Bryan Christopher Murray poet, musician, graduate of Bucknell University, student of Virginia Tech’s MFA program, born and raised in the Bronx, New York, has recently published in Floyd County Moonshine, and is forthcoming in The Northville Review, A cappella Zoo, Greatest Uncommon Denominator and Blue Fifth
Review.

Four Poems (September 21, 2009. Issue 9.)

My stray dog

If God is a man, that means He has a penis,
which also means He pisses&fucks.
His most famous encounter didn’t even break her hymen
which means He’s really small or very talented.
Rain could very well be God’s piss,

though most people prefer tears,
which implies He cares enough to cry,
but since He does piss that means He eats, has intestines
&shits too. Toilet tissue, toilet bowls, showers,
what of all that, &who decided God is a man anyway?
If we run through all this with a vagina,

I’m sure we’d be just as confused, but maybe the menstruation
could be this beautiful cleansing, lives taken
&lives given. Whoever decided God is a man
probably pitied women&was a fool for it. Put up posters
young man, like there’s a dog missing,
but God’s only a dog to those immaculately knocked up.
God is a man,

&all men are created by woman
which makes her God
&all the monthly blood just as holy
as what clergy hold in golden cups. Sand
the sores from Her feet, rub the knots out Her back,
come down off those clouds will you.
This is no time for riddles & ghost writing;
God needs Her ice cream, praise & a foot massage. Baby father,
deliver us some sherbet, now&forever

loco mojo

He runs for the sake of it
& asks if we could be friends
& how many laps around the gym would make a mile. Twenty.
We both believe it. After his first mile, & our umpteenth Hi-5,

he says he’s going for another, & keeps racing & we keep counting
& around lap 30 I explain to his mother
he’s not just running, he’s making miles.
She sits next to me,
says this is actually a good thing,
so he’ll sleep.

We all slap hands,
Mommy stands up
&Jason, blowing imaginary distances,
runs with his sneakers behind him
for one more,

before her hand touches his neck
&his belly sticks to her,
book bag mouth wide open,
twisting.

Watch your step

There are feathers falling from my eyes. There are weights
falling from my eyes. There are feathers
falling like weights from my eyes. There are lids
that slide over my eyes, so the balls don’t fall themselves.
There’s a hallway of feathers filling with people

in my eyes. There are digital clocks with the same time
screaming the same note into my eyes.
There are breakfast sandwiches stuck in my eyes.
People are picking up the feathers falling from my eyes.
In my eyes, there’s a pimp

looking for a woman to replace the dead one.
There are drowned generations swimming in my eyes.
My mother&her mother’s beauty are stuck in my eyes.
There are no fathers stuck or running to my eyes;
they’ve blown away like feathers. There are places to eat

because there’s peanut butter
&jelly in my eyes. There are storage areas
in my name filling with the things falling from my eyes.
There are good Samaritans, with hands full of these things,
running to my eyes. There are condoms

slipping like soap from my eyes. There are doctors
placing band-aids like posters over my eyes.
There are now instructions
to stop blinking for three days straight
stuck to my eyes. There are two paper cups connected

like eyes. There’s a death wish falling dead
from my eyes. There were bottles
all over the floor to collect the wet
that fell from my eyes, but I threw them out
with my eyes. There’s a bird

looking for a fight because his chick
gave up her feathers while staring deep in my eyes.
When I turn to face my collectors, they stop running
&drop all the things falling from my eyes. There are feathers
waving like eyelashes from my eyes.

The backboard is your friend

He buries the first one the announcer declares
in stereo, &I think of basketballs as bodies
thrown up to the light, to cast iron graves,

men shoving like starved beasts. I’m supposed to play tomorrow,
run a few light games, but now my understanding
of the consequences is heavier

than the ball&net. My first swish, the first shot of mine
to make that crisp sound
I thought only came from television

came from free throw practice: three dribbles. spin.
finger tips. bury it. The rest of the team waits
at the baseline, &coach behind me,

with his boots on the court. I usually miss at least one,
then turn around to get my head start, before I could see
the rest of their faces watch the ball bang off the rim

like we hadn’t run enough already; I learned to turn first,
to finish first, to be too out of breath
to look at their faces after, before the next undertaker

held us by the balls. Once, the worst player on the team
(but the best free throw shooter) was the star,
until the next game, when he couldn’t get to the line

because he couldn’t dribble. Practice
made basketball sound easy, or maybe it always was.
Just put the ball in the basket then promise

I won’t have to bury it. After coach cleans
his whiteboard&snatches his whistle, we leave the balls out, to roam
&roll all night, like the undead, or the dead&buried

that kept bouncing. Father Faithful runs
from behind the cross of the mascot
to chase the swollen corpses into the closet

dangling the list of high scorers, our school’s greatest gravediggers,
the ones who knew how to connect
&put things to rest.