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Accepting New Patients


by Darryl Price


You've had some truly awful shit 
pumped into your brains for years 
at a time now. The practice 
started a long time ago. It's 
not always your fault. The only 
lasting way to get it out 

of your head is to go 
and figure out exactly where it's 
coming from and what it means 
and reject it wholeheartedly on purpose. 
It has to be your freedom 
of choice and your freedom of 

expression. Trust yourself. You already know 
the difference. No one can do 
it for you. Music can help, 
learn to listen, think for yourself, 
but it is never on one 
side, so be careful. Once you

have touched base with your own 
deepest feelings remember to have compassion
for any others who might not 
be so lucky. Nobody wins a 
war entirely. No one gets out 
unscathed, but everyone here has a 

poet for a friend. Use that 
cursed blessing to your advantage. The
important thing now is to not let 
anyone put live ideas into your head
that you don't personally approve of 
having, no matter how persuasive they

are sounding in their argument. Because
you are you, You are not 
a dumping ground for someone's anger
or hatred. You are a human 
person continuing to grow as a 
human being into a human being. 



Bonus poems:



That Bowling for Rain Feeling by Darryl Price

You have come home to me like 
little wooden boats quietly sloshing towards 
my own light among the piers, thank 
you so very much for your faith 
in unseen things, but you have not 
the true character of the one 
I was seeking-out by dream tom-tom tonight. 
You, all you kids, with your 
ripe eyeballs still clinging to the vine, 
remind me of cellophane detective agency

 

children, all colorfully garbed and hungry for 
the riddle of the twisted truth 
to be solved with a snap, snap, 
snap of a chubby chipped thumbnail 
and forefinger making a triangle sound in 
the modern musical winds. Still, as 
my honored guests, you are hereby certainly 
most welcomed to enter peacefully my

 

own humming and able abode. I'm grateful 
for your presences tonight, truly I 
am. Truth is I was feeling a 
bit alone just now anyways. Perhaps 
that's the funny feeling signal you somehow 
read in my rising smoke rings 
then from so very far away? It's 
funny how a pipe will do 
just as easily as a good old 
fire to get the message sent 

across sometimes, if the writing's clear enough 
I suppose. But now back to 
the basic business at hand. This is 
mine to give, and so will 
I do it. Enter. Enter. Something with 
a meaning just for us has 
brought us to our present moment together 
and I'm just as curious a 
frog as the next to jump in 
and give it a proper name, 
aren't you? There are particular and
 
ancient sounds we could use to stir 
the senses alive that have been 
spoken or sung many times over and 
by better poets than all of 
us put together I'm guessing, but we 
might as well be wise to 
wait and see if we are to 
be given that one we haven't  
heard from before, between any of us 
that is, especially for the new 

found circumstances of our being together like 
this, huh?  I always find these 
things have their own schedules to land 
on. It does absolutely no good 
not to be generous in any case, 
and kindness is at all times 
and in all places the best key 
kept on the ready by the 
front door for just such magical purposes. 
Tonight we sing what it means

 

to dance! We dance what it means 
to sing! And if we're lucky 
we'll give the world its brand new 
flowers in time for a little 
more morning rain and afternoon sun. Just
in time for making some jolly 
good tea. Eh, what? Oh that, that's 
just me sitting in my chair 
in another year and writing down your 
names for safe keeping in future.



Sorry Game of Thrones Fans But Only Miyazaki Seems to Know What a Real Dragon Looks Like by Darryl Price

So whenever anyone sees a dragon they're
usually showing themselves to you on purpose.
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