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A-Z Poetry - Middle School

House on Fire by Peter Anthony Murphy (1945-)
Peter Murphy has spent much of his life in Melbourne where he has completed a BA and a Diploma of Teaching at Monash University and an Associate Diploma in Librarianship at RMIT. He has worked as a teacher in the Victorian Education Department. Murphy began writing in 1967 and has been interested in the potential of different forms of writing: his other unpublished works include an opera libretto, Jo Being and plays for radio and stage including 'Glitter' (1977) and 'Illuminations' (1986).

Poem

House on fire by Peter Murphy  (1983)                                          

 

A sunset like oranges and flames like tears

and the smell of heat and charcoal and smoke

and darkness like the sea and rooms of fire

that is what has brought us here

this shrieking frame of a house we know

as it sputters and crackles and crashes and shatters

while we stand around and do not speak

and stare into the fall of night

We have come for this

to see the flames across each other's eyes

and to hear the careful boom between our ears

under control now as it peters out

We have come to see these breaking limbs and

to lower our heads before a flag of fire

We have come to see our neighbour's house burn down.

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Brief Biography L A