Rich Murphy, “Complacency Report”

Rich Murphy

Complacency Report

Hearts and minds find shelter in denial.

Ministers and Samaritans

rescue conscience from the street

and rationalization herds the flock

toward the holes in the sand.

The social services staff

and marketing execs donate cushions

that envelop pea or poverty

and from mother via the kitchen

piping excuses remembered from childhood.

The “Do Not Disturb” signs

point in all directions without an owner

or an ounce involved in the trouble.

Alibi, forgery, and “not me” finger the culprits

convinced that innocence fills shoes

from the neighborhood all around.

Willed-ignorance tints objects beyond noses:

Om sweet ohm.

Blame rains on the homeless if need be.  

In other states, Libya or Myanmar,

mandatory amnesia and blinders

focus the population on freedom.

If a sense of self exists in the dogs

that populate domestic terror,

then lasers burn holes in propaganda,

ignite rebellion at any opportunity.

The couched position-statements

that fall from the malls and grocers

around democratic postures

escape an adult sovereignty.

The P.R. campaigns threaten

with discomfort food

self-served in a refrigerator box.

The false dichotomy economy plumes

larger than suburban life in the leaflets.

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Rich Murphy’s credits include books, The Apple in the Monkey Tree (Codhill Press) and Voyeur (Gival Press); chapbooks, Great Grandfather (Pudding House Press), Family Secret (Finishing Line Press), Hunting and Pecking (Ahadada Books), Rescue Lines (Right Hand Pointing), and Phoems for Mobile Vices (BlazeVox).  Rich lives in Marblehead, MA.

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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 5 (2011): Disappearance