'Reductionist Love Poem'
Never again
your lovely face in mine
as I wake blah, blah, bah.
Never again
my arms around you
as I sleep etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Never again
those long involved conversations
after midnight
but then, never before.
'Water Myth'
"Whatever inspires,"
you call from the shower
the water stunned into droplets
on your suddenly delicious skin
"Well," I reply,
from the airport
twenty-seven years later
"even with arms,
in your presence
the Venus de Milo
would be queuing
to be kissed."
'Further Out'
I can't tell you
where this is happening
I know it's a dream
becuse the left bank of the Siene
has just appeared directly opposite
the right bank of the Lee.
I know it's daylight
that silver-grey, residual glow
from some imploding star
shining in your glossy black hair.
I know it's you
because there is not one
even remotely as beautiful
on the stony inner planets
as I know you have been kissing me
for over a minute
because I have just woken up
gasping for breath.
Φεμινίστρια στην παραλία με μαγιό (GERRY MERFY)
Αγαπητέ Σούπερμαν,
Βρήκα το προφυλακτικό σου
Σήμερα στην παραλία.
Θα το ξέβρασε η θάλασσα με τη πρωινή παλίρροια.
Υποθέτω ότι θα μπορούσε να καλύψει το φάρο αν υπήρχε ανάγκη.
Μάλλον όλη νύχτα γαμούσες φάλαινες
Αν κρίνω από την ταραχή της θάλασσας
Και τους τρεις αυτούς Λεβιάθαν
Που έχουν κολλήσει στην ακτή
Αλλά ακόμα γρυλλίζουν χαρούμενα.
Αναρωτιέμαι, τι θα έλεγε η Λόις
Αν το μάθαινε αυτό?
Λίγο πριν πεθάνει ο παππούς μου με προειδοποιεί για τους κινδύνους της λογοτεχνίας
«Τα βιβλία!»
Μούγκρισε ο παππούς μου,
«Είναι το υποκατάστατο της ζωής»,
Καθώς το παχύ γαλάζιο μελάνι στις φλέβες του
Άρχισε να πήζει και να σχηματίζει
Κόμματα, άνω τελείες,
Για να καταλήξει σε μια ξαφνική, ένδοξη
Τελεία.
ΜΕΤΑΦΡΑΣΗ: Χάρης Βλαβιανός
ΑΠΟ ΤΟ Athens review of books.Vol 48
Ο GERRY MERFY ΛΕΕΙ:
Why I Am A Poet
Is it all down to my father’s habit
of smoking Sweet Afton cigarettes
and my reading and re-reading
Burns’ lovely couplet on the packet:
“Flow gently sweet Afton among thy green braes,
flow gently I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise.”
Or the fact that my mother was Sylvia Plath?
Self-Portrait on a Christmas Morning
The boy goes patter-pat
down the chilly stairs,
his six-year-old heart
thumping in his chest.
Agog to discover
if Santa has left
that hoped-for gift
beneath the tree.
To find a cold bare parlour,
a childless old man
staring back at him
from the hallway mirror,
a clock ticking loudly
through the empty house.
Gerry Murphy was born in Cork in 1952. After dropping out of university in the early 1970s he spent some years working in London and living in an Israeli Kibbutz before returning to Cork where he has remained ever since. A champion swimmer he has made his living primarily as a life guard and swimming pool manager. He began publishing his books in the mid-80s containing poems so far removed from the Irish tradition that many doubted they were poems at all. Undaunted and with his usual irreverence, Murphy once insisted on using a singularly detracting review alongside the more praising ones as a blurb for one of his books. Amusingly this had the effect of silencing and defusing many of his critics... AND MORE(irish examiner)...
ΤΟ Small Fat Boy Walking Backwards ειναι η πρώτη ποιητική συλλογή του φρέσκο-ανακαλυμενου ποιητή ΓΚΕΡΙ ΜΕΡΦΥ... ΚΑΙ ΕΔΩ ΠΕΡΙΣΣΟΤΕΡΑ...
