Max, the neighbor's dog

10/17

Neighbor's dog was killed in the road this morning. I've been doing the calculations of poetry in my head for the last hour - trying to find the voice of the dog.

A beautiful dog - aren't they all? A big brindle boxer-pit mix with blue eyes. Lying there in the road, an indictment of us all. I can see him right now - hours later - it would have been too cruel to take his picture lying there, but I'd like you to see him . . .

"Who made you the boss of me? All you had to do was keep me out of the road . . .

"I can't get up, there's no running from this -

so I'm lying here in the shit and the piss . . . who's licking tears off my face?

Now that lady driver is sad, and you're sad, and I've got this serious pain in my side . . . "

Working on Songs

(MQMurphy photo)

Yes, that's right - since I have no plan for how to support myself when I can no longer carry heavy ladders, tools and lumber - I've decided that my salvation will be songwriting. You can help by sending your money in NOW to MQMurphy at P.O. Box 484 Cape May, NJ 08204.

Here's some raw (very raw) material from which I'll be trying to fashion a hummable ditty that'll become a radio favorite. There are other tunes, actually - some of them a bit farther along in the fashioning and polishing process - but I thought it might pique your interest to look at a bit of the raw material, so to speak.

So, you throw your bag in the back and you get in the car with your sister. She'll drive, because she likes to. It's four hundred miles, give or take, to that town above Boston where your Dad grew up. His brother, the last boy from that family of eleven kids, has finally moved on to the next phase.

We listen to music and we talk - talk about George's hundredth birthday that we celebrated with him last year. We'll see the cousins - now we're THAT generation, since there's no more of the other one left.

"Did you like the character that guy played on that other show?" What has that go to do with anything? "I don't know I was just wondering . . . passing the time with some idle chat . . .

he played a bad cop - but maybe not a bad guy, just a conflicted guy - stuck in a bad situation - anyway, he died. In the show, he died"

Can I make something out of that? You'd better believe it.

I have to believe it - because there's no Plan B.

Marriage = ? + ?

(Image found at Irregularnews.com)

Here's something from my journal from a few years ago:

3/27/05 5:46 PM
Just saw a sticker on the back of a pickup truck.
It said “Marriage = (here it had little pictograms of a man + a woman).
You know, they were the kind of little silhouettes that are used to designate rest rooms. I really wanted to be able to change the silhouettes – maybe put a little Pirate hat on the man and an Indian headdress on the woman. Something like that.
Maybe a monkey and a toaster. A Buick and a golf ball.
What’s wrong with people? If we’re really lucky, we’ll learn one wonderful truth before we die. When you keep saying NO NO NO, you really cut your chances.