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Cassandra Folds My Poem in Her Hand and Loses Her Heart in the Process


by Darryl Price


Ours is but the very small effort being made here.
But it's a good enough keeper for all of us
to always remember off. All the tins that
aren't really going to save us
from starving, now are neatly arranged all around, just
in case, stacked according to their
rightful places in the beautiful candle lit 
mystery of life's jumping car seat. All we can do is
mirror the unexplained pangs of
so much wintry thought in our empty heads, then abiding joy in our own sudden awakenings within. It's like us, waving from boxes, like little mechanical maniacs,

only from a much more aesthetic
window frame.It's like saying
here I made this tiny funny thing to get to know you somewhat better
but I guess it doesn't turn anything
over--not unless everything everywhere
also means something other
than this terrible life we're still having to tote around. That's the pretty some
of us continue to wear above
our thorny crowns. It's to show that we always believe
there's an answer going on somewhere in the conversation, so

we'll keep our cool dreams in the front ends of our warm pockets
with the broken seashells and all the old pennies. I dearly
love all the well spent pennies! They've seen so much already, you know,
and traveled such far distances. Let's
go inside together, inward I mean, I hear it's
an amazing party, still happening over there, hey, at least it's free.
We should dance. Oh I love this mad mad
mad sound that only comes out like this
whenever we're alone together. I
suppose I shall cry into your arms some day.But.But but. That won't

be the real me, being all the way into the music's embrace anymore, will it
though, and that's just plain weird to me now. But for now we're all us--
gathered inside the story's borders, like scribbled notes on envelopes, just say okay? That's not
a question, it's a response to too
many words pouring up and over my head's sloppy rim. Too much you in my heart. Too much myself as well.
To the awful drying air in here that's squeezing my throat shut with an elephant for a handkerchief. I do want to cry right now, if you don't mind that is,
I do. I can feel just like it right this very minute. But (I swear) I don't want you to look at me.
If you look I'll only seem silly,
like I'm trying to pee in
an unfamiliar forest.





2 bonus poems:


How a Poet Puts on His Pants

The beautiful thing easily
entered his brains this morning, just
like a live radio with a
timer on its otherwise smooth
forehead goes green and then bingo
you're further awake somehow than
your dreams let on, just as he was
about to exit the bathroom
 
of all places. Typical, he
thought, of these kinds of Faery gift-
givers. They like to catch you off-
balance, maybe a little more
relaxed than usual, say, less
unencumbered with today's suits
of armor than yesterday's.Still
nothing in the universe is
 
free. The theft of this barter had
already been made to lower
the scales on one side. It was up
to him to figure out the exact price--
probably at the same time it
was to be extracted,be it
a fall or a shove, a nudge or
a wink, like a too loose tooth. Something
 
had already been given, and
someone would most likely have to
give something back, or else.Isn't that
how these things usually get
the goat? Hey, he wasn't feeling
particularly ungrateful this morning
but taken by surprise.He knew
he could feel it, he could,right then
 
and there, with a birdsong like that
stuck on repeat, whirling around in his reopened head, sing something quite
wonderful if he would only
choose the moment that chose him, but
also knew there must come a time
to let go of its wing and plunge
back down into a numb empty
nest inside the hollowed out crook.

dp  



Hello and Welcome

 

to your very own poem from me. Well
you did indeed find me and hey look I'm
not even all the way dead yet. So good job. This is
that only moment we were ever meant to have

together. This one. But I'm afraid I
have no wisdom to impart to you for
your persistence in tracking me down. There.
I've said it. You didn't miss it already 

did you? I'm just a sad and lonely
old poet living off his words in a cold cold cave of a world 
and waiting for you yes you to show up for God
knows what earthly reasons other than

to say you did it. Yep I'm just real glad you made
that last ditch effort to climb up all those rocks in my head. Thanks. Ah I suppose you'll be
wanting the cup from me anyway but it's not
mine to give you just because you're willing to
 
take it.Oops. I may have just let slip a
little sack of the cosmic goop there. Oh what the heck. You've earned
it,baby.So go ahead. Steal away.What
good's a heart for the mortally wounded any old way when you look at it like that?
  




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