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Acorn Gardening for Everyone


by Darryl Price




I'd like to grow you a new flower. I think
maybe I just will. Right now. Here's as good 
a place as any. Well you'll probably 
never get to see it, but it will be 
there just the same and it will be all yours. Kind 
of like these poems that I make if you 
think about it. I do not know what will 
become of them in the end. But they are 
still here. And they are also for all of you. I  
suppose I could do more. But it wouldn't 

be as real to me as leaving the world 
an impression of your essence spelled out 
in flower petal fonts. Letters are like 
my own brand of petals. They'll all get whipped 
away eventually by the winds 
of time and will disappear unless you 
somehow want to save them. In your heart. In your mind. 
In your own words. Your own gardens. I don't 
know. I just do the gardening I know 
how to do. I love to see things gowing

into their best selves. I find it very 
moving. And for some reason you seem to 
me to be a person who deserves to 
have such a flower planted just for them 
and no one else in this particular 
poetic case. I'm up for the job, so
I'll do it gladly. I don't question the 
deep feeling. It is what it is. I don't 
need to label all the parts of a bird 
to enjoy its company in song. It's 

a good feeling that deserves a flower. 
A nice thing that I'd like to celebrate 
with a little colorful wave of some 
nature made flag. For you. Really, there is 
nothing more to it. I hope someday you're 
walking along and a wind carries a 
certain wonderful fragrance to all your 
senses and you stop and smile. That's all
(this is). And if you should remember me
in the process I would be so very glad.  dp 



Bonus poem:



Rocks(an unedited first draft)

by Darryl Price


Not sure I remember what's important, but I remember you. 
That's the whole problem I think. You're a drain where 
all my words end up ending up. All of them 
get lost inside you. Eventually. And I'm left with nothing 
to say. Because all my words are gone like toothpaste. 
The few I've got left only seem to repeat themselves 
in pathetic smears. But they'll have to do. Not sure
I can remember anything important, but I say your name
in my sleep. It's all become a boring animal ritual. 
I can admit to that. I remember you used to

wear this yellow teeshirt all the time like it defined
something impossible about you and your motion inside dark jeans.
It drove me mad with desire. And that made you 
laugh. Which drove me over a cliff, into an ocean, 
and left me clinging to slippery rocks for dear life.
So not sure I remember one important thing about anything
if you want to know the truth. But I know 
the song that made you sit still and look at
things like they were puzzles you were putting together in
your head with a little seductive dance. How else am 

I going to describe the sadness back to you now? 
When you're not even listening. And my readers are expecting 
me to swing this crazy thing around and show them 
the secret room inside of themselves. But a broken heart 
can only make cubist desk paintings out of its overly 
hoarded toy stuffs and hope for the best. I can't 
remember what's important to me any more. It was so 
clear to me just yesterday. Oh. Open my eyes. Let 
me see a way. Let me swim before I drown. 
Let me swim before I wash away. I remember you 

as important but I can't seem to remember why. The 
words won't tell me. I'm not sure they think we 
deserve to know the reason. Or they just might be 
trying to protect us from the tilting sun. Oh. It's 
too late for that. Oh, open my head. Let me 
see before I go completely blind from all the salt in my  
own eyes. Running down my face. For all of us 
who are left let my words fight for air. For 
all of us here let my words continue to look 
for fair meaning. And kiss you goodbye. For all the 

lonely floating pieces let my wrecked words shine through the 
slumber of time and ruin. Night and day. Open the 
curtains. I remember you. You were the question I guess
I needed to hear from this life. Thank you for 
asking me. It was a beautiful way to say hello 
and a hard way to say goodbye as the next 
question on the horizon became more solitary in its insistence
on authenticity. Maybe what was so important doesn't matter. But
it remains with me. And I wouldn't want you to 
think of it in any other way than real love. 

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