Work by Esther Greenleaf Murer
Whistle like a bird
Whistle like a bird, with your syrinx.
Your larynx is mammalian, fit for jazz
and yodeling and tissue-paper-and-comb
Once in a fit of abstraction
I circumambulated the colatitude
of Dichtungswissenschaftlichkeit,
A day in the life of…
Dawn descends like a dominant seventh,
muzzy and mean as a muskmelon's mother.
The light lours with a lecherous leer,
groping and glaring.
Interview with Walter Ancarrow
Workshops and writing groups present the same problem. [I'm] a glutton for prompts and exercises, but rarely do anything with them these days. If I had to do an assigned one, I'd probably be unhappy. A Quaker quote (on speaking in Meeting): "If nothing flames, silence is my portion." I guess that's very close to sounding like I insist on waiting for inspiration—sometimes one must just dig in and write something. Still. Quaker silence is a wonderful thing—waiting to see what, if anything, wants to be said.
Oxydoxes and Paramorons
This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level——
Just straightforward words without boustrophedon, picot edging, or bevel.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
and see yourself mirrored as a hippopotamus, a slender gazelle, or a thin doe,
The bootstrap of the genie
1 The bootstrap of the genie of Jesus Christ, the song of David, the sop of Abraham.
Gallery opening
Lo! An op-art Venus
with rhinoceros teeth
sits on the railroad tracks
in plaid lederhosen
selling indulgences.
Les Six: Concert Program Notes
Pacific 231, symphonic movement—Artur Honneger
You'd never know this concert was a black-tie affair
when you hear the violins going "Meow"
and the horns subjecting your auric-
ular senses to la peine dure et
forte, bombarding your ears point-blank.
Hucksterism 101
Be ready to absquatulate
if that should prove the wisest course.
Meanwhile, shout until you're hoarse,
declaim, cajole, confabulate,
pontificate, prevaricate,
but never, never show remorse.
Esther Greenleaf Murer has been writing poetry all her life and got serious about learning the craft when she turned 70. She published her first collection, Unglobed Fruit, in 2011. Links to many of her poems published online may be found on her blog. She lives in Philadelphia.