David Murphy writes mystery novels, poetry, and other books, including a ranking of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Visit his website at: www.davidlandonmurphy.com
Check out the society’s website here and order a copy of my new collection on Amazon.
Here is a sample poem of mine that The Society published.
The Dancer The dancer turns elegantly: her pivot light and feathery, her eyes as brilliant as a wren’s, her lithe form swanlike as she spins in ceremonial artistry.
The dance is life, felicity, and also deep despondency. Away from falls, time and again, –the dancer turns.
The nimble dancer gracefully moves to the places she should be: past the stages where dreams end, to the theaters that love attends where with airy vitality –the dancer turns.
Nothing To It Nothing to it: some twists and turns, the knot is tied, and it’s been learned. Untie it; the rope’s like before. It’s like all our works at their core: fleeting; time won’t let them endure.
From string to knot, from knot to string, we pass our time constructing things: making songs, families, and more. Nothing to it.
We’re just passing the time and days learning and unlearning our ways, tossing a pebble from our shore to the universe’s sea floor, loving the ephemeral sun’s rays. Nothing to it.
When the Heat Dies When the heat dies so shall all time. The universe shall stop its climb. All shall become still, deathly still. Then what will happen? Nothing will. Blackness, coldness, the last design.
More silent than a shattered chime, more futile than unfeeling rhyme, will be the cosmos when all’s nil, when the heat dies.
There’ll be no light, no wan ray’s shine, no good, evil, or God divine; all life gone like the daffodil that lives a season then is still. Even entropy ends with time when the heat dies.
I’m pleased to announce that, as an independent author, I’m publishing my latest collection of poems today on America’s 250th anniversary of independence!
As the Flag Waves As the flag waves bold spirits rise; it lights us like the sun the skies and emboldens our pioneers whose discoveries over years make America the world’s prize.
In the patriot’s noble tries come harsh setbacks and painful cries, then sweet, gritty triumph in tears as the flag waves.
As the eagle does symbolize the powerful, the free, and the wise, so does the flag over her spheres mean justice and peace for our peers. We’re a union, through lows and highs, as the flag waves.
Wishing you all a happy, safe, and celebratory day!
Pale Blue Dot A pale blue dot seems what we are when we see our Earth from afar. It’s a view that prompts great surprise by hinting at Creation’s size, a space so grand it is bizarre.
For if we dream beyond our star, beyond the last waves of radar, there may be worlds with sapphire skies, far pale blue dots.
Such planets may have life like ours, whose struggles leave their dwellers scarred, whose triumphs lead to joyous prize, whose works and cultures fall and rise in this universe of stars, of pale blue dots.
Condolences “Condolences,” the letter read, yet meant more that could not be said, for there are no words that suffice, just as a good life has no price for valuing the treasured dead.
Death exists without being bred; Death reaps all others in its stead, unable to self-sacrifice. Condolences.
Though sometimes welcome, Death is dread met in cradle or hospice bed, in dry desert or sea of ice, by hair perfumed or head of lice. Its nippers snip each mortal thread. Condolences.
Hello everyone! I’m delighted to share that my third book of poems, The Truth Is., will be published on the 4th of July!
This will be my seventh book that I’ve published since 2024!
These poems are about age-old themes: love, hate, the natural world, and our place in the universe. The poetry describes how kindness, curiosity, courage, and creativity give meaning to our brief lives.
If you’d like to pre-order a digital copy, you can do so here:
Outer and Inner Worlds Beyond where ships sail on salt lie staggering danger and untold discovery; beyond the romantic specks of our cosmic vault lie an astral range worth uncovering;
and in this rare, ordinary build into which we people have evolved (one of idealistic hopes forever unfulfilled) lies powerful mysteries that never shall be solved.
Cloud Kingdom at Dusk On his back on a grass hill lies a boy, who, in this dusky hour, watches the sun paint a castle with pastels on keep and tower: a gentle peach upon the spire that’s lit by a cloud dragon’s fire.
I’m doing something a little different today: a product review of the amazing San Martin SN0148 watch! No one has paid me to do it, and I’ve not received any free product.
It’s my opinion that the San Martin SN0148 dive watch blends the best of form and function.
Modeled on the iconic Rolex MilSub, Reference 5517, the San Martin SN0148 (or Tuxedo Tool Watch, as I’ve named it), improves on the legendary original. The San Martin’s dial features a silvery sunburst fumé on a piano black enamel dial. This black and silver combination lends a SPECTRE/Bond feel to the watch.
The lume on the dial is stronger than that of the original MilSub, and the entire bezel is illuminated. The lume used is BGW-X1, which is hyped by the advertisers to be stronger than the original BGW lume formula, and, in my experience, this hype happens to be real.
The ceramic bezel is aligned, rotates with satisfying clicks, and has almost no backplay. It’s excellent.
The hands on the watch mimic those of the Seamaster 300 from Omega’s Heritage series. These hands are a great choice on this dive watch because they break from following too closely to the Rolex heritage, and because they look cool.
The Tuxedo Tool Watch’s crystal is domed sapphire; such glass is extremely durable and very difficult to scratch.
The water resistance is 200 meters, and the meters are listed first, which I prefer. The date is at the three o’clock position, which I also prefer because I tend to read my watch like a book, which means my eyes move horizontally naturally (toward the date window) instead of down toward the six o’clock position. The date also has a window, which I like.
The beads of rice bracelet is beautiful and comfortable. I took four links out to make it fit my wrist. The glide-lock style clasp which allows for micro-adjustments gives the user the tolerance of about a single link. So there is no real reason why you shouldn’t be able to get a perfect fit at any time with this watch.
I feel that the beads of rice style bracelet, with its surgical-grade 304 stainless steel links, matches the silvery sunburst and black dial perfectly. The bracelet is also lightweight yet strong. However, if metal bracelets aren’t your thing, I could see this watch working very well with a black NATO strap or a James Bond-style NATO.
The case back is left blank save for a sunburst effect. I like the decision to leave a blank steel case back. Anyone who wishes to make this watch into a gift can have the back engraved.
The movement powering this watch is the Miyota 9015, a movement that is capable of extreme precision and which comes well-regulated from the factory. I have seen these watches losing or gaining fewer than two seconds per day. The movement’s billed as having approximately 42 hours of power reserve.
I have read that some people can hear Miyota movements in their watches. I cannot hear the movement in this model, despite holding the watch near my ear in a quiet place.
This Tuxedo Toolwatch watch has, for me, Goldilocks dimensions. It’s 11.35 mm thick, 37.5mm wide, and its lug-to-lug is 46mm. For a dive watch, it’s very lightweight, and it wears like a Go Anywhere, Do Anything style watch.
The watch comes in different sizes and colors too. You can get the watch in espionage silver and black, seaside turquoise and blue, or an extraordinary and fascinating poison ivy green. The sizes of the diameters of the two models’ sizes are 37.5mm and 40mm.
The dial diameter, it should be noted, actually remains the same on both the 37.5mm watch and the 40mm watch. To keep the dial size the same, San Martin trims the size of the rehaut (among other things). But you don’t lose any dial real estate with the smaller watch, which is very nice.
The watch looks like I’m wearing jewelry on my wrist. The feeling is very luxurious. The dial is just gorgeous, and the anti-reflective coating makes the crystal seem as transparent as clean mountain air.
In my experience of wearing the watch, the direction of the light on the dial’s sunburst effect matters as much as the amount of light. So, holding it under an artificial light, and turning it this way and that, will make the silver fumé seem to grow and shrink a little. But take the watch out for a walk or jog early in the morning or at dusk when the sun sits low in the sky, and you will see the real versatility of the fumé. At times, the silver shrinks to almost total blackness while at other times it seems to become a milky white, or it seems to encompass nearly the whole face with silveriness. Suffice it to say, the sunburst enamel application works well.
I like how the lugs taper to a smooth transition with the bracelet. On the Rolex Submariner Reference 116610, the lugs’ intersection with the bracelet leaves a jagged, chunky, uneven transition. This transition has been described as masculine, and, in part, I agree with that description. However, I prefer the symmetry of the San Martin SN0148’s lugs, those of this Tuxedo Tool Watch.
Finally, (and this last point is a bit of a can of worms) I recognize that, while Chinese industry is appropriately castigated for its never-ending slew of copycat designs and piracy, I think there are other Western brands in Europe and the United States that could also do with some greater originality themselves. There are too, it must be said, only so many different ways to make a watch without treading on others’ corns.
So when comparing this San Martin Tuxedo Tool Watch to a Rolex Submariner, I think there’s a lot to like. You can, in the first place, buy the watch from San Martin without being put on a waiting list. You can keep accurate time with a beautiful piece, and you can, in my opinion, have a better looking watch with great lume for $350 USD than for $10,000 USD, which is the price of a new Rolex Submariner.
I understand that there are pros and cons to every company and every industry, and the slings and arrows may be thrown forever. Accordingly, I tried to keep this review focused on the merits of the San Martin watch, rather than making it a comparison between two watches. Still, I would like to include a few side-by-side photos of the San Martin and a watch that it draws its heritage from.
A Country Woman and Her Daughter The girl enters with a glad meow, summer weather following like a tail. The screen door bangs on sunset’s brow she pounces on her mother with a purr.
Looking through a Microscope at the Universe Evidently, you have it backward. The microscope is for the microscopic, the telescope for those enraptured by the awesome scope of the cosmic. Clearly, you’ve made a mistake.
Yet in life’s surprising petri dish lies a macrocosm of creation: startling stuff that makes up bird and fish, complex atoms which incite elation, that look like stars in a great black lake.
Church Bell The air’s dead in the cemetery. Unmoving, the Spanish moss drapes like monks’ robes in a monastery in that gliding Reaper’s shape.
Live oaks stand as still as lead. A sound. Through glossed air comes a knell: sliding like glaze, sticking like dread, conducting a new soul to its stone cell.
DesertRevival We once were all in desert dry: scorched by sun, parched by thirst, we’d thought that here we’d die. But when the night came coolly we felt we’d weathered the worst. Our zest it quickened duly, as life extended, untraversed.
Season’s Chimes It’s inadequate, the sounding chime, to convey the sundry dawns and dusks that rise and fall like crops of flowers, and seasons that stock and sap the bowers, and fields aging from seed to fruit to husk: these many great and small cycles of time.
The Great Motivator Life, that grand adventure, is fraught with zestful noise of kings, paupers, alloys strange, shaky, and unsure, and is hung o’er by death, clammy and ominous: the dark, repugnant bliss that vitalizes breath.
Just some thanks for your support and a reminder that my latest mystery, The Vortex Mole, is available!
It’s been a very active year. I’ve published six (count ’em!) books, and am working on a new one!
The Natural World, 12 October 2024 The Murders in the Endicott Hotel, 19 November 2024 Afghanistan, 1 February 2025 Wherever Fact May Lead Me: A Ranking of the Sherlock Holmes Stories, 3 April 2025 The Vortex Mole, 18 June 2025 Limericks, 29 July 2025
Also, there’s a new poem below!
Common Heroes Life soon becomes what we chose: More than what might be or could, it’s how we quietly stood. The world is full of common heroes.
I’m very pleased to announce that my latest book, The Vortex Mole, has been published through Dreameyrie!
The President of Vortex Defense Industries, Maj. Gen. James Gibson, sets out on a mole hunt that will have devastating consequences for him. His Russian opposite, Col. Gen. Dragomirov, struggles to survive Moscow’s duplicitous political games. Meanwhile, Gibson and Dragomirov’s men clash and strive for dominance on Ukrainian soil.
As the mystery surrounding the mole’s identity deepens, Gibson and Dragomirov draw closer and closer together, and their blows against one another’s forces land with ever more destructive power. At last, the mole brings the two formidable rivals face-to-face, and the consequences prove shattering.
In this military thriller and espionage mystery, the mole could be anyone, while the search for truth about betrayal takes a dark and subtle route through a bleak and savage war.
The Greatest Ocean When stars glimmered o’er the wand’ring gypsy when waves dashed ‘gainst the hulls of clipper ships that cut through foam under night’s diamond sky; when young lovers touched their yearning hips, their eyes glinting for each other like jewels, hope lay in their hearts, fighting against time. What is time but a relentless killer? It kills men, leaves, larks, galaxies, and rhymes with the same cooling, corrosive pressure. Paradoxically, it kills e’en age, which, like all things, it has birthed in its way. Such things as sailors carry: hope, promise, a lookout and longing for distant land, are, like youth, destroyed by time’s steady hand. Time, whose heart is a mysterious sea; Time, that the universe must have to be.
Time Who knows thee, Time, but the living? Who fears thee, but those who know you? Thy ways, strict and unforgiving, cripple and bow that which you grew, and bury what you brought from earth. With march and mien unpitying, you bring sadness in place of mirth, then, again, you make the old new. Such baffling brew is all thy worth that draws death from life, birth from dearth.
This child’s mind is full of nature and joy, among her thoughts are rivers, leafy trees, sweeping flocks of swallows, and scudding clouds: a mind of unbridled imagining that looks on beautiful and healthy things.
This girl has intelligence, unalloyed and pure, as fresh as fragrant spring. Such innocence sets her apart in crowds. At five years old, this girl dances and sings and brings sweet love like an angel with wings.
Freed, Wild, Strong, and Clean They’re saying now that you ain’t true. Heard while I was going full speed that you got some new gasoline that’s got you running hot and lean. Well in my heart I always knew that I’d go far too far for you. I go faster’n anyone needs. I don’t care when I break and bleed. I’m tougher’n anyone you’ve seen. So when you hear folks say we’re through, you can know, too, that I feel freed, wild, strong, and clean.
Summer’s Shades After spring’s pastels come summer orange. Like a glaze, lilac hardens to purple, carnation pink deepens to a rose tinge; and powder blue turns cobalt, deep and full.
While on branch and twig, birds sing, perch, or cringe – sweet songs praising, perhaps, shades bright or dull. In summer the birds soar o’er prairies singed by a sun that dyes grass like golden wool.
Like through a syringe, bright colors Time pulls, while the moon, white skull, illumes the night strange.
Recurrent Upon the beach there lies a rainbow foam white, at first, then with opalescent shine: a shimmering hue in the dazzling sun whose bubbles in their iridescent domes display, like love, attractive and subtle signs for brief and beautiful whiles, then are done— burst like a primer when touched by the gun. Now the beach grows cold; the gloaming glows gold, while new waves that roll reflect stars of old— and, again, the foam’s hues shimmer and run.
Death in Autumn by a Waterfall In autumn’s gold-larched, cold Cascades a river runs down a mountain— whose slopes are hued in honeyed shades, glazed in spray as from a fountain— to kiss the stone of an abyss.
From water dashed against granite a roar rises like plains thunder, while the bay, from trees that dam it, smells of moist earth from dense vapor, and mist bedews sheer cliffs of shist.
And there in brumey, drizzly clag waits the gloomy, black-robed reaper, calm ’neath a cantilevered crag, to bear an old careworn sleeper, with soothing hiss, to the last bliss.
