I'll Rant But Who'll listen: Poetry

Talking about Clinical Trials: Are Drugmakers' Studies Biased? - Newsweek Health - MSNBC.com

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:47:40 GMT

Let me make sure that I understand the question. Are we to believe that major drug companies would endanger Cancer Victims? Giving them false hope based on fabricated results, just so they could sell a few more pills. Of course we believe it the drug companies have shown repeatedly that they are capable of that and much worse. Here’s what I also believe and it should worry them. I believe that there is a special ring in hell for those that would take advantage of another’s fear and suffering just to turn a profit and eternity is a long time to repent.

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Clinical Trials: Are Drugmakers' Studies Biased? - Newsweek Health - MSNBC.com

The only love poem I ever wrote

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:05:38 GMT

Its been a while since I put one of my poems here so I thought on this cold February day I would share this one.

COOL WATER

Why do poets, the romantic poets,

speak of love in such negative terms?

He burns with love.

His love consumed him.

He was blinded by his love.

This is not how love should be!

My love does not burn

However, I am warmed by it.

Nothing is consumed by my love

In fact, all that I am is amplified by it.

And, love does not blind me

Just the opposite, my world has been illuminated by it.

For, When I am parched

When life burns, hot and dry within my chest and

despair, like salt gathers bitter at the back of my throat.

Then, like cool water she quenches me!

Talking about Pilot Recalls Shoot-Down During Escort - MSNBC Wire Services - MSNBC.com

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:13:56 GMT

I'm not sure that this is important, yes, the Tuskegee airmen have had a reputation for never having lost a bomber to enemy fighters that is almost legendary, but if its not 100% true does it matter? These men had a difficult thing to prove and they to a man proved it. They fought two enemies the Germans and bigotry and beat them both. They proved that it is not the color of a man’s skin but the color of his blood and the iron in his spine that matters when the chips were down and death is the cost of failure. It seem that the only people the exact truth of this legend would matter to are the people that were still trying to prove that color and not courage was an issue.

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Pilot Recalls Shoot-Down During Escort - MSNBC Wire Services - MSNBC.com

Talking about Decision 2006: Rhetoric Gets Red-Hot - News - MSNBC.com

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:07:37 GMT

Here's why I announced my write campaign for Governor. At the end of this article they point out that no one likes either of these two candidates. So remember when you go to the polls November 7^th that a vote for Murphy is a vote for "none of the above".

Murphy for Governor in 2006

Just write in (Terry C. Murphy of Lombard)

Thanks for your support!

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Decision 2006: Rhetoric Gets Red-Hot - News - MSNBC.com

New poem

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:19:23 GMT

A little something different from me.

The Physicality of Art

I wanted to know why?

Why do people do art

What lofty ambition, what noble goal to enlighten the masses,

to share beauty, to know the soul of man drove

the poet, the painter, the dancer to their art.

So I asked the poet, you know he’s the Slam Man, why do you do poetry? And he said I don’t do poetry, I am poetry and I am because I have no choice.

Don’t ask me why I am, but rather ask them why they are not.

As I breathe so to am I a poet.

So I asked the artist, I asked the Granny lady,

Why do you paint and she replied “I paint because I must.

Painting is my vision,

as I see so to must I paint.

I asked the dancer, Daughter of Terpsichore

Why do you dance, she said how can I not dance,

How can you not dance?

As I move so to must I dance.

I asked the guitar player; call him the slide man, why do you play? Because to not play is to not live, as my heart beat the rhythm and my hands know the chords,

I must play to be alive.

So it’s not to know the soul of man, not to enlighten the masses or to share beauty,

but to know thyself, to feel, to see, to touch, to breathe and be alive.

Art is simply the self shared.

Another poem

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 14:58:44 GMT

This poem was inspired by a guy that tried to sell drugs on Chicago's North side a couple of years ago. He had a sort of a P. T. Barnum approach to selling drugs that troubled me and this poem was the result of his attempt.

The Slaver’s Song

He sells chains

See them glitter, see them shine.

He sells chains and people stand in line,

to wear his chains

Chains forged out weakness and need

Chains made out of poverty and greed

He sells chains

And, he sings his slaver song

“The latest high, guaranteed, absolute no charge,

it’s a gift to you from me.

Come on and try it, you know the first one’s free.

He sells chains

See them glitter, see them shine.

Chains forged out wretchedness and grind

Chains made out of weakness of the spirit and of mind

He sells chains

And, he sings his slaver song

“Step up, put your money down, I’ll show you what go’in round.

Makes the world all better, make you feel fine

See them glitter, see them shine

Yes, He sells chains

To Souls in agony and need

With sorrow so deep even his soul should bleed

And, he sings his slaver song

Ignore that crap, ignore the litter

See them shine see them glitter

Her body was a small price to pay,

after all dignity has fled her soul’s torrid path has lead,

to chains

That’s just a bum, leave him be

That’s not you, that’s not me

You can do this stuff and still be free

He gave up his family, home and wife,

and now he suffers life,

in chains

They beg for heaven while hiding in hell

And lust for just one more chain to make them well

Yes, He sells chains

From sanity to fatality and all the dark places in between

He sells chains that enslave the mind

Just once before he goes, before his time

he ought to see his chain so fine

forged from his sins and from his crime.

Cause he’ll wear it for eternity and that a long, long time.

Reach For IT

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:10:01 GMT

I started another rant about the goverment but realized that I just wasn't into it so I decided to put out another poem. This is a re-write of a poem I put out here a while ago. A fellow poet named Lady D edited it and made some suggestion that made it better so I thought I would share it again.

Reach For IT

Sometimes you have to strive to reach beyond your limits.

Life doesn’t often, just hand you what you need, let alone what you want.

Most times you’re reaching for it, even when you don't fully understand the reason,

even when you don’t know "why?”

No matter what you want, no matter what you need, you’ll have to reach for that

thing that challenges you, that demand’s to be reached for.

And, it’s never the reach out and pluck it off a tree kind of reaching. It’s the leaning forward, standing on tiptoe, breathless, other hand thrown out behind you for balance kind of reaching out.

You got to want it really bad to reach like that, to reach out that far.

So what are you waiting for?

When you want something with a soul broken cry of longing, the way a baby wants a rainbow.

When the depth of your need exceed your span,

When what you want is just past the tips of your fingers,

When the path to your desire is just out of reach,

Stretch till you shoulder pops, till you almost fall, till your vision blurs and, if in the end

when you’ve reached for it and still can’t quite grasp it, well then take just one step

forward and reach out again.

For you should understand that reaching is where all achievement begins.

The President and Gay Marriage

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:33:38 GMT

What will be the George W. Bush legacy? After nearly six years in office where is he focusing his energy? We the American people should feel that we are in good hands because our president and our congress are working hard to protect us from the scourge of “GAYYYY MARRIAGEEEEE”! Yes folks, its true the president has taken time from his busy schedule to once again press forward with this pivotal social issue. Surely gay marriage is at the heart of every fear and nightmare of every American. So with the help of our president and his conservative religious friends we can expect to be free of this ghastly problem in the near future. Social Security who needs it as long as we are free from gay marriage, incomprehensible Medicare and proscription drug programs, so what, as long as there is no gay marriage, the federal deficit is through the roof who cares, affordable health care, not important, domestic spying, not a problem, war, why worry, the fact that the rest of the world thinks we’re jerks, so what, we will be protected from gay marriage! So we the American people in years to come, the highly observed, poor but proud members of a third class country, in poor health and eating out of a garbage can so we can afford minimal health care can rest assured that the other people eating out of the same can are definitely not married homosexuals. He has proposed that we modify the Constitution of the United States of America to include religious persecution, segregation, and to deny rights to a segment of our population. Has he or anyone that works for him ever read this document? “We The People” must protect everyone’s rights and freedoms as if they are our own for the simple reason that they are! Every right or freedom we let some one take from one segment of the population makes it that much easier for some one to take a right or freedom from another segment.

It is my personal belief that the president is just worried that if gays marry they may reproduce and take over the world.

My Poetry

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:32:28 GMT

I thought I'd put this out here again for those that didn't see it the first time.

Saturday Night Communion

They gather in smoky little bars,

like parishioners,

they gather after dark to court the devil and to keep the darkness at bay.

Seeking not just alcohol and laughter, but communion within the gathering of spirits

Not the communion of the church, but the communion of the fire and the cave.

Their mingled voices sound almost like prayer

But not a prayer full of thou arts or hollowed be thee names

It’s the prayer of “how the hell are you” and loneliness deferred.

With ritual of old these worshipers take their sacrament with salt and lime.

It’s not the sacrament of the church,

although it is very much a sacrament of flesh and blood;

it is not the sacrament of bread and wine.

It’s the kinetics of the crowd and the comfort of the dance,

the insistent motion of bodies briefly touching, the brushing of another soul

while their hearts beat in counter point to a rock and roll rhythm

and not the stand, kneel, and sit of the church or the stately sound of organ and hymn that comfort these wary souls.

The flickering NFL fire shines from the month of the techno-cave to drive away evil spirits but, its Packers not saints that engender the hallelujahs here.

And when, at last the drummer reverently raps out the cadence to the dark sacred night

and the singer closes his eyes and starts to testify,

sanctified by the steel on steel voice of a slide guitar,

man, you know it’s holy,

and you know it’s another Saturday night communion coming down.

Reach For It

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:58:53 GMT

Here is another poem of mine for your consideration.

Reach For It

When everything you want is over the horizon,

just past your finger tips!

Just out of reach!

When the depth of your need exceed your span,

and you can’t quite grasp what you want.

Well, then you have to reach for it.

Because life doesn’t just hand you what you need,

let alone what you want.

Most times you have to reach for it.

No matter what you want,

no matter what you need,

you’ll have to reach for it.

And, its not the reach out and pluck it off a tree kind of reaching for it, it’s the leaning forward, breathless, standing on tiptoe, other hand thrown out behind you for balance kind of reaching out.

You got to want something bad to reach like that,

to reach out that far.

So, when you want something with a soul broken cry of longing,

the way a baby wants a rainbow,

you have to reach for it.

Stretch till you shoulder pops, till you almost fall, till your vision blurs and your breath comes hard.

And, if in the end,

when you’ve reached for it and find it’s still out of reach,

Take just one single step forward,

And reach for it again.