2016, Diode Editions
“Peter Murphy is a maker of combinatory perceptions and the source of a voice that can sing more than a single note at a time—nothing encoded here, nothing esoteric, but poems that set new standards for clarity, a dark hilarity, and sting, all delivered seamlessly. He is a poet of remarkably keen abilities, generous intellect, and humanity. And, yes, when the Murphy-knife is thrust, you’ll gasp, but, then, once it’s twisted, you’ll most likely get to laugh before you cry.” ~Renee Ashley
“As a professor of gerontology, a chair in education and aging, and an expert in cognitive change with age, I know that science is a slow path to understanding. Poetry is much faster. Peter Murphy writes about the fragilities of health, love, material possessions, the expectation that there is fairness and justice, and that we will experience happiness. His poems will break your heart and make you laugh, often simultaneously, as you feel his despair and his marvelous sense of the absurdity of it all.” ~Elizabeth Zelinski
Rocket Man
I’m not sleeping
good and my gut
feels like it’s emptying
out on the sheets,
so I turn on the light
hoping it’s a dream
but it’s not a dream
and—I was afraid
of this—it becomes
sirens and needles
and body scans and
adventures in pathology
and oh god, the end
of the present tense.
They plug me to a drip
I can adjust when pain
comes which it does
and I do and then I’m
teary over living wills
and grief support
and coffin tape
and Elton John—
all this science
I don’t understand—
and then I’m sitting
in the limo next to
his sad princess
as it enters the tunnel
and then crash—
I’m lying with a girl,
a magnificent girl
who sang when we
made love—
the more excited
she became, the more
beautiful her singing.