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Boats for Rent (Thinking About You)


by Darryl Price


We're killing off the elephants. 
We're killing off the tigers. We're 
killing off monarch butterflies. 
We're wrecking the coral reefs.  Big 
sad gorillas don't feel at home 
in their own homes. And all instead 
of learning to live in some kind 
of simple harmony with them. 

Good thing those stars are beyond our 
greedy grasp. The boats can't help us 
now. They can't take us far enough 
away. Passengers are always 
us. But I can't help still wanting 
to lean in for one more kiss. That's 
my ultimate destination. 
The boat is only an ink trail 

on a crumpled piece of paper. 
I've always sought a rare moment 
alone with you. The boat becomes 
a cave entrance. The cave becomes 
a garden path. The path becomes 
a long goodbye. Even if you 
could get back everything has changed 
into something else. That's if you 

can survive all the changes that 
willfully bloom within yourself. 
So why do I feel it's maybe 
worth it? We're killing off all the 
brain cells. But still the damned numbness 
only lasts for so long. Then the 
poem comes back into focus 
and the words demand you make some 

kind of miraculous sense of 
all the senseless choices you've made.  
I've tried to tell you so many 
ways, as many as there are waves 
clasping something nebulous and 
yet tender between the grains of 
sand. None of it matters. So why 
do I feel there's still a chance you 

will decipher it's true meaning
and discover a smile meant for
only me beneath its cover? 
I can't say. I'm rowing that boat.
I keep rowing that boat. It's what 
I do to reach you. As long as
we're still alive they haven't killed
off our one true thing in common.   



Bonus poems:



Old Story, New Manager

by Darryl Price


Blood pushes the glittering
stardust through your veins, but that's
not the only sound it sings.
It comes alive in moonlight
and becomes a myriad mist
of elementals doing
the ancient dance of timeless

astrology. Blood carries 
us to the end of the world.
It causes trees on the back
of Earth to get up and sway
in their slow-motion dreaming
in the arms of wild, wild winds
like the living coral that

they are. Blood gushes past all
the petty wars. It soaks in
to the clouds like air filling
every possible corner 
with its color. Its brutal
awakening. Its crushing
silent season. Blood washes

nothing clean. Instead it is
not concerned with your need for
privacy. It signs its name
on top of yours. And still it
carries its reassurance
into your ears like gentle
bongoes echoing the heart.  


Naked People Dancing with Naked People

by Darryl Price


There's nothing barbaric about it. It 
swings. But it won't last. Nothing 
does. It's only a statement about 
who we are in a moment. 

Like the slow waltz around the 
beer soaked bar or outside slipping 
like dimes between the thin sheets 
of stars. Only for a moment. 

Then it's back to the big 
fist contest to see who is 
going to last and who is 
going to stop right there in 

their sleepy tracks. I never thought 
it was anything but beautiful. It 
fit the moment. It doesn't fit 
this one. We barbarians have to 

get up and go to work. 
There are children to feed all 
over the world. It would be 
nice to take the time to 

watch them grow, but you can't 
slow down now. Too much depends 
on the things you find resonance 
with in your entering a room 

and your exit out that door. 
The story ends for them. Not 
for you. Never for you. Not
yet. You'll know when it's time.



Blasted Landscapes

by Darryl Price


Romans 13, "The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."




"Beware, O wanderer, the road is walking, too."--Rilke

Freedomfighters choose love over hate. Matsutake 
sunsets tell us so. An 
awful experience and a grand disappointment 
can't stop the truth from 
rearing its ugly head and making 
a beautiful noise unto the 
Lord. There's no catch. Call it 
what you will. I like Great 

Spirit. But I also like the 
Great Big Goodness. People get 
afraid of things that sound right. 
Freedomfighters choose love. That's all 
I can tell you. Choose love. 
There comes a time to 
say to the liars that you 
are not going to defend 

them. That you reject the gasoline 
they've been pouring into your 
groggy head nonstop while trying to 
sell you a box of 
matches. They prefer the biggest fireworks. 
Freedomfighters don't have a gender 
or a skin color or a pedigree 
of any kind. They are 

not knights or Kings or countries. 
They are just people, after 
all. Any kind of people. Every 
kind of people. They choose 
for themselves. It's perfectly clear. So
don't do wrong on purpose.
Freedomfighters, you and I, go ever
on. Everyone deserves to know.

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