The Clone Rhymes Now at Home
Rich Murphy
When the drones come home to roost,
dreams will be stuffed with “Hey you!;”
foxes will be detected in the cat
and mouse games; the hen house
will be bugged to determine
which came first the kitchen
or the egg; bedrooms will be projected
onto police station walls;
the wasps swatted by people
without business suits will trigger
the SWAT team; big brother,
hanging around every corner
lighting cigarettes, howling at girls,
and pointing out targets,
will mow families down
on backyard lawns; and remote controls
will motivate the idlers when standing
in streetcars or stuck in traffic.
The groans, heard from out of the blue
with perfect perch over shoulders
everywhere, don’t whistle before explosions.
Rich Murphy’s credits include books: Americana, the 2013 Prize Americana winner, will be published later this year by The Institute for American Studies and Creative Writing; Voyeur was 2008 Gival Press Poetry Award winner (Gival Press); and The Apple in the Monkey Tree (Codhill Press). Chapbooks include Great Grandfather (Pudding House Press), Family Secret (Finishing Line Press), Hunting and Pecking (Ahadada Books), Rescue Lines (Right Hand Pointing), Phoems for Mobile Vices (BlazeVox) and Paideia (Aldrich Press).
