Old House Down

11a street, calgary

My Grandmother's Bed

How she pulled it out of the wall

To my amazement. How it rattled and

Creaked, how it sagged in the middle

And smelled like a used-clothing store.

I was ecstatic to be sleeping on wheels!

It rolled when I moved; it trembled

when she climbed under the covers

in her flannel nightgown, kissing me

Softly on the head, turning her back.

Soon I could hear her snoring next to me-

Her clogged breath roaring in my ears,

Filling her tiny apartment like the ocean

Until I, too, finally, swayed and slept

While a radiator hissed in the corner

And traffic droned on Lawrence Avenue...

I woke up to the color of light pouring

Through the windows, the odor of soup

Simmering in the kitchen, my grandmother's

Face. It felt good to be ashore again

After sleeping on rocky, unfamiliar waves.

I loved to help her straighten the sheets

And lift the Murphy back into the wall.

It was like putting the night away

When we closed the wooden doors again

And her disappeared without a trace.

Words by Edward Hirsch, The Night Parade

Images by Lisa Murphy-Lamb taken on 11a street NW Calgary, November 2, 2009

It's good to google your self once and a while and collect your progress and put it into one place

1. Parks and Protected Areas Presentation Series - Discover Dinosaur ...

   - 8:52pm
   6 Oct 2009 ... Dinosaur Hunters: Uncovering the Hidden Remains of Canada's Ancient Giants by Lisa Murphy-Lamb is part of the Amazing Stories series and ...
   blog.calgarypubliclibrary.com/.../parks-and-protected-areas-presentation- series-discover-dinosaur-provincial-park.aspx - Cached - Similar -

   
   

   How To Exist, An Impractical Guide: Como Existir, Guía Impráctica ...

   - 8:54pm - [ Translate this page ]

   She also wants to thanks her English language editor Lisa Murphy-Lamb for her thoughtful help. Read Amazon customer reviews ...
   www.authorhouse.com/bookstore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid

   
   

   Closing the distance gap

   Lisa Murphy-Lamb, For Canwest News Service. My parents are nurturers. From hosting Sunday dinners to building our deck to taking our youngest for hot ...
   www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/.../story.html?id...

   
   

   The art of hurricane nostalgia | Houston Art | 29-95.com

   - 8:54pm

   Reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday; exhibit through Oct. 4. Here are a few more photos: Lisa Murphy-Lamb. Photo by Gabriela Trzebinski. Photo by Craig Busch ...
   www.29-95.com/art/story/art-hurricane-nostalgia - Cached - Similar -

   
   

   The Houston Center for Photography

   - 8:59pm

   Lisa Murphy-Lamb Tailgate Sports Game 2008. This one was taken September 15, 2008 also in West Memorial. It seems that even a hurricane can´t keep diehard ...
   www.hcponline.org/exhibitions.asp?imgid=803&gx...

   
   

   Book, exhibit show why post-Ike Houston's still worth it | Fine ...

   ... in their frontyard after they'd cleaned up the yard — or that beautiful photograph (by Lisa Murphy-Lamb) of submerged lawn chairs” in a swimming pool. ...
   origin-www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/.../6582146.html

It's National Novel Writing Month-and I'm up for the challenge

I've joined writers from around the world in the challenge to write a 50 000 word novel this month. I woke up Sunday November 1 with the flu and Max and Charlie with the flu and no idea what I was going to write and no idea where I was going.

So it began...

Girl

Becks

Her voice enters me and it pisses me off. I’ve done it and I have no regrets, Really. No regrets. I look over to Tony as he lies on the crumpled sheets, the crepitated sun of morning spreading her spidery fingers over his back. I smile.

I am a woman. No longer a girl. It was very good giving myself to him like that and he took me gently, carefully like he promised. My mother was wrong. She said he wouldn’t be respectful, that men weren’t. They just wanted one thing and they didn’t care how they got it.

I rolled over on her thoughts, trying to squash her presence. She had no place in this bed with Tony and I. I wrapped my arms around his back and reach down low between his legs. He moved slowly at first and then before I knew it he was on top of me again and I was squealing, squealing with delight.

getdown@downtown.ca

Writing for a new blog in Calgary

Lisa Murphy Lamb

Mango Shiva « Downtown Calgary Blog

Source: getdown.ca

I am planning a weekend in San Francisco with a friend. Her job is to research where to eat and drink. I find the fun literary/art/outdoorsy events. We met up over lunch to share our research. Lunch was at Mango Shiva a contemporary Indian restaurant on Stephen Avenue mall. ...

Lisa Murphy Lamb

Doc Soup: Big River Man « Downtown Calgary Blog

Source: getdown.ca

I’m on a bit of a swimming streak lately so it seems. Three times a week I take my son to his swim meet work outs, then earlier this week I checked out Chrisophe Jivraj’s The Swimmers video art installation at The New Gallery. ...

Lisa Murphy Lamb

The Swimmers – The New Gallery « Downtown Calgary Blog

Source: getdown.ca

I needed a break from my day and so I took a walk down the river and ducked into Eau Claire Market to locate a piece of contemplative aquatic art I had heard about.

a poem for a lonely night (with a nod to Miller, Nin and Kerouac who kept her company)

a poem for a lonely night

(with a nod to Miller, Nin and Kerouac who kept her company)

let me take you to a jazz show please

to celebrate that

intricate relationship between

the music and the body

let us marvel at the many ways

that the spine can move

the back can distort that a

fantasy can be interpreted

then after I will confess as we gaze upon a canvas

surrendered under a bloody sheath

that everytime I stand before

it and certain others I fight

the urge to lick

the texture left by the artist’s brush

just above the left corner

do you see it?

in the cab, let me practice my insouciance

I’ll gaze out the window

as we

pull up outside a dark cafe

where we shall drink with heads

bent low and you can tell me a

story about a stranger in a

statue garden

and because you are a friend

I’ll let you

slam me up against

a brick wall

dry hump me

fill me with cognac

and then I’ll send you

on your way

content

at

last and ready

to call it a night.

But the longing for other places keeps her awake

words and image by Lisa Murphy-Lamb

But the longing for other places keeps her awake

Instead

of slipping serenely into the tenderness and refuge

family life offered

she was restless.

His thoughtful goodnight kiss, the

way he brushed

crumbs from each fingertip,

his socks left

each night balled carefully beside the bed-

lost

to the dogged, whispering murmur-

a ceaseless entreaty that robbed her

the pleasure

of bathing each pink toe on the left

foot of her youngest,

long walks each Sunday afternoon and receiving

a cup of tea while balancing what

he earns

and collectively what they spend.

She saw a different life

where crumbs fell freely and kisses

given

were unexpected, public, deep

and often.

Where tea grew native.

This image-this murmuring entreaty,

she worried,

would tire of calling her and

would

fade away

leaving her

only the call of the

tea kettle.

evanesce

evanesce

Rock stack

magnificent

strata of colour.

Fading into the horizon

not all hurtle by it

like I.

Recognizing the disquiet

in the hills,

from abandoned train cars

sculptures toil in the heat, erect

shapes

in harsh contrast to the natural

landscape-

beautiful

wonderous.

New material nestled

in centuries-old dust.

Unfamiliar angles upon

gentle slopes

tug at my senses.

I know each vein is worth lingering

over,

with close examination,

I’ll find

exultation

Yet, despite my

hunger

It seems I should continue on

and ignore

the call from

my loins to

slow down

to touch, taste

experience

the layers of this new land-

the deconstructed,hidden,internal,emotional,magnificance---

Yet

these hills scream out

they will not allow it-

Me

to fade

into the horizon

like a memory.

Words and image by Lisa Murphy-Lamb

Houston It's Worth IT: IKE The Book

HIWI: IKE is a photo collaboration and a collection of short essays of the days following Hurricane Ike. The pre-sales promotion for the book used one of my photos and accompanying writing. Click on the link above.

Book out September 11, 2009

www.HoustonItsWorthIt.com

You Don't Know

You Don’t Know

It’s having too many days filled with dark gaps of time that are both a gift and a curse for I often find myself stunned into silence staring out the window at the dancing light filtered through clustered bursts of green rebellion and feeling the snail-like pace that time sometimes offers me to create yet instead I sit and I wonder what it is that I am supposed to be contributing to this world. Twenty-five years have collapsed like a house made from cards and still I turn towards an embrace that is distant and yet warm. You don’t know that when I look into the mirror and try to recall the words that were said to me I doubt my memory and convince myself that they were not what were said but what I wanted said needed to be said but then I step back and remember the smile one dark morning while I sat with coffee in a t-shirt and panties the words I remember they were actually said and despite the image I see in the mirror and the criticisms that often crowd my head the words- your words are fresh and welcome and sincere and important. Waking from the eroticisms of my dreams I lie in the sleepy afterglow of yet another night of sexual betrayal recounting what happened I feel the reality of my mattress below me I know I could stay and I could go but I won’t do either I rise and drink coffee and wonder if the gaps of time will have colour for me that day or if it will be up to me to paint them and then I wonder next if I actually have the talent to do so

Lisa Murphy-Lamb

Ingest

Ingest

I want

the earth to swallow

up those

mothers and children.

A clean, quiet

consumption

to let us be.

So I can trace the

outline

of your jaw

with my tongue

and bite

your chin

beneath the tall pines

and let your full

hand

follow where fingers

have ventured down

past waistband

and skin

and carefully

chosen lace.

I want

to feel

the scrape

made by

bark against skin

as your body presses

hard against mine

and my lips

and gums

swell

from the force

of your intent.

I want to hear

the kind words

you are saying

as my mind

leaves the pine

scented trail

and public

laughter

to a vision

where I am

straddling you

on

an august bed.

There

I want

my conscience

to eat away

the good girl

image that I clutch

tightly onto

so I can

consume you

noisily

and feed

my

own

desire

photo and poem by Lisa Murphy-Lamb

In A Brown Study

In a Brown Study

she tasted philosophy

on his tongue

where

spine

against

spines

he flattened her

argument

dead.

Lisa Murphy-Lamb

Hockey Night in Canada

photo taken by Lisa Murphy-Lamb

Hockey Night In Canada

Lisa Murphy-Lamb

My father

sits in his chair, feet elevated

a tumbler

deep with amber whiskey

at his side,

watches

Hockey Night in Canada

like he does each

Saturday night.

I play

with a loose front tooth

my tongue pushing it forward

and back

and read from

a yellow bound book-

no baby illustrations

on its cover

a grown up reader at

eight.

Come here and let me

see that tooth

I put my book on the couch I open

wide

Is it this front one?

I nod as his fingers go to my mouth

and I find it is hard to swallow

with my mouth held wide

but I do stand

still

saliva collecting

around my molars,

I breathe through my nose.

A cheer

from the television

and my dad looks away

and

blood,

the battery

warm taste

fills

my mouth.

My tongue digs deep

into the bloody hole

as my mother

comes from the

kitchen

with kleenex

Dad hands me

his drink

to cleanse my mouth

the ice cubes

clink together.

I allow the amber

liquid to linger

on my lips

brace myself then

pour the liquid-fire

that bandaids

my mouth

and,

like hockey and my weekly

bath

schedules

Saturday in our home.

I swallow

then settle

in

to his lap and

against his broad chest

hold on tightly

to the crumpled

kleenex in

the palm

of my hand

inhaling the whisky

on his

breath

And wonder if

he

too

can smell it

on

mine.

Precious

photo taken April, 2009 by Lisa Murphy-Lamb Houston, Texas

Precious

Lisa Murphy-Lamb

What would

the people

who sit around

my table

enjoying

the food

I’ve prepared and

the wine I’ve

poured say

if

they knew

that once I

sat in math

class

and

while others

around me

worked

steadily at

solving

algorithms

and proofs

that I had

to lift my

feet from the

thick mud

in my mind

the grey, dull

denseness that

weighed heavily

where thought

and understanding should

have whirled

but didn’t

or that

my Baba

straight from the

Ukraine

never learned the

English language

gave birth to

thirteen children

while she worked

her small

farm fields

only able to keep

six alive?

For I’m the person

with the

history

that these guests

around my

table with

the sauce that

once simmered on my

stove now on the

corners of their

mouths

are so

anxious

to keep out of

their own

precious

children’s

classrooms

For

I held onto

the lowest

math grade

all

through high school

and

my grandmother

on my

father’s side

was simple enough

to carry my father nine months

without realizing

he was alive

inside

she waited

for the doctor

to bring life to her son with a slap

to his bottom signalling life with his first

cry

It’s exactly that kind

of generational ignorance

that those

seated around my table,

flushed by the

pinot noir

believe

that is ruining this country

brought in

across borders

that interferes

with their children getting

the educational attention

they

deserve

What if

instead of knowing

me as author,

poet, educator

mother

these dinner guests

knew

that while they were

the learned

offspring-

raised by doctoral parents

in erudite

homes

I came

from mere

high school graduates

that were

affected

gravely

by the

‘80s recession

when my father,

a career middle manager,

was no longer employable

so who

ultimately

ended his working

years as a

used car

salesman?

For it

would put

a kink

in the night’s

discussion

for how could

they

continue to argue

the drain

to

the system-

students who

cannot learn

at a quick pace

who come

from homes that

are not literate

or whole

have no right to

learn side by

side with

their own

gifted children

and in the next breath

ask

me to open

the merlot

and then

compliment me,

the

student with

simple immigrant

roots, foreign

language

inept math skills

blue collar

parents and

a lifetime of

play over

summer camp and

gifted classes

on such

a delicious

meal

and

fabulous evening?