Poems by Mike Murphy
The Uppity Puppets
by Mike Murphy
Once upon a time
On a small planet
There lived
Two puppets side by side,
A Smaller Puppet &
A Larger Puppet,
Both equally loved by the
Puppet Master because of the
Riches under their lands.
Each puppet desired to be
Master in his own house.
So, one day, Larger Puppet
Cut his puppet strings
And was free.
Puppet Master was furious,
And immediately gave Smaller Puppet
Weapons to make war on Larger Puppet.
Secretly, Puppet Master also
Helped Larger Puppet,
And the war lasted for nine long years.
After the war ended
Puppet Master pretended to offer
Smaller Puppet the gift of
Tiny Puppet
As a prize for Smaller Puppet’s
Obedience in
Waging the war against Larger Puppet,
So, Smaller Puppet seized Tiny Puppet.
‘Error! Error!’
Puppet Master made Smaller Puppet
Release Tiny Puppet, and spanked Smaller Puppet
All the way back home.
Would Smaller Puppet now obey?
Not enough to please Puppet Master.
So, clever Puppet Master crafts a master stroke,
By enticing Little Enemy to
Dramatically attack Puppet Master himself,
And gains the sympathy of The Whole Community,
And then blames Little Enemy Attack on Smaller Puppet.
Oh, joy! Puppet Master now
Attacks and overwhelms
Smaller Puppet and his riches,
And also threatens Larger Puppet, and his riches
Woof! What an audacious puppet show!
How will it end?
Will Uppity Puppets topple Puppet Master?
Will Puppet Master control Uppity Puppets?
Will Puppet Master make puppets of
The Whole Community?
Or will The Whole Community
Stand Uppity and
Re-script this puppet show?
You decide….
--Mike Murphy
C 5-17-2007
And Shall the Poets
And shall the poets
Teach the politicians
Wisdom
In time enough?
And where
Shall the
Poets
Learn this
Wisdom
If not from
The Great Teachers?
And what
Shall be
The meaning of
"Turn the other cheek?"
Shall it be
To let them
Smite us again?
Or shall we
Turn &
Pluck the
Mote
From our own eye,
Our own cheek
Before we
Try to remove
The mote
From theirs?
What cheek,
What cheeky-cheek
Of ours
Brought
These chickens
Home to roost?
Have we toppled
Too many democracies
Assassinated
Too many reformers?
Has our CIA
Instructed
Mike Murphy’s parents were Bohemian artists in Cincinnati, Ohio, who moved the family to Clermont County farm country in 1942. Mike attended Wilmington College, a Quaker college, where he became a pacifist and a conscientious objector to military service, a decision which set him on a life quest seeking peace and justice in the world.
Granted “conscientious objector” status by the draft board, he moved to New York City where did his alternative to military service by working in a general hospital as a nurses aide, and then as a respiratory therapist. While there, he attended NYU and graduated with a BA in liberal arts in 1965.
Now married and with a young son, he moved back to Ohio, where he was influenced by the revolutionary ‘on-the-job democracy’ ideas of Daniel DeLeon. He then moved on to California, then back east to Rhode Island. Mid-life crisis took him to Sirius Community Conference Center, an intentional community in Massachusetts modeled after the famous Findhorn Community in Scotland. The community practiced meditation, consensus-decision making, peaceful conflict resolution, organic gardening, cooperation with nature spirits, and other sustainable arts. Sirius is noted for its apprenticeship programs in organic gardening and in post-and-beam construction, and is also highly regarded as a small conference center in the woods.
Enjoyable as his ten-year stay at Sirius was, there was no way he could make a decent living there, and his efforts to do so took him increasingly further away from the pleasures and responsibilities of the community. So he decided to move away, first back to Rhode Island, then to return to his native Ohio, where he determined to attempt to establish an intentional community like Sirius, but one with a larger market-farm component.
He soon met Birdie Fetterhoff who enthusiastically supported his idea to establish a farm-based community, and for several years they have both been spreading their idea through conversations and formal presentations among farmers and friends as well as organizations such as EarthSave, Ohio Ecological Food and Farmers Association, CommunitySolution.org, and others.
Mike has written poetry from time to time for years.