Ah, that Murphy girl

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Let’s talk about the weather then,
would that help you take your ease?
Gossip is so rare from you
the noise of falling leaves is louder than
your breathing; if breathing is whatever is
sustaining you.

– Weather? Not at any cost,
as old as I might seem I’m not yet dead,
I haven’t lost my eye for majesty,
let’s talk instead of rising youth and lovely girls
and pearls of timeless wisdom,
these are winsome things to ruminate.

I believe you’ve met the Murphy girl?

Prithee? Perhaps I have, describe her case.

A pleasure, she’s a rarity; an angel
and so sweet, lithe and pretty to a fault, she is
the neatest eighth-generation, Irish Sydney-sider
you’d ever meet. The Murphy girl, Angela,
a canted Kerry drawl and not a flattened Sydney twang,
she burrs her vowells with magnanimity and
sets a rising lilt to end each other phrase,
prefaced with a smile which bubbles with
her champagne grin and hearty laugh; it’s venal sin
there is no praise enough for her.

And aptly named: Angela, you say?

Aye, and by the bye, she’s blonde and not
a vacant lot, I meant of that the nicest way;
in truth she is a saucy bit, smart, polite
in her affection, so earnest and endearing,
so free of imperfection. Where she clothes
her common sense it bodes a sharp
intelligence, a gentleness to deference,
a fortress in her own defence.

Ah, that Murphy girl? An actor, yes?
The thespic clown, you surely meant
Ms Murphy Brown…?

© I.D. Carswell

© Ivan Donn Carswell