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Introduction

No poem is ever about what you think it is. You're always required to read in between the lines and so it's up to each reader to provide his or her context and meaning generally from dipping into their own experiences. This is true of other art forms but it is especially true of poetry. The mind demands order so we try to make sense out of the words in front of us. We decide who's talking and about what.

Collections bring additional problems because we feel a need to connect the poems; we look for common threads, a story when there is none. There is no story to this collection but you will find yourself looking for one. Even if the poems had not been arranged in the order they have been you would still see that they chart a life from childhood through to old age but it is not my life nor the life of anyone I know or know of.

What is the purpose of poetry: to communicate or to record? It can be both. My poetry is actually written primarily to exorcise, to get a specific thought or feeling out of my head so I can examine it before dealing with and then discarding it. The writing process is more important to me than the finished product. Once written I understand myself a little more. I may still be carrying around the same baggage but it's packed a little more neatly.

This doesn't mean every poem I write is autobiographical. They are my reactions to certain subjects, some which I have experienced first hand, some which I've witnessed others experience, others which I've read or heard about and a few which I've simply imagined. But they're my take on all of these. I am a writer; my natural response to life is to write about it. I wrote the poem about the stillbirth the day I heard about it; 'Making Do', a poem about my own mother, I completed years after her death.

None of my poems are very long. I've long held the belief that writers should say what they have to say and get off the page. So I try to do exactly that. This has resulted in an aphoristic style of writing which I happen to like. It also means they're not particularly well suited for reading aloud which is fine because they were never written to be read out loud even though I occasionally do read them to myself to ensure that they flow properly.

If my poems are throwaways why publish them? Because it's green. Just because I've finished thinking my thoughts doesn't mean that someone else won't be able to make use of them. They may make something of them that I never intended or imagined. And that's fine. You have my permission to make every poem in this collection your own. They are your own. You've paid good money for them. I hope you think it was money well spent.

Jim Murdoch
May 2010

Deconstructing Jimmy

I missed out on a lot growing up:
stilts, a pogo-stick,
skates — ice and roller — underage sex.

There were things I had: a family,
an education
but it was the wrong family and

they skipped all the useful stuff at school.

Whenever I have needed something
it was never there:
the capital of Peru or the

TV remote, the exact bus fare
or just reasons why.
"You can't miss what you've never had, son."
Is that so? I think you've missed the point.



Advice to Children

People will fail you.
It's a fact of life —
they'll let you down.

But not always.
And that's the worst of it —
sometimes they don't.

But most times it's hard to tell.



Marks

My dad used to give me marks out of ten:
homework — seven out of ten,
the dishes — eight out of ten.

Anything less than a five
came with a clip on the ear.

Marks is merely another word for scars.
I have those too, the ones you
can see and the ones you can't.

I'd give my childhood a three.
That's me being generous.

Dad's no longer here and so I have to
mark myself. Is that what you
were waiting to hear, doctor?

What do you think this poem
might be worth? Maybe an eight?



Father Figure

This is the floor beside my bed
where I kneel to talk to God.
If I press my ear to the floor.
I can hear Him talk to Mum.
About me. It is always me.

I know what God looks like.
He looks just like my dad.
I heard him tell my mum:
"In this house I am God."
I heard that through the floor.

Now I only pretend to pray
because I don't want my dad
to really hear the things I think.
Now he's not sure I'm so bad.
I don't want him to know I am.

I just want my dad to love me.



Making Do

My mother made do almost every day of her life.

There wasn't that much to the dish. To tell you the truth,
Mum could make do
with almost nothing at all.

She'd put on the pot and just let it simmer for hours.

And all of my life so far I've tried to do the same
but I find mine
always leaves a bitter taste.

I wish I knew what her secret ingredient was.



Red Tape and the Meaning of Life

Things have to be done in a certain way
otherwise the universe won't make sense

which is why the milk goes in the coffee
after the hot "but not boiling" water

and only Superman (who isn't real)
gets to wear his Y-fronts on the outside.

This means there are lots of rules to follow
to protect us even when they don't work.

It's not the universe's fault if we
can't remember simple things like not to

trip over cracks in the pavement.



Tools

"Just because you have a hammer
it doesn't make you a joiner."
My father had his way with words.

So I took a handful of nails
and boarded up my heart
against him and against the world.

And safe on the inside I yelled:
"Screw you!"
but he was never one for puns.



Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

The bedroom wall was paper
thin. I heard every single
word as if scrawled across it.

Later when things died down I
could still envision each word
ripped into the wallpaper.

It was as if they had been
screaming at each other in
some strange foreign tongue. Nothing

made sense bar the anger though
there was no one there to give
meaning to it. Only me.



Untitled

In my last year at school
I spent much time
in Central Library
thumbing though
encyclopaedias of modern art
and photography year books
looking for naked women.

Somehow their art
never reached me —
only their nudity.



True Love II

My father had a heart transplant.
Years ago, before I was born,
        doctors took
        out his broken heart

        and gave him a machine instead.
The strange thing about this machine
        was it was
        powered by sadness.

Of course he was always just Dad,
        but, when I discovered the truth,
        at first I
        hated the sadness

        then I became thankful for it
        because as long as I could see
        him be sad
        he would be with me.

And so I made it my job to
        make him the saddest dad in the
        whole wide world.
What else could I do?



Dreamer

There was no hole in my youth
for "the real me" to crawl out,
only flaws to put pressure on
and finally rip apart.

I sometimes still sleep
in the empty shell at night.



Advice to Children V

People are rarely
what they say they are
and never what they think
they are.

Or would like to be.
The first lies we tell
are generally to
ourselves.



Unbrokenness

There exists within physical things
the potential to be broken.
It is only a matter of time

and of unforeseen circumstances.

These things can be repaired, replaced
or buried and forgotten about.
Nothing can ever be unbroken.

Something To Think About

Such an awful
lot of thought has
gone into this
little poem.

You simply would
not believe how
much thought I have
put into this.

So many thoughts
went into this
poem there was
no room left for

the poetry.
Sorry about that.
I'll try and do
better next time

(First appeared in Writers Bloc, March 2011)


Petrified Poem

Writers are afraid of the truth.
It's impossible to work with,

it's not malleable;
truths are like lumps of rock.

You can chisel away and you
might reveal this great work of art.

More than likely though you'll
just get rock and more rock,

probably not even the kind
with a message through the middle.

(First appeared in The Apple Valley Review, Volume 3, Number 2 (Fall 2008))


As Is

This is a
used poem.
It is in
good condition,
is complete and
undamaged.

No words are missing and
though they have
all been read before
the previous owner
was careful not to
read too much into them.

The poem will make sense
but it must
be said it doesn't
quite mean what it used to
and it may require
some reader attention.

What you see
is what you
get but what
you end up with
is completely
up to you.

(First appeared in Gloom Cupboard #36, March 2008)

You can hear Nic Sebastian's interpretation of this poem here.


Naïve Poem

I had a poem
published on the Internet.

It looked good there and
I went to see it often.

After a while they moved the
poem into a

great big archive with
a lot of other poems.

I still visited
though maybe not quite as much.

One day I went to look and
it had disappeared.

I suppose it must
have escaped or maybe died.

I'm not sure how long
poems are supposed to last.

Someone told me forever
but that can't be right.

(First appeared in Feathertale)


The Answer

No one gets poetry
anymore,
not even the poor sods
who write it.
Besides, poems don't need to be read,

they have to be written,
and that's a
different thing entirely.
Keys need locks.
Locks still work without keys or am I

stating the obvious?
Besides, if
you don't have the key you
can always
kick down the door and see what you find.

(First appeared in Eclectica Vol 12, No 1)


The Rape of Language

After he'd used them
they just weren't the same.
It was as if they'd become
somehow different, lesser.

What exactly he'd taken
she couldn't be sure,
perhaps their true meaning,
leaving only the sounds.

It wasn't their fault
yet how could she trust them?
They said that he loved her
still something wasn't right.

But who do you tell
when the words stop making sense?

(First appeared in The Pgymy Giant, April 2010)