PDF

Building This Thing and That Wall


by Darryl Price


The world has long since been bootlegged by madmen. The new

invisible con men are the same as the old

visible con men, hiding and lying

behind their walls of lingering death. There's a weapon

wielding demon hell bent on an insane

vengeance crawling around inside this tough guy's

moneyed flesh suit who would be your willing

angry champion if you so choose it. He

thinks his pale thoughts are his own fleshy dreams. But they

belong to the old self-righteous gangsters

 

of a sick empire still trying to own

everything and everyone for naught else

but the genocidal trying for ultimate bragging rights. They are

smoke-ringed bored angels, wasting all time, the most

prejudiced dangerous kind. No longer

so interested in doing good works, but in

bigger threats and damaging nightingale

explosions amongst all the innocent

stars of the jungle night sky, blaming every

lending hand in time but themselves for the

 

smoldering destruction of the all life-

giving forests. It's sad, to be sure, but

it should come as no surprise. The war is

never quite finished with heartbreak. It just

gets handed down. Babies are born melting

into the inequality fight like

so many pelting raindrops. Young men are used like

flat nails to crack down doors with their foolish hard

heads, when all they want is to find someone to

open their saturated hearts to peace. 

 

Girlfriends weep from every wounded corner,

in every dusty crack of dawn, from every stoned and

broken window, in every stinking smoke

stack town and try to shield the love in their care

from the lust of suffocating hate. And still that's just one

finger smudged revolving picture of life

happening behind the moving cut glass

frontier of our modern times. Listen. There

are others. You make one. You find one. Share it with us. Be the

one. Build not to destroy, but to welcome.  




Bonus poem:




      

The Broken Path to the River

by Darryl Price



 

You break my heart. I'll give you that.

You're doing it again, but I'm

Not looking. You break me open

Like lost poems that were never

 

Published. Eating cherries behind

Closed shutters. A wooden plow dragged

Like a comb over the bald head

Of the moon. Like a low green sky,

 

Okay? You break my heart more or

Less as a vital matter of

Inspired weightlessness. You break me

Down, on a Sunday—I don't know

 

How you do it—in stunning shifts

Of utter silence. I don't want

These thoughts to continue, but I

Know they will. Like bumblebees. Like

 

My poor attempt at a joke. Like

A glass of purely functional

Iced coffee. You break my heart. Like

Clouds wherever you go, not so

 

Much wild as being pulled along

As empty line. I really have

To explain the overarching

Concept? You break my heart. It hurts

 

Like hell. It leaves me abandoned.

Maybe I should go into the

Words and never come out again

To the path where you are living

 

With your latest fierce loneliness.

After all our kissed promises

I walk like I can't feel it, like

I can't breathe to remember how.  




Some comments below for above bonus poem:



comments
With_ted_3.thumb
Bill Yarrow, 2 days ago

"Like a comb over the bald head / Of the moon." 
Amazing line in a fiercely-moving astounding poem. 
section break

Samuel Derrick Rosen, 2 days ago

I like this line:

You break my heart more or

Less as a vital matter of

Inspired weightlessness.

Mugshotme_(3).thumb
Mathew Paust, 47 hours ago

If this doesn't get her attention what in HELL will?? This? Alone? "You break my heart. Like clouds wherever you go, not so much wild as being pulled along as empty line." If that doesn't do it, forget her! section break

Dscn2688.thumb
Kitty Boots, 43 hours ago

This made me ache in a heartbreak-type way, deja vu, nice work

Frankenstein-created-woman-blu-ray-top.thumb
Sam Rasnake, 32 hours ago

Good poem, DP. Especially like these lines:

"Like hell. It leaves me abandoned. 
Maybe I should go into the 
Words and never come out again 
To the path where you are living"

I like the image of movement, motion in the piece. Strong way to close the poem.

Photo_on_2-20-16_at_8.24_pm__3.thumb
Amanda Harris, 31 hours ago

section break

Endcap