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A Leaf For Instance is Only a Green Enough Calling Card(A Valentine)for Someone if You Care to Mail It


by Darryl Price



 
Because you alone must know
how to make a smile shine at me
and be like the sun, I can only
feel its warm and coolish colors becoming
that perfectly deepened yellow then on to the red if you please that makes a shy kind of blue out of day. That
 
cloud is floating like
an opening flower
gently laid on top
of all perfectly
alive possibilities, call it
 
"summer 
pond" only because
your hair is filled to the brimming tips of its beautiful self with floating seeds
by these fingering to each braided half of your head where small winds filled with waiting water the maidens. These two
things work in perfect circling concentrated
 
harmony like scrutinizing hawks. Eyeing one another. Oh shit. All
these words are just like
so many wiry ants.
One moment they make
a kind of nebulous 
 
sense and then they
fall away and disperse
and are like a
foreign tongue shouting
around my head in so many
 
different directions
at once that
all you can do is
listen for one fully realized
soundbite and hope for the
 
best interpretation to follow.
I mean words aren't quite
the words I was looking
for here. It's more like
I want to thank you now and then 
 
for the fact that you
have been chosen to be the
you as you are being right here and right
now for everyone else, including and benefitting me. Even the always working for the man bees
laugh at this ridiculous pouncing
 
from petal to petal dance that
I'm doing. But
look here the bright pattern
of your slightly
droopy shoulders makes
 
me want to invest in 
something impossible all over
again, to be the
first one ever to 
express this particular feeling to the ear-cocked stars and back, the one
 
I get from such proximity
to you
in the light from there to here is my soul of souls inner sanctum's soft center.
Is that too much to
ask? Because I do ask it.
 
D.P.  021010



a flip of the coin, or there are no items in this view, but here's one more for the road anyway;


Here's to the Bullet
 
you used to kill
me with. It had to
come back to you
somehow, that's the
trajectory
given all things by
the makers of the universe;
 
see I figure
I can extract
it all by myself
and hand it over to you
of my own
free will and you'll
be somehow forgiven--just like that--
 
at least by me.
I'm afraid it's still
in poetic
form but how you
receive it is
all up to you
and your own heartbreak now.
 
DP   021110 



Florence Foster Jenkins

by Darryl Price


They only hear what they want to hear

I suppose, but I hear you. I don't

compare your presence to any other kind of

bird or beast. I compare it back to

 

you. Your generous smile. Your childish delight in

wearing anything sparkling on your head as if

it was only natural. Your swish and swing

standing by and disappearing into each entrance and

 

exit like a bee into a flower. The

standard is a harsh mistress. Yours is soft

and funny, determined and sympathetic, simple and full

of imagination. The kind of grace that only

 

comes from standing proudly in the shoes you

alone chose for the occasion because they suited

the person inside who can't wait for the momentary

thrill of discovery. I love you for this.  




Bonus poems:



The Damned Scientists

 

You think there's time to find the right words, to hand over

The right stories, to install the right emotions, but I'm here to

Tell you we're all out of that brand. Have you seen yourself

Lately? There is no going back to what we were before the

 

War of hearts turned us into these cave wall carvings of jellyfish.

The mammoths of our dreams are all dead or frozen within the

Act of eating flowers so long ago now that they look like

Starlets caught by the paparazzi in mid-sentence while gorging themselves on expensive

 

Spaghetti. No time to turn on the charm. The light has taken

Its precious cut. That's the thing they don't want you to know,

To ever find out, that it was friends and family as much

As enemies who sold you out to the damned scientists of romance

 

And fear. But, hey, you have me typing away at you from

My own little planet still. You know you can eat the poetry,

Right? It's a little trick I learned from Ginsberg or Groucho Lennon,

Dylan or Bugs Bunny. Name your own point of reference. That place

 

Where you exist without the bullshit, that's all. And it's free, even

The nothingness of it, for you amateur philosophers out there. You get

There on your own because heavy or light it's all in your

Head. I like to make mine like this because I like to

 

Share. It's one of my many flaws. Oh well back to the

Drawing board. You think there's a plan that will include your pet

Peeves on a leash, but really haven't you learned anything from looking

Up all those timeless stars in the mirrors of your eyes? I

 

Want you to answer me with your own definitions, not theirs, not

My poetry, but yours, the poems you make every time you breathe

Or dance or do anything that is who you are. I could

Have extended that sentence to include a lot more meaning, but that

 

Wouldn't be me being who I am. We are here together in

These words for the moment. Does it matter, if it's a forever

Moment? It's our moment. For me, that's enough. I enjoyed making this

With you. That's the difference. And now you know. It's always there.

  



 

Cartoon Campfire (Revised) by Darryl Price


This is the parallel room I hide my 

last heart in. Got a solo fireplace. I 

don't want to invite anyone else in 

for warmth or coversation just now. It 

doesn't matter if no one knocks on the 

shut door ever again. I'm too shy to 

really hope for much more than a couple 

of interesting shadows between the 

now familiar teardrops. I don't mind. 

It's not too bad. I did the best I could 


to make a work of art out of the birds 

pecking on my window for you. I must 

admit when you tore down the curtains and

wrapped them around yourself like a cocoon 

I thought you were making a big fashion 

statement not creating a diversion. 

I didn't get the allusion for the 

longest time. Now I feel something stranded 

straightened out at last has happened in here, 

but it could be just a crack that the light 


has unceremoniously  let in. It 

could also be the crack is in my head. 

I swear that I HEAR BAGPIPES. They're not a 

joyful sound to me, but a lament and 

a plea for some return to sanity 

and possibly ENDLESS sea. The ocean 

has a mighty pull even this far from 

heaven's gate. Oh I'm pretty sure they don't 

want the likes of me in there, I've got far 

too many questions. I'd be the first one 


to ask why all the sorrow, when such a 

little bit goes a long way? I'd be thrown 

out with all of my fine poems fluttering 

off behind me like artificial tears, 

artificial petals, artificial 

butterfly wings. Yes, it's going to be 

a very long fall back down to the ruined 

grounds for me. Like heavy blankets crumpled 

into one corner, no one is going 

to want to have to sift them up to shape 


all by themselves. That's so lonely. I can't 

blame them. I made my escape once when I 

was too young to know the difference. I 

won't give up now. I could always feel it 

in my throat you know, the path was on a 

forever trajectory and I was 

sturdily stapled there by a million 

planted deeply stars. I'd like to share a 

cigarette with a comedian. I 

can't give it up. That's all I know for sure. 


The rest is like pulling yourself through a 

small cluster of bushes, you don't have a 

better choice if you want to sing from an 

authentic existence. Don't worry, I 

can see the irony there. You're damned if 

you do and lonely if you don't. Season's 

skeletons dance on wire regardless of 

mad faces you make to clear yourself. But 

what they say on eye see you radio 

is not what we say to ourselves. You just 


mustn't be quiet. Whatever it is 

it doesn't matter, but to me, and for 

me, I've always treasured what no one else 

could seem to hear happening. And inside 

that wonderful impertinent landscape 

of human noises I found you dancing 

like a mythical faun around a rare 

splashing fountain of youth. I could no more 

give up that dream to the past than give up 

breathing for a living. So here you go, 


more poems than you'll ever know what to 

do with. And one last thing: I've never felt 

so glad in my entire life to let go 

of my words and believe with all my heart 

that they'll make their own way home. So Goodnight, 

Irene or whoever in the hell you 

are. I wish you well. We had a pretty 

nice time, the two of us. It felt pure and 

that's what I'll remember. Time to blow out

the candles and let the wishes float free.


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