MARK A. MURPHY - HELEN KELLER'S PARADOX OR OUT OF THE DARK

Mark A. Murphy’s first full length collection, Night-watch Man & Muse was published in 2013 from Salmon Poetry (Eire). His poems have appeared in over 160 magazines world-wide. Lit Fest Press in America aim to publish his latest manuscript, The Ontological Constant in early 2018.

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​          Helen Keller Paradox or Out of the Dark
 
“The only thing worse than being blind is having no sight.” - Helen Keller
 
For a woman that never listened to the radio,
(except by her finger tips)
watched a television, or told a patriotic lie
to save her own skin,
but argued for peace in times of war
and equality during the heresies of the past,
who lived in a perpetual land of silence,
darkness and disparity -
without a prejudiced bone in her body
towards her fellows, no less
a woman, for all her inability to hear or see
the material world,
a woman who knew all the arts
of love and patience and forgiveness
in the violets
of Mark Twain's garden,
living by her own dictum that Knowledge is love
and light and vision... our sister in destiny
held greater acuity, finer artistry
in one little finger
than all the wolves of Wall Street, all the hawks
of Capitol Hill, and all the president's men.