Bio
Most recently Mark A. Murphy's poems have appeared in Poetry New Zealand, Poetry Scotland, Quarterly Literary Review (Singapore), The Warwick Review (UK), Struggle (UK), Istanbul Literature Review (Turkey), Paris Atlantic Journal (France), Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria), Litspeak (Germany), Contemporary Literary Horizons (Romania), Munyori (India), Taj Mahal Review (India), The Tampa Review (US), Del Sol Review (US), Left Curve (US), The American Dissident (US), The Stinging Fly (Eire), Crannog Magazine (Eire) and on the deaddrunkdublin website.
Mark A. Murphy was born in the UK in 1969. He studied philosophy as an under-graduate and poetry as a post-graduate. His first full length collection, Night Watch Man & Muse is pending from Salmon Poetry (Eire) early in 2012.
Mark A. Murphy
Brown Eyed Angel
What promise in those brown eyes drove a man mad
with longing? I would be lying if I said, they resembled
the forest,
for they are the forest of forgetfulness, and giving.
I would be lying if I said, they resembled the dawn,
for the dawn has no memory, no sorrow, only light.
I would be lying if I said, they resembled the sun,
for the sun holds no secrets, only fire.
Of all conceivable guilts, misery, dubiety, they chose
the love of the living man. They did not bind the rabbit
in its mad dash, nor blind the kestrel in its flight.
Those brown eyes brought a man to his knees,
away from hard-headedness, folly, and selfishness
to the eternal flow of being and nothingness,
for they are the ocean of forgiveness, felicity, and final
reckoning.