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 Gerry
Murphy -Born in Cork in 1952 where he still lives. Spent one year
in a Kibbutz in Israel in 1975/76 and one year at UCC studying
English and History. Started work as a lifeguard Mayfield swimming
pool in 1980. Small Fat Boy Walking Backwards was published in
1985. A Cartoon History of the Spanish Civil War in 1991. Rio de
la Plata and all that in 1993. Dead Cat in Winthrop Street 1994.
The Empty Quarter 1996. Extracts From The Lost Log Book of
Christopher Columbus 1999. Torso Of An Ex-Girlfriend 2002. In 2007
Murphy published his New and selected poems. His work is noted
for its humour, iconoclasm and political commitment. In 1987
American playwright Roger Gregg produced a stage adaptation of
Murphy's poetry in the Triskel Arts Centre, Cork.
for Michael O’Riordan
“There are pickpockets in the Cathedral,”
warned the bishop.
“They may get to your purses before we do,”
muttered the worried priest.
Among Thieves
My Mother Alive and Well and Living in...
Six months after
the report of your death,
I start a rumour among my schoolmates
that you are still alive.
That you are hiding out
in the Bolivian Andes
with a Lt. Colonel of the Treasury Brigade
who fled La Paz during one of three
October coups d’etat
with thirty million U.S. dollars
and four lorry-loads of gold.
Just wait for the letters,
I tell them,
and the postal-orders.
MeiviIle Terrace
for Hugh
Who knows?
A hundred years from now
I may still be here.
A swallow flitting in and out
through warping roof-beams
or a rat scrambling across
a jumble of worm-eaten books,
unremittingly cheerful.
Dispersal
When I am finally burned to a crisp,
pounded to a fine ash by steam-hammers
and scattered from South-facing cliffs
over a disconsolate sea,
I would hope
that at least one fundamental particle
of my being could occasionally recycle
to the sunlit shallows below Myrtleville,
there to swirl playfully
around your thousand-year-old feet.
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