Portrait

Portrait

Not flattering or moving.

I give you an aspersion.

An overly exposed close-up.

It promises clarity

like a flute’s limpid notes.

Realize.

Its unsettled grace

crevassed

with provocative ambition

and a mob’s intoxicating violence.

I am looking in.

No magnetic warmth or magical allure.

So, I disorder the senses.

Like a skilled photographer

I embrace your stance

off-kilter

Prepare

for my camera’s

close eye.

Manipulate

your warmth.

Be rendered.

To the illusion that intimate study

reveals.

words by Lisa Murphy-Lamb

Interlude

Interlude

You came to me

in the night

midway

in a journy from afar

needing a place

to stay

for your shining self

and your sister. I have

two rooms empty

and only she slept

alone. Free

from repercussion,

I easily wrapped my

body around

yours, accepted

dream caresses

into the orange

dawn, slept

then awoke, expecting

you beside me

but with the dark

you were

gone. With the day’s

routine, you

remain

in me

reverberating. These

are the dreams

to dream.

Lisa Murphy-Lamb, April 2010

A Song in the Front Yard

photo by Lisa Murphy-Lamb, 11a Street, Calgary 2009

A SONG IN THE FRONT YARD

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want a peek at the back

Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now

And maybe down the alley,

To where the charity children play.

I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.

They have some wonderful fun.

My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine

How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.

My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae

Will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late

(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.

And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,

And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace

And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

Those Winter Sundays

photo by Lisa Murphy-Lamb, Riley Park, Calgary 2010

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden

THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS

BY ROBERT E. HAYDEN

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

A Supermarket In California

photo by Lisa Murphy-Lamb

A SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA

BY ALLEN GINSBERG

What thoughts I have of you tonight Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Berkeley, 1955

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