{"id":450,"date":"2012-10-16T02:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T02:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/poetry\/?p=450"},"modified":"2012-10-16T02:00:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T02:00:27","slug":"3-poems-by-ryan-bender-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2012\/10\/16\/3-poems-by-ryan-bender-murphy\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Poems by Ryan Bender-Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastoral Scene<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like it or not, the suit smells.
\nHounds of fire run through forests
\nand trees squeal without their ponies.
\nThe turnip cannot stall the car, but, by god, we love it.
\nI fold the parking lot and push the streets
\ninto the oven. I forget they only rise in dreams.
\nThe spines of razorbacks rise into the clouds.
\nThe mermaids do not stand out. But I have the weekends off!
\nThe hills are tripping into the stew.
\nI want to hold your poinsettia and then tell the ghost story.
\nWhat makes a mask fall into a fault line?
\nWhat keeps the prison guard from balancing his checkbook
\nnear a Venus flytrap?
\nI chew a soda can and launch it into space.
\nI spill my kidneys out of my body\u2014whatever gets the grass swaying.
\nYour purr exits
\nsomething the rabbits are straying from.
\nThat pool beneath the canoe? It\u2019s black-blue.
\nI hit the off buttons and laugh and laugh and laugh.
\nA unicorn impales me.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________
\nUpbringing<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had it hard in juvenile crime dramas.
\nMy parents said it was just a phase: exploding
\nin the alleyway, chipping teeth every time I spoke.
\nWho would take me to prom? I had bowling balls
\ngrowing out of my eyes. I couldn’t pass the driver’s exam.
\nNo wheels: no way to keep living.
\nThe Nintendo days seemed eerie. What controller best fits into my mouth?
\nI would ask the fortuneteller at Spaghetti Warehouse.
\nShe blinked and beamed
\nand her breath smelled like plastic. I hated her.
\nI took the train from my house
\nand then got off at a movie theater.
\nAfraid of destinations, I told myself You are the atmosphere.
\nWhen a computer stunned me with its spiral screensaver
\nwhen the colors changed from purple to dark green to teal
\nI called my parents and told them My job will be rerouting affection.
\nIt\u2019s true. One day you might chew a mint leaf
\nand then squat to mouth a doorknob.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________
\nStarting the New Job<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a former era, someone asks me in an interview
\nwhat a super-tongue might do.
\nMaybe open file cabinets, maybe provide coffee for immigrants.
\nNow: I watch the janitor absorb cleaning juice from a bucket
\nand rub himself over all surfaces and senior managers. Nobody else laughs,
\nstill slurping sweat off of their hands.
\nI open my Poptart box, forgoing catered eggs and ham, and read
\nthe instructions for completing a maze.<\/p>\n

A co-worker spills coffee on the maze.<\/p>\n

Tech support jams a tractor into my keyboard.<\/p>\n

My boss tells me how many hands can press into a face
\nbefore it looks like something completely different.<\/p>\n

During lunch, my body double holds me on a tray
\nand slowly I descend into his stomach.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________
\nRyan Bender-Murphy<\/strong> lives in Austin, TX, where he teaches high school students critical reading and writing skills. He tries to frequent the green trails around the city, and, on one occasion, he saw a fox in an urban park. His poems also appear in Anti-, Dark Sky Magazine, elimae, NAP, Phantom Limb, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastoral Scene Like it or not, the suit smells. Hounds of fire run through forests and trees squeal without their ponies. The turnip cannot stall the car, but, by god, we love it. I fold the parking lot and push the streets into the oven. I forget they only rise in dreams. The spines of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}