Marx Eulogy The Lady from the Sea He Who has the Youth (has the Future

Marx Eulogy

Mark Murphy

This is not Eleanor Marx. This is the old man without any hope of a drink before the insurrection.

This is a poem then without Eleanor Marx. This is the old man breaking away, striding away, going it alone.

This is the old man doing a runner, renouncing responsibility, his rightful place in the Parthenon of prophecy.

This is the old man trying to ignore the rebellion in his own backyard, which has begun just in the nick of time.

This is the old man emendating his own proscriptions. No use to collaborate, corroborate, or cry wolf with Baroness Jenny.

This is the end the old man wanted, sacrificed his family for, relented like a true victim of terror.

This is not Eleanor Marx. She is dressed in bridal ivory.

This is not Eleanor Marx. She is beyond inconsolable.

Mark A. Murphy is the editor of the online journal, POETiCA REViEW. His poetry collections include Tin Cat Alley (1996), Our Little Bit of Immortality (2011), Night-Watch Man and Muse (2013), To Nora, A Singer of Sad Songs (2019), and Night Wanderer’s Plea (2019). His next full length collection, The Ontological Constant is due out in June (2020) in a bi-lingual German/English edition from Moloko Print in Germany.

The Lady from the Sea

Mark Murphy

Already a natural speaker in English, French and German, Eleanor now learns Norwegian

to enable her to translate Ibsen for British publisher Thomas Fisher Unwin.

A task she delights in due to her love for everything-Ibsen. That a woman should demand

emancipation and leave her husband and children to get it — both thrills

and presents her with the reverse dilemma to Ellida Wangel — stay with the seductive

but dangerous Edward Aveling or find herself a loving and devoted (albeit boring) man to love?

Even after the Aveling’s three-week tour of Norway and the impossible contradictions

and arguments over Edward’s specific brand of selfishness and egotism (which both appalls

and fascinates Eleanor) she cannot bring herself to leave the man

who causes her only pain. Like Nora Helmer in A Doll’s House she must choose between life or death.

Eleanor loves Edward. Edward loves himself.

He Who has the Youth (has the Future)

Mark Murphy

for Aiden McGregor

For you we will share our secret life with Eleanor Marx and invite you to confess

your heart’s desire. For you we will admit shame in a century of wars and civil wars.

For you we will remember those days when it was enough to be enthralled

on walks in Little Stacey Park and the future was hardly thought of.

For you we will not talk in riddles when we meet again but as one rebel to another — equals

in all but age. For you we will march on the Winter Palace and join as brothers in St Petersburg.

For you we will dance the Tarantella in a last act of defiance and final farewell to childhood.

For you we will share our secret life with Eleanor Marx and lay waste a universe of hate

in favour of care, courage and curiosity.