Bryan Murphy- A Poem

Nicosia

Showers that would extinguish forest fires

smother both sides of the sundered city.

Safe over Greek or Turkish coffee,

we eye the storm.

At the crossing, passport-holders saunter

through innumerable degrees of separation.

The young, reluctant to be told

whom they have drawn in the lottery of hate,

will close them, or die to keep them wide

for elders who order back

the tide of consumer history

that makes the salient divides civil –

Old City / New City, trader / buyer –

and offers those who may be called

upon to kill the chance instead

to wallow in the beauty of banality.

Bryan Murphy is a former teacher and translator who currently lives in Turin, Italy. His work has recently appeared in The Camel Saloon, Eunoia Review, Indigo Rising, The Pygmy Giant, Transparent Words and The View from Here. A volume of his short stories, provisionally entitled "Goodbye Padania" is forthcoming.