Timothy Murphy

A long walk up the mountain from Assisi— my boot heel severed from my right foot Redwing, I smacked it back, using some broken pavement. I’d walked my little brother to l’Eremo, some thirty years later I’d be a Catholic. Now, I suppose, I’m almost a Franciscan.  I’d come not to . . . . Continue Reading »

I rarely pray to Christ. His sacrifice was so perfect, it’s far beyond my ken. I’m one of those who have denied Him thrice but take His bread and wine, then say amen.  I pray three ways, first to the Holy Ghost in charge of poets who would serve the Lord, then to St. Michael, head of . . . . Continue Reading »

The parish doorbell rings. When I descend the stair nobody is there, only a bag that sings mournfully by the door, holding some baby shoes and little Polo crews tagged at the Target store. —Timothy . . . . Continue Reading »

This wrestler isn’t ready yet for college, instead he’s shaved his head for the Marines. It isn’t that he has no taste for knowledge but hungers to divine what freedom means. A grandfather was crippled in Korea, shelled in an LSI, the Inchon landing. He’s had enough of poets’ . . . . Continue Reading »

The boy comes to the back door of the parish,       bearing he says, “A gift.” A crib, its mattress, and a baby bearish quilt. “I hear you people stand for life.” What came between them, what could cleave a rift . . . . Continue Reading »

Like an emergent moth I’m flitting up a slope. Here strips of colored cloth affixed to every tree are prayers, the windblown hope of those who climb to see. This is a laccolith upthrust through sediment, perduring like a myth through man’s prehistory, Pa Sapa ’s pediment. Come climb . . . . Continue Reading »

We pray first for our Pope. Lend him the strength to cope with those who have no hope. Lord hear our prayer. For those ripped from the womb and buried without a tomb, for those who wrought their doom” Lord hear our prayer. For leaders who betray their Catholic faith and stray far from the Truth, . . . . Continue Reading »

Sleep, infant, sleep among the oxen and the sheep which kneel before your manger. Welcome to danger. When you become a man preach us the Good News while you can before you bear the scourge and cross, an everlasting loss we all bear to the grave with guilt. It was your doom to save us sinners, us . . . . Continue Reading »

Mikey’s idea of going on the wagon was sorrowfully to pour that final flagon of single malt whiskey down the drain, then switch to marijuana and cocaine. He simply couldn’t comprehend the danger of drying out. Although he was no stranger to white knuckling through vomit and the shakes, he . . . . Continue Reading »

Brady, you went to school with pretty Kayla. You’re six feet one, soft spoken and you’re handsome, and you still haven’t begged her out for dinner? Rich girl? Easy to marry as a poor girl ” words wasted on this poet by his father. I chickened out on marrying a woman skittish . . . . Continue Reading »