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Free Magic Lessons


by Darryl Price


" No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: he may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing."--T.S. Eliot


I think, okay now I know, the poem's starting to wear off. 
   But I'm alive, at least for one more day. I need to read more.  
I was given these scars you understand to the distant sounds of
   fluted out/ hollowed out/ veins, pumping against a perfectly radiant 

coming of big buckets of oceans-- to mean something
   well almost concrete, I guess you could say that, immediate like "Don't 
push me out there just yet. I'm perfectly okay right here where I am. I'll wait for my own small 
   tide to come in.Then I'll lift myself off this cloud I swear without any more help from all of you, but thank

you very much." Anyway. Life's pretty busy slight of hand applies to all those present at the end of the day. Don't you pretend
   to escape any rare kindness offered either. Oh where'd I
put those darned glasses? You know, the ones I always lose
   when I'm not able to see that it's been getting 

awfully late around this funny little town we swim around in? I'll probably never finish now the few kindly painted 
   words you washed so sweetly upon my forehead with your long as  
the color of the sun swiped sheet of pure and golden
   sand combed hair that only you possess. All's fair I guess. Although it breaks

the door to my garden down without so much as
   a polite little knock. Sometimes even a small whistle
will do to let someone else know you care enough to
   visit them in their wildest dreams. It's wearing thin though. I'm

becoming a vulgar beggar once more.And I need more clues if I am ever
   to survive this ongoing deaths-head march I'm on. I'm feeling less and less like turning
the wheel in front of your puzzled faces to make the colors
   collide into a one of a kind mountain of ash and smoke

for your amusement. Be gone, all be gone, soon enough, you'll start to
   see raindrops on your windshields like bugs. There'll be no other
choice left but the one. Certainly there must be more to us
   than conjoint sad notepads and scribbles. Why do I continue  

to conjure up from their inky depths to the surface
   of the floating mind these alphabetical blocks of
heart-shaped blunders? No matter.No matter. It's just the lack of  pure
   symbols to the brain speaking in hallucinogenic

tropes I fear. Go sound to sleep my silvery moon girl dancing --
   where we can at last find the raw courage once more to continue
to trill our secret names for each other through the various   
   holes in the towering stars and fan the universe with our many softly blown kissed wishes for some real love .

We'll find more hills of noise if it kills us.
   And if it doesn't we'll be back again tomorrow with
our same plastic buckets and shovels to begin once 
   more to build a new home for no one (One size fitting all the lonely hearts in the whole universe that is). 




Bonus Poems:


Weeping Unicorn With Broken Horn

by Darryl Price


Love come back to me. I know you're hiding. 
You're right. They showed us no mercy. 
Yet are you still constant. Come out, 
you're the only thing that works in 
tenderness in a universe 

of sharp & broken stars. We need your 
lingering heady perfume. They 
have showed no kindness, fingers made 
of thorns, held together with fire. 
Wagging tongues full of mountains of 

hypocrite's lies. You're the truth we 
long to know. Love, please come out. Save 
us with your angel Grace. Love come 
out. Love come out. You were good at 
driving us out of our stupid 

self pity. Come out, Amore. We 
are ready now to sacrifice  
anything to get you into our 
wounded breasts again. Love come out. 
Let me start over. Your smile is 

legendary. We won't ignore 
you like the fools we used to be. 
Shine your gentle beam right into 
our weary red faces. War will 
never end by itself. Oh, spark!



Bonus poems:


You Don't Have To Face the Darkness

by Darryl Price


by yourself. You don't have to fight 
the darkness alone. I know what 
you've been told. They lied. They started 
when you arrived. Trust yourself. You 

know what feels good. You don't have to 
face the dark like a good little 
boy or girl. I know what they told 
you. It made you afraid. They lied.

You don't have to face the darkness
without a friend. You are never 
without a friend. We're everywhere.
Even if you don't see us. You 

don't have to fight without feeling 
any hope. It's deeper than a 
feeling. Take a look. You know what 
love is. They lied to make you more 

afraid of kindness than anger.
You don't have to face the darkness
if you don't want to. They can't make 
you be something you're really not 

just because they can make you do 
awful things through bullying. They
don't believe their own lies. They are 
always pretending not to see 

to avoid the obvious death
questions about their own mundane
existing essence on planet 
earth. And some of them are simply 

pricks of the highest order. You
don't have to fight them unless you
want to survive, you care about 
someone else more than just yourself.





The Falsely Dancing Men

by Darryl Price


The world is fallen from Grace. The sky knows this 
because its pretty skin is beginning to peel off in 
dead clouds. The oceans know this because their barely breathing 
tubes are clogged with so much dirt and are turning 
skeletal white. Very little is getting in and very little 
is coming out. The world is fallen from grace. The 
gloomy forests know this because of the interruption of ancient 
wisdom once being passed down from bough to root, and 

from root to stream, is over. Each generation is now 
on their own to find out beauty, truth and goodness 
because the dancing men have made off with all the 
whole body healing cuts of sunshine. All that's left is 
like hot knives. The dancing men have stolen soft rain 
from us and hid it in a bursting barn somewhere 
in the middle of nowhere. The world is fallen from 
grace. Every night they fire their guns into the torn 

apart skies. Everything is used to build more guns. The 
world is fallen from grace. Earth is a skin and 
bones lonely prisoner of the easy money used to grow 
more of the hungry kinds of money crops. The elephants 
are motherless. The angry dancing men still shoot them between 
the eyes with cannons anyway. Have you seen a butterfly? 
Birds fly around in packs like wild ravenous dogs. But 
I am your poet. And I am here to tell 

you I have found butterflies in your eyes. I have 
seen blue skies when you smile. Dip your hand in 
the water where my dreams live and I'll watch all 
hope come rushing back to life. A tree can feel 
your loving presence from a mile away. So can I. 
It's not all on your shoulders either. We are in 
this search for honor together. That's the meaning of any 
poem I write for you. Love gives day and night.



Bark Bark Bark (Flying Portuguese)

by Darryl Price


The one thing you could do for him
to make him feel better about
being crucified every day 
of his life, you won't. Instead you
wait for the stranger and give it
to him. Bark bark bark. You don't have
to know something to know nothing.
Bark bark bark. Duck foot pattern. You

know this makes you smile. Why lie? Bark
bark bark. Wish there was an easier way
to tell you I'm still in love with 
you, as you talk on the phone, as 
you roll down the window, as you 
drive away, smiling and laughing 
with your best friend. I suppose you've 
tossed me a kind of absence. The

road looks like a meaningless old
monlogue now. The parking lot 
looks corrupt and sad sacked, as tossed 
aside as a cardboard mask dropped on 
the forgotten grass after some 
major fireworks display. Bark bark 
bark. The new world is coming to 
another end. Bark bark bark. Hope

you can hear me. I've got nothing 
to say. Again. Bark bark bark. Who
knows? Bark bark bark. I don't desire 
only to make myself useful. 
I am no apologetic 
monk sitting on a roof waiting
for the gift of grace. You've either 
got it or you don't. Bark bark bark.

And of course you do. Look in a 
mirrored surface. Listen to the 
image. Bark bark bark. One of us
is still thinking. Bark bark bark. This 
is the only way I know how 
to reach you through a million grains
of sand. Bark bark bark. Remember
to forget me. Bark bark bark. You 

scared? Me, too. Bark bark bark. I guess 
you're entitled. But why are we 
under heaven? The earth is a 
little rock. Does that make us all
little rocks, too? Bark bark bark. None
of that is what I wanted to 
say. Say.  Hum me another love 
song. Bark bark bark. Why does every-

where have to be so lonesome? Bark
bark bark. The moon is a dime found 
in the dryer with the missing 
socks. Bark bark bark. They're all thinking 
about something else. Bark bark bark.
Look the word up. Look all the words 
up. Tell them to all go jump in 
the lake. But do it in a new
 
way. Bark bark bark. Listen. Let's both 
take it easy here now. Let the 
darling clutch out slowly. Slowly. 
Save your goodbyes. Bark bark bark. It's
almost beyond recognition. 
Bark bark bark. Bark bark bark. Bark bark 
bark. Bark bark bark. Bark bark bark. Bark 
bark bark. Bark bark bark. Bark bark bark.



Lusby Sees Some Tulips

 

The first thing the very first goddamn thing I thought was who in the world doesn't know me well enough to send me of all the people in the whole stinking wide world a bunch

of frilly over the top red tulips, and there was no escaping the fact of the red mind you,
like a bunch of tiny paper box kites all tied up in a twisty pile of

snuggled together tree toes, gross, too cute for me,caught as surely as minnows in a shiny tin measuring cup. At
least something over in that general vicinity of reality was shining from a polished table top. Could have
 
been a gum wrapper for all I know now.But that was through some still fuzzy
eyelids. What brought the whole thing smack dab back up to me as a sharp as hell relief

was a small little corner of torn blue sky that had gotten itself all pushed into
the edges of the one and only window allowed in the antiseptic smelling room like a used and

discarded tissue. I was also thinking I sure could use one of those soft reminders
about now but then I thought what for? My eyes were already cleared or clearing obviously and

my nose seemed to be working okay, although all I could smell was some awful
pungent hand soap smell, the kind that is named after a fancy fragrance found somewhere in

nature but is secretly made all out of nothing but harsh chemicals. I couldn't really turn myself around
in bed so I couldn't begin to escape the goddamned tulips, although by now they

tended more towards tightly fitted pink roses of some sort, which was a bit of a welcomed relief I guess. I only wanted to get my hands on a nice big 

warm mug of chocolate milk and shove myself down into the furthest corner of my very 
own comfy couch at my own bit of  home and watch a few minutes of westerns on

TV. Doesn't matter what's on or what's doing. I love TV. It brings me down out of the heights of fear every time I see it shine on brightly.I guess that means

I was afraid of tiptoeing through the tulips. I don't really know why. I guess it's all
the so-called canned laughter they layer on the poor puns and bad jokes.On TV

I mean. Not the tulips.The situations that can heal themselves right there in your living room in oh let's say 
a half an hour or so. And the crazy,fun people hanging out in bars and coffee shops. I love to see

all them beautiful young people, living their lives as if we don't need to spend so much time worrying about the blazing meteorites coming at us from outer space. We've been lucky so far.At

least not all the whole time we've been alive. Sometimes we just want to have a little fun with one another. Perhaps that's what I've missed the opportunity for all my life. Now I'm paying for

it. Is that it?And then just like that the fickle pink roses seemed like a
box of squared to be found tulips again and I thought,fuck,sorry lord, what

is this all about anyway? Who are these strange eyed people I can feel here in
my room with me but cannot begin to see in any proper sense? I know if something's being spelled out in
 
flowers or not. Believe me. Please.Do not try to brighten my sleep for me.
I have angels for that.They'll do a fine if not bang up job all on their feathered 

own time. And they sound just like a bunch of shaking bells when they are walking towards you. I
ought to know. I've been walking with them now for several months on end.Hello.Yes I know who you are.


Might You As Well Then


be wearing each and all of Heaven's smiles, after a baby blue modern mile line
of self perpetuating star shine, for your simple shawl this evening? I indeed think
so!That's what I'm saying to you.As your shape cascades without needing to
see any other light source to perform its own bright miracle on me. The spinning

out of control universe only seems to right itself whenever you lay down anywhere.  
This I know for a fact. I've become your beauty's strict apostle.Even now 
once mighty fighting galaxies are found neatly folded against your secret skin of skins 
like pulled down for the night bridges or collapsed wings. When you dare move even a small 

pearly inch they may or may not decide to click clack back into place
and become functional again in all time and every neat space. You don't need
to know the laws of physics when you write them up as
you go. When you are somehow become still as lava all internal

functions seem utterly bewildering to me, simply to keep you warming in a
certain spot as a rubber bottle filled with the history of every 
sunlight ever laid down upon this earth until now; or too like
a single spiteful cat who only knows its true name when played

through your split parterre lips.Otherwise you know it doesn't speak any
English at all around the you know who and the you know
what. So your mind much like your hips is the receiver of 
unbelievable and delicate deliverance from the presence of air itself that makes

many more poets than me want to smash everything else in the
room to tiny bits until all that is heard is the one swooshing 
tide of your solitary music on life itself. Please accept this shard of a heart
in going peace. Let our kingdoms know no boundaries except for the right ones that pronounce our love is supreme.  



  
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