small collection of poems, Tin Cat Alley with a local Yorkshire publisher, Spout Publications. In 2005, he finished his manuscript, Our Little Bit Of Immortality, a group of poems based on the paintings of David Hockney. He continues to live and write in Huddersfield.

 

 

WOW! Magazine  Issue 6  2007