Ah, that Murphy girl - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

Let’s talk about the weather then,
would that help you take your ease?
Gossip is so rare from you
the noise of falling leaves is louder than
your breathing; if breathing is whatever is
sustaining you.

– Weather? Not at any cost,
as old as I might seem I’m not yet dead,
I haven’t lost my eye for majesty,
let’s talk instead of rising youth and lovely girls
and pearls of timeless wisdom,
these are winsome things to ruminate.

I believe you’ve met the Murphy girl?

Prithee? Perhaps I have, describe her case.

A pleasure, she’s a rarity; an angel
and so sweet, lithe and pretty to a fault, she is
the neatest eighth-generation, Irish Sydney-sider
you’d ever meet. The Murphy girl, Angela,
a canted Kerry drawl and not a flattened Sydney twang,
she burrs her vowells with magnanimity and
sets a rising lilt to end each other phrase,
prefaced with a smile which bubbles with
her champagne grin and hearty laugh; it’s venal sin
there is no praise enough for her.

And aptly named: Angela, you say?

Aye, and by the bye, she’s blonde and not
a vacant lot, I meant of that the nicest way;
in truth she is a saucy bit, smart, polite
in her affection, so earnest and endearing,
so free of imperfection. Where she clothes
her common sense it bodes a sharp
intelligence, a gentleness to deference,
a fortress in her own defence.

Ah, that Murphy girl? An actor, yes?
The thespic clown, you surely meant
Ms Murphy Brown…?

© I.D. Carswell