The Voices in Your Head

by Sean Murphy 
 
It didn’t used to be this way,
he sighs, static and unshaven.
 
It didn’t used to be like this,
she thinks. Don’t enable them,
her father used to say.
 
(But where is his father, and
what would I say if my son
stood before me, neither policeman
nor president, but the deferred dream
of better intentions?)
 
Hey brother, can you spare a life?
 
I don’t have any to spare, but
I’ll dig deeper and give ‘til
it hurts you more or less
than it hurts me.
 
It’s always been thus,
God might explain, but
He’s busy with a billion other
street corners, alleys, slums and
the newer tent cities He can
scarcely keep track of.
 
The earth itself is silent.
but what would it say?
All its stages a world
With so many passion plays.
 
So many dispirited shapes,
sleeping under overpasses,
bridges with graffiti singing
songs of pain and witness.
 
Huddled masses, created in their own
image, forever and ever.
World without end
Amen.

South Loudon Street, First Sustained Frost

 by Sean Murphy 
 

The city speaks. The air shifts in the open and empty spaces—from the stale corners,

exhaust from the cars emanating spent energy; unseeable steam rising from sewage drains;

the day itself succumbing to early evening chill, routines winding down or else waking up.

 

The rows of mismatched houses—in the heat of summer held hostage by the sluggish hate

of heat—keep the people inside uncomfortable, but definitely alive and not in immediate

danger of dying. Of course, this is conditional once the windows turn white with frost.

 

The bus stops, rancid sweatshops during the long and languid days, now provide free

relief from freezing water and pregnant air, which drive the streets in wet, blank waves.

Pennies shriek from filth, cold to the touch, useless in pockets reserved for raw hands.

 

Pigeons pull half-shifts, no accomplices dropping crumbs or trash cans overflowing; sunk

inside themselves behind silenced AC units, asleep beneath the moon that mocks them,

unable to dream away the immutable rules Nature makes, resigned to this sullen rhythm.

 

The well-fed, particularly those born into wealth, remain reluctant to spill any secrets

it’s their duty—and burden—to shelter: there’s too much to lose, so little to share, and

there’s never enough to go around; make them pay, let them pray. This city has spoken.