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Caterpillar on a Chalkboard


by Darryl Price


What do you want me to tell you

about this next full moon cycle that you don't

already intuitively seem to have touched upon in your latest bout of almost there dreams? It too will

pass? That it is a totally different unfair animal

from the repellent one already tightly wrapped onto 

the now familiar cosmic branch of wheel and wind,

fastened to the one short road curving on ahead? Food's craved altogether differently from a

different set of insect lips? Well, okay, then it is,

a storm  perfectly round in nature is coming after you, if you

choose to look at it in that cruel of a way, only

 

that's your perfect freedom on a sixth sense kind

of pathway, so go ahead enjoy it, but it's also exactly

the same eternal energy source at the root

of any tree, in that the love connection

we all know to be there somewhere at

the center of every coming into our being's central pulse, we feel tightening in our veins 

is still the very real affection we all

get to have all the time at the

deepest levels as it gets played out or

played through on any number of different channels

 

of our personal heaven or hell. Like the sea it

changes salts all the time and it also

strangely stays the same tasting forever.  Not so

much like you are always staring at the 

sun's brilliantly mirrored facial expressions mind you, more like waking

up in the new morning's pop of muscle and nerve, as simple as that.

It is the Supreme Is that's got that

certain swing, baby. Philosophers accepted this crazy spatial mathematical 

ring a long, long time ago, but it

only gets them mad as hell the more

 

they think about it. And of course since

they think about it so very deeply and sometimes childishly

often they drive themselves slowly insane as a

by-product of all that wasted head space. Poets of

course thought about it in terms of their

wildest erotic visions and decided it all made

the grandest sense as a beautifully carved musical

instrument that could only be heard by sad

angels and certain shy children. Angels see it

as a normal wormhole, not to be equated

 

with miracles at all, on any level. SO BE VERY CAREFUL where you tread. And

so forth, and so on. The oldest of mysteries

are always yours to wrestle with whenever you'd like,

but please be aware of your own pulsating 

mind at work at its most self-preserving-first, forward thinking best, its constantly conniving up its own tricky sleeve

best, as it gives a right answer to

the question you ask for and nothing more. Here's

the whole hinted at trick: you can't always ask by

asking, you can only ask sometimes by doing,

or by believing, by living, or by dying.

 

 

 

Bonus:



Things Left to Chance No More


by Darryl Price


In Memory of Janice Roth

We know each other and 
then we don't because one 
of us is somewhere else 
forever. It takes so 
little time to tell you 
I'm glad you are only 
you being you without 
wanting anything from 
you. I wish you knew from 
me that I wanted to 
hold you one more time and 
not just because you are 

someone worth holding. I 
wanted you to know that 
you are that to me. And 
I wanted to be for 
you as vulnerable 
as you are and brave as 
you are and kind as you 
are with you. But I failed 
to reach you. Instead you 
reached me. And do you know 
what I remember? How 
your sweet tiny teeth looked 

framed by your short curls and 
your beautiful splattered 
freckles and how you loved 
to dance. Things like that. The 
healing way you talked to 
all people, giving them 
dignity. Or the way 
you shared your laughter, not 
like a secret, but like 
a cool ocean breeze let 
into a stuffy room 
from an open window. 

Goodbye, old dear friend. Your 
presence made the world a 
much better place. I know 
I've said it before, so 
I'll say it again. Kind 
words matter and yours were 
the kindest I've ever 
known. And now it's my turn
to return the favor.
You had a good run. You
are the difference now
and wherever you are.  


 

That Bowling for Rain by Darryl Price

You have come home to me like 
little wooden boats quietly sloshing towards 
my own light among the piers, thank 
you so very much for your faith 
in unseen things, but you have not 
the true character of the one 
I was seeking-out by dream tom-tom tonight. 
You, all you kids, with your 
ripe eyeballs still clinging to the vine, 
remind me of cellophane detective agency

 

children, all colorfully garbed and hungry for 
the riddle of the twisted truth 
to be solved with a snap, snap, 
snap of a chubby chipped thumbnail 
and forefinger making a triangle sound in 
the modern musical winds. Still, as 
my honored guests, you are hereby certainly 
most welcomed to enter peacefully my

 

own humming and able abode. I'm grateful 
for your presences tonight, truly I 
am. Truth is I was feeling a 
bit alone just now anyways. Perhaps 
that's the funny feeling signal you somehow 
read in my rising smoke rings 
then from so very far away? It's 
funny how a pipe will do 
just as easily as a good old 
fire to get the message sent 

across sometimes, if the writing's clear enough 
I suppose. But now back to 
the basic business at hand. This is 
mine to give, and so will 
I do it. Enter. Enter. Something with 
a meaning just for us has 
brought us to our present moment together 
and I'm just as curious a 
frog as the next to jump in 
and give it a proper name, 
aren't you? There are particular and
 
ancient sounds we could use to stir 
the senses alive that have been 
spoken or sung many times over and 
by better poets than all of 
us put together I'm guessing, but we 
might as well be wise to 
wait and see if we are to 
be given that one we haven't  
heard from before, between any of us 
that is, especially for the new 

found circumstances of our being together like 
this, huh?  I always find these 
things have their own schedules to land 
on. It does absolutely no good 
not to be generous in any case, 
and kindness is at all times 
and in all places the best key 
kept on the ready by the 
front door for just such magical purposes. 
Tonight we sing what it means

 

to dance! We dance what it means 
to sing! And if we're lucky 
we'll give the world its brand new 
flowers in time for a little 
more morning rain and afternoon sun. Just
in time for making some jolly 
good tea. Eh, what? Oh that, that's 
just me sitting in my chair 
in another year and writing down your 
names for safe keeping in future.

 

   
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