{"id":16520,"date":"2026-09-13T19:30:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T17:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=16520"},"modified":"2026-09-20T19:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T17:33:16","slug":"poems-by-jim-murdoch-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=16520","title":{"rendered":"poems by Jim Murdoch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Personal Hell<\/strong><\/p>\n

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress [Philip Roth]<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a child Sisyphus<\/p>\n

once pushed pebbles up an<\/p>\n

ant hill and watched them roll down again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where do you think<\/p>\n

Hades came up with the idea?<\/p>\n

Punishment should fit the person not only the crime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often been<\/p>\n

described as a pen-pusher, so,<\/p>\n

Christ knows what kind of hell Hell has in store for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My guess is it\u2019ll involve blocks, dirty great big ones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is +\/- Not<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot [Steven Wright]<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People are many things<\/p>\n

but what they mostly are<\/p>\n

are are-nots: are not this,<\/p>\n

are not that or the other.<\/p>\n

The list drags on and on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for the things we are<\/p>\n

when did you last reach<\/p>\n

full isness? Half-, even<\/p>\n

quarter-isness usually<\/p>\n

has to suffice nowadays.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, yes, it is possible to<\/p>\n

be both generally happy<\/p>\n

and not exactly unhappy<\/p>\n

concurrently. Arenesses<\/p>\n

are betwixty that way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Same goes for living and<\/p>\n

being alive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All Light is Old Light<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m old and the mirrors don\u2019t lie [Leonard Cohen]<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mirrors reflect but they\u2019re not the only things.<\/p>\n

Puddles, windows and minds but not so much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Others too, said Lou,<\/p>\n

but, oddly enough, not Leonard<\/p>\n

though he gave mirrors as gifts<\/p>\n

to Suzanne and also Marianne.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s true, what Lou said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s poetic and all but if he\u2019d sung,<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be your prism (refract what you are),\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, would anyone have got it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eyes do not reflect. Eyes consume.<\/p>\n

They are lucivorous and voracious.<\/p>\n

They are black holes.<\/p>\n

They are the neediest thing on the planet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something to reflect on. Or off.<\/p>\n

After all, light reflects off, not on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aspects<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how a verbal action, event, or state, extends over time.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would like to propose<\/p>\n

a new part of speech.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A verb, as we well know,<\/p>\n

is a doing word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think undoing words<\/p>\n

should be their own thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How, for example, does one<\/p>\n

do <\/em>neglect? You with me?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Being neglected happens<\/em><\/p>\n

like feeling unloved happens<\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

so, not a doing<\/em> word, per se<\/em>,<\/p>\n

but a happening<\/em> word\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

a consequence of active verbs<\/p>\n

like disdain or scorn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

or simply forgetting to pick up<\/p>\n

the goddamn phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personal Hell The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress [Philip Roth]   As a child Sisyphus once pushed pebbles up an ant hill and watched them roll down again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1914,77],"tags":[1915,1123,1864],"class_list":["post-16520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-91","category-english","tag-egophobia-91","tag-english","tag-jim-murdoch"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-4is","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16521,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16520\/revisions\/16521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}