{"id":304,"date":"2007-07-20T10:53:22","date_gmt":"2007-07-20T10:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/?p=304"},"modified":"2007-07-20T10:53:22","modified_gmt":"2007-07-20T10:53:22","slug":"poems-by-mike-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/poems-by-mike-murphy\/","title":{"rendered":"Poems by Mike Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"
https:\/\/www.grahammilton.com\/crap\/sketches\/puppeteer.jpg<\/div>\n

\n The Uppity Puppets <\/b><\/p>\n

by Mike Murphy<\/i><\/p>\n

Once upon a time<\/p>\n

On a small planet<\/p>\n

There lived<\/p>\n

Two puppets side by side,A Smaller Puppet &<\/p>\n

A Larger Puppet,<\/p>\n

Both equally loved by the<\/p>\n

Puppet Master because of the<\/p>\n

Riches under their lands. <\/p>\n

Each puppet desired to be<\/p>\n

Master in his own house.<\/p>\n

So, one day, Larger Puppet<\/p>\n

Cut his puppet strings<\/p>\n

And was free. <\/p>\n

Puppet Master was furious,<\/p>\n

And immediately gave Smaller Puppet<\/p>\n

Weapons to make war on Larger Puppet. <\/p>\n

Secretly, Puppet Master also<\/p>\n

Helped Larger Puppet,<\/p>\n

And the war lasted for nine long years. <\/p>\n

After the war ended<\/p>\n

Puppet Master pretended to offer<\/p>\n

Smaller Puppet the gift of<\/p>\n

Tiny Puppet<\/p>\n

As a prize for Smaller Puppet\u2019s<\/p>\n

Obedience in<\/p>\n

Waging the war against Larger Puppet,<\/p>\n

So, Smaller Puppet seized Tiny Puppet.<\/p>\n

\n\u2018Error! Error!\u2019<\/p>\n

Puppet Master made Smaller Puppet<\/p>\n

Release Tiny Puppet, and spanked Smaller Puppet<\/p>\n

All the way back home. <\/p>\n

Would Smaller Puppet now obey?<\/p>\n

Not enough to please Puppet Master.<\/p>\n

So, clever Puppet Master crafts a master stroke,<\/p>\n

By enticing Little Enemy to<\/p>\n

Dramatically attack Puppet Master himself,<\/p>\n

And gains the sympathy of The Whole Community,<\/p>\n

And then blames Little Enemy Attack on Smaller Puppet. <\/p>\n

Oh, joy! Puppet Master now<\/p>\n

Attacks and overwhelms<\/p>\n

Smaller Puppet and his riches,<\/p>\n

And also threatens Larger Puppet, and his riches <\/p>\n

Woof! What an audacious puppet show!<\/p>\n

How will it end?<\/p>\n

Will Uppity Puppets topple Puppet Master?<\/p>\n

Will Puppet Master control Uppity Puppets?<\/p>\n

Will Puppet Master make puppets of<\/p>\n

The Whole Community?<\/p>\n

Or will The Whole Community<\/p>\n

Stand Uppity and<\/p>\n

Re-script this puppet show?<\/p>\n

You decide\u2026. <\/p>\n

–Mike Murphy<\/p>\n

C 5-17-2007<\/p>\n

And Shall the Poets <\/b><\/p>\n

\nAnd shall the poets<\/p>\n

Teach the politicians<\/p>\n

Wisdom<\/p>\n

In time enough? <\/p>\n

And where<\/p>\n

Shall the<\/p>\n

Poets<\/p>\n

Learn this<\/p>\n

Wisdom<\/p>\n

If not from<\/p>\n

The Great Teachers? <\/p>\n

And what<\/p>\n

Shall be<\/p>\n

The meaning of<\/p>\n

“Turn the other cheek?” <\/p>\n

Shall it be<\/p>\n

To let them<\/p>\n

Smite us again? <\/p>\n

Or shall we <\/p>\n

Turn &<\/p>\n

Pluck the<\/p>\n

Mote<\/p>\n

From our own eye,<\/p>\n

Our own cheek<\/p>\n

Before we<\/p>\n

Try to remove<\/p>\n

The mote<\/p>\n

From theirs? <\/p>\n

What cheek,<\/p>\n

What cheeky-cheek<\/p>\n

Of ours<\/p>\n

Brought<\/p>\n

These chickens<\/p>\n

Home to roost? <\/p>\n

Have we toppled<\/p>\n

Too many democracies<\/p>\n

Assassinated<\/p>\n

Too many reformers? <\/p>\n

Has our CIA<\/p>\n

Instructed <\/p>\n

Mike Murphy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Granted \u201cconscientious objector\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Now married and with a young son, he moved back to Ohio, where he was influenced by the revolutionary \u2018on-the-job democracy\u2019 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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mike has written poetry from time to time for years. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Uppity Puppets by Mike Murphy Once upon a time On a small planet There lived Two puppets side by side,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}