Peter E. Murphy

Mission Creep


It’s why the pundits criticize the President, how something
small turns into something huge and gets stuck so no one
can extract it. “Pundit” comes from the Sanskrit meaning
wise man, though today they’re mostly professional chatterers
who line up on the talk shows like the hot cars along 42nd Street
this autumn night, hoods open, LED lights flashing so passersby
can have a look at the spotless engine, sit behind the wheel,
then stick a dollar into the Please Donate bucket. I saw
both a pimp and a cop throw in a buck at the same time.
It was like that scene from The Wire where the drug dealer
and his girl meet the detective who’s been dogging him
and his girl leaving a movie they all enjoyed in the dark.
At first, they’re so surprised, I almost expected them to introduce
their dates and go out for cheesecake and coffee, a temporary truce
like the one you always hear about during World War 1
when the British and German soldiers stop shooting at each other
one Christmas, and instead climb out of their foxholes
and walk across the blood-stained no-man’s land to shake
hands and share a bottle. In The Wire the dealer goes back
to dealing and the detective goes back to trying to nail him,
but you can tell his heart’s not in it, because for one unexpected
minute they’re just guys who know each other from work.
The pundits say the President’s heart’s not in it which is why
he hesitates or says something like Don’t do stupid stuff,
which is actually good advice, because most of us could write
books about the stupid stuff we’ve done. But we don’t start out
that way, do we? Look at that corpulent man walking ahead of me
on 46th Street past the Scientology Center whose loud outdoor speaker
tells us, though not directly, how dumb we are if we don’t come in
right now, sign ourselves over and wire up to their spiritual technology.
Something happened or didn’t happen to this man and gradually
he evolved into a walking boxcar. Do you remember Walter Hudson,
the fourth heaviest man in medical history who became a story
when he got stuck in his bedroom doorway on his way to the bathroom?
Firemen had to cut him out. Although Dick Gregory helped him
lose six hundred pounds, he couldn’t save him. Desire,
eventually, is what kills us. When Hitler was a boy, do you think
he wanted Poland bad enough to start a war? But after he took it,
of course, and this was his mistake, he wanted more.

Sing

          
            Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrow
           But others say we've got a week or two
                                                            ~Maya Angelou
 
Just because some bobblehead dumped Skeeter Davis
causing her to sing, “It’s the end of the world” doesn’t mean
it is the end of the world. Herman and the Hermits sang
the same tune three years after that, and look, five decades
later the world is still wobbling along. It was the Cold War
when the communists were cocking their missiles at us
and Skeeter Davis was crossing over from country music
to pop, pissing off her hillbilly fans, just like Taylor Swift
is crossing over from country music to pop, pissing off
her hillbilly fans who, despite being pissed off, still bought
a million albums in one week. When Buddy Rich
was rolled into the ER for the last time a nurse asked
what he was allergic to. “Country music,” he croaked.
Between Skeeter and Herman, Bob Dylan crossed over when he
plugged in at Newport, pissing off his folky fans who crossed
over to become the high rollers he plays to in Atlantic City.
 
Taylor Swift was born without a belly button in 1989, the year
the Soviet Empire began to break itself into a half-dozen civil wars.
The year East Berliners crossed over to stare at the other side
of the Wall where Rilke spray painted, “Change Your Life.”
The year a man stopped to smell the tires burning in Tiananmen
Square and somehow blocked an exaltation of tanks.
The year the Exxon Valdez declared a fatwā on Salman Rushdie
who spilled more ink running aground than anyone could soak up.
The year the Fine Young Cannibals drove me crazy.
I like saying the words, Skeeter, Dylan, fatwā, bobblehead, cocking.
It pisses me off that even though the Soviet Union cashed out and was
born again as a capitalist playground, people say there’s a Commie
in the White House, practicing sharia, spreading Ebola and being black.
But you, Taylor Swift, are young, beautiful, intelligent and alive.
Sing your heart out, Sweetie. Do whatever you need to do to survive.



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Peter E. Murphy’s recent essays and poems appear or are forthcoming in Diode, Hawaii Pacific Review, The Lindenwood Review, Mead, The New Welsh Reader, Passager, Rattle, Rhino, Sleet Magazine and Tiferet. He is the founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University which sponsors the annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway and other programs for poets, writers and teachers in the U.S. and abroad. www.stockton.edu/murphywriting