2019 | MOONSTONE PRESS
Mean Time
“‘Listen, I’m full of contradictions,'” the speaker in Peter Murphy’s new chapbook confides, but any reader of Murphy’s work already knows that his are poems full of strange truths, deep emotions, and abundant wonder. In Mean Time, the poet takes us on a journey from fantastic myths of self-invention that meld sly, sideways wit, insight and foreboding to urgent investigations and critiques of our current all-too-real reality.
It is impossible to say which landscape, which assertion or image, leaves us more mystified and bereft. While time in Mean Time is taken through all of its permutations, what is revealed is both timely and timeless.” ~Kathleen Graber
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Excerpt
Closing Time
The 24 hour bars in Atlantic City have three happy hours
a day so I can pursue happiness whenever my shift lets out.
I know the end is near when the cleaners appear to scrape gum
from the gaudy carpets and drizzle disinfectant over urine
dripped from the dicers who don't want to lose their place
at the table. Gullible men who believe they can game the ivories
they toss across the green felt when they can't control their bladders.
I used to think life was a wall of dominoes, and if l tipped
one over, all my problems would come 'a tumbling down.
I also believed being happy was the key to happiness,
but that just made me sadder. Everyone suffers, my friends,
and most of us suffer more than others as we lumber
down the Boardwalk from Pampers to Depends,
mewling and puking and leaking at both ends.