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Awaken Sleepy Star


by Darryl Price


Don't sleep. Tiny orange

Balloons like seahorses are bobbing

This way and that trying

To get your hair to lift

Off  its marvelously mud-

Swamped and pillowy support beams, blue sea strand by green.

Don't you want to see that happening? Don't sleep. I want to hold

 

You and look into your fabulous swirling 

Eyeballs. Curtains are busy

Blowing musical notes

Right through the walls like shadows of rain.

That chair you mistrusted and

Its sinister lamp are mashing all

Your stuff together in 

To one big dumpling on the snoring floor. Don't sleep!I want to show you how 

 

Two little sparrows are

Struggling to braid your fingers

Into a nest. Don't

Sleep. I want to kiss you so badly right now I'm willing to let go of all these precious little words of mine for the beastly and hard kind.

Many sprung green things are

Flirting with the bedposts.

Don't. It's snowing. The house,our house, did you know that it

Is already covered up everywhere up to its locked windows in a fluffy white and flying fur of some alien kind?

And gone? Completely? Help! We've disappeared from all known regions of time and space! I want you to

Say my name. I'm confused. Here.

Move over. Let's make us again.






Bonus poems:



Talking to a Locked Gate by Darryl Price

"Fun is the one thing that money can't buy."--The Beatles

Poetry is an act
of love. Who do you think
you are? I'm not on your
wave, you riders of young
dreaming lovers, their hands
tied together in brave
hope for the future. An
act of love. Who are you?

I am not on your side,
you armies of trial and
error, you proud puppets,
stompers of desire and
exploration, mistakes
and spontaneity.
Poetry is my love
for you. I am not on

your path, you critics of
the imperfect fumble,
artists trying to score
lightning into magic.
I resist. You gender
deniers of the great
mysterious spirit
in nature. Poetry

is an act of my love.
I return your beauty,
manipulators of
precise political
correctness, the strict lanes
of bricked-up feeling, spit
while proclaiming freedom
for only your own pain.

Poetry is at the
heart of all life, a wild
sensuality I
celebrate like a priest,
diverse and giving. Who
do you think you are? I'm
on the side of dancers,
starry-eyed rain makers.

Poetry is an act
of fun. Silly has no 
religion. It has no
government. It is not
precious. It is our friend.
Do you think you are sane?
I'm on the side of shells
on the beach, light that shines. 





Death is Always Pretty

Busy. But then so is life when you get right down to it.
That's all (there is to say).
So far YOU don't want to
Be the next one bitten by
The nasty shark because
YOU happen to be the
One swimming within its
Plenty toothy reach . Some
Surf right over top that
Monster's fat head without
One drop of blood being
Spilled between them. Most will 

Never know just how close

On a daily basis

The countdown spoon comes to

Lifting them towards the

Greedy gums that will seal

Their final approach. Point

Is what goes on must go

On unless we change what

Goes on. You start. Them's the cosmic

Rules. Nothing  survives still

Waters. But just you start to dance.

And signals from as far

 

Away as the one and only forgotten moon begin

To rattle back and

Forth. Words are finally formed. Hairs vibrate beautifully swaying sensuously to the savage beat.

Heads are lifted from their slumbers in dark herds. Smiles

Break the surface of the

Faces like air porpoises

Intent on sensing what

Everything feels like when

You believe anything

Is possible. And it is, it

Really is. That's your choice to make, while

Mine's always been to be with you.



The Young Lovers

have to slug it out
with the whole world. Everyone says

they are for that love but they lie. No one wants

to believe anyone else could find it, what they could not.

Just not possible. No one could try harder than me?Yeah well 

you'll see when love finds you home alone. You won't see it coming. It's

not something you can just plant
and grow just because you have

 

the land. Strangely enough it
can sprout up just about anywhere and

from anything. It can come out of a look given on

a passing piece of sunglass. You never know. In the meantime

we pretend to have it in our pockets like a good

old sturdy assed plastic comb. All you have to do is simply 

reach for it. The lie
perpetuates itself .Everyone agrees it works out fine so it does.

 

But young lovers are shunned, disbelieved,
and finally dismissed. They are

treated as children in danger of becoming swallowed by waves too

huge to imagine. How could these kind eyed strangers have found

the beautiful fountains and not shared its location with all of 

us? It's selfish. Self serving at best. So unfair. Lucky bums need

their priorities set straight. Oh
we'll see to it for them.  



 

 

 

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