Chicken Shack, or The Coop

bookmark: murre, from basho's road

photo: sharon auberle

Some of you will remember Norbert Blei.  My friend, my mentor, my publisher.  One of the people most influential in my writing life.  Wrote a bunch of books, published a lot of other people's books, stayed in touch with the wide world of literature and literati,and raised as much hell as he could to save the environment and a disappearing way of life; all from a not-too-reconstructed chicken coop in the Wisconsin woods.

Since Norb's death, his property has been sold, but thanks to his children, The Coop has been donated to Write On! Door County, and relocated to those grounds where it will serve as sanctuary and inspiration to other writers, young and old.

I attended a fine dedication ceremony last Saturday along with about 150 other folks, many of whom paid tribute with their words, their art, their music, and at least one original dance, choreographed just for the day.  Here's the poem I wrote for the occasion:

The Cock o’ the Coop

(On the studio of Norbert Blei)

Beyond Ellison Bay, in may-apple May

and blue-sky July gone by,

or in the gray of dim December,

south windows searching for sun,

there would have been Leghorns

I suppose, utilitarian,

clucking and cackling

in this chicken house.

Good layers, Leghorns.

Might have been White Rocks and Barred Rocks,

brooding.  Rhode Island Reds.  Perhaps even

Sunday-dinner Wyandotte, Orpington, or Jersey Giant.

For certain --

one Bantam rooster, crowing

doing his damnedest

to wake the neighbors

~ Ralph Murre

Je suis, aussi

artwork: ralph murre

je suis ecrivain

je suis iconoclaste

je suis artiste

je suis chaque homme

je suis, aussi, charlie

~ ralph murre

Brief Article

found on the web, artist unknown

A Brief Article on Articles in Haiku

by Ralph Murre

(in response to a question raised by CX Dillhunt)

in the poem   the short-

est of the shortest short poems

is there room for the

Preview

Here's an excerpt from something I'm working on:

. . . you have to know that in that time and place, they were Ma and Pa.  Most everybody's parents, unless they were thought to be putting on airs, were Ma and Pa.  Baths were taken on Saturday nights.  You went to church on Sunday mornings.  Yes you did.  Public schools were mostly walked to, had one classroom and two outhouses.  Catholic kids, though, were most likely to go to St. Michael's.  Several rooms.  Indoor plumbing.  Hail Mary, full of mackerel.  We all got along fine and settled minor differences with fistfights.

   In our little school, Miss Nedra Quartz held sway over the eight grades, or as many grades as had students in a given year.  She was it.  Teacher, nurse, theatrical director, janitorial overseer (we kids were the janitors), cop.  Palest woman I ever saw, when she wasn't red with rage, which was fairly often.
   And yes, we did walk to school.  Just a mile and a half for me, through snow and rain and dazzlements of all sorts, for a few years.  Then, Miss Quartz's brother bought a station wagon which became our schoolbus.  Comfy, but without dazzlement.  Unheard now, the curses of blackbirds, the scat-song blessings of bob-o-links.  Un-sniffed, the  wild roses in fencerows, as we traveled the graveled and dusty distance in a wood-sided Ford, assuming everybody in the whole world liked DDE, DDT, and Wonder Bread . . .     ~ Ralph Murre

Sour Grapes?

Contestant

And at times in my heart there is a music that plays for me.
~ J.P. Donleavy

Yes, you too? You’ve heard it? Sometime snare of drum, penny-whistle, nickel-plate, quarter-note? Hum a few bars of a new tune; bring in a viola d’amore to this baroque adagio – unbroken, unbeaten, to play a song for a new season. It may be as well not to enter a poetry contest, a dance contest, a salon d’art.

clean-shaven young man
harsh light of the arena
the expectant crowd

Is it treason to suggest that in his condition blind ambition is deafening the inner ear? Competition is not improving the species, but robbing it of its art? Is it wrong to think that if he listens, if he hears that music deep within he can begin, at last, to write the score, to pen a few notes on a clean page? Is it outrage to suppose that not everyone has heard this rhythm, not everyone goes dancing to the same beat? Wooden hearts clicking like castanets for clay feet?

climbing the stairs alone
an oddly-dressed man speaking
another language

~ Ralph Murre
Sure, it's just a case of sour grapes, isn't it? After all, three pieces of my short fiction just went without notice in a competition. Yet, I'm not sure . . . earlier this year, I served as a preliminary judge for a prestigious poetry contest, and realized that someone with something truly original to say - or with a truly original way of saying it - would have a very difficult time. However, I put such a piece forward and it wound up winning the contest. So, am I putting down the idea of arts contests? No, I simply don't think they do much to engender the creation of anything new, and I think that's largely because most of the entrants don't want to take risks. Someday, we'll get into the discussion of the NEED for anything new, the NEED to take risks.