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Frozen Bird Pie


by Darryl Price


I like how you completely disappeared 

inside a undetermined and yet planned point of 

pretty view, like a rabbit with a chained 

pocket watch, like a stunned, frozen bird with 


a still burning bullet in its tiny

feathered brain. You could say that one life just 

somehow carried you away into the 

other, like a used candy wrapper piece, 


roughly grabbed at and thrown in the air by 

an ill-mannered wind, but we both know you 

let it go. I suppose the rushing gobs of 

wet green and dried brown scenery was as 


good as any long blue goodbye might have 

actually been for you. It smeared my 

normal reaction time to certain tall 

shade trees down to a crawl for years. And the 


hidden places in rivers where the sun's 

searing fingers poked out momentary 

clear holes now seems obviously empty 

of all possibility for freshly 


pumped water meanings or even gladder 

secret meetings. My sad guess is this has 

nothing at all to do with your face.  You 

don't want to be remembered that way. That's 


the tricky part. Your wish is my command. 

I'm setting these words on fire even as 

we speak, for the last time, even as we 

wrinkle into lying portraits of our 


own dusty memories, into deserts 

of impossible thirst, into soft cracked 

mirrors of hard regrets. Here's that smooth black 

stone retrieved, not shattered, not worth a damn.




Bonus poems:




Luminous Shards


by Darryl Price



 

They knocked you just for one more

Day, but the number had been

Rolled. When you offered me your

Friendship, I felt my feet were

Both slipping overboard. They

Marked you from their first bite, but

They don't intend to share the

Rest. They rob you in order

 

To sell what's left, but when you

Offered me your friendship, I

Gave away everything for

Free. Now I have been placed at

The end of your telescope,

An individual stamped

Title for a casual

Star. They chased you hoping to

 

Claim you as collateral.

I wouldn't think of such a

Dodge. When you offered me your

Friendship the fabric of my

Guitar turned into a shroud.

They hunt you for your joy, but

That's like killing a flower

For its color, what little

 

There is. When you offered me

Your friendship, you missed music

That had only the two of

Us holding it together.

Now the one thought holding this

Room is the click of fingers

Weeping against the keyboard,

Lost in rain. When you offered

 

Friendship, I ran into walls

And tossed down stairs. They prayed you

For your light, but that's smashing

The moon for luminous shards,

The glow is false. You offered

Friendship like you'd forgotten

Your name, but made sure I

Never would. Yeah, I hear them,

 

Too, complaining about us.

Believe me, I'm trying to

Live through this the only way

I know how. The poet begs

To differ. When you offered

Your friendship it was almost

Too sad to contemplate. All

I could see was your pink face.



The music has its own sweet swinging by Darryl Price

 

pod child hanging in the soft balance

like an emerging star between the

maybe and the lonely. We were once

caught kissing in the tunnels where the

lazy sky drips into the fields like

honeysuckle juice. I thought you would

probably turn into a soulful

 

magnetized swan with your full sun eyes

shut so tightly to hold in the new

tongue taste. It was heavenly to make

up a simple song out of nothing

more than wind and debris and sing it

like a magical incantation

to no one for the first time. These things

 

only happen once before they are

forever blacked out by intruding

voices of the fearful overseers

of any childhood escape plan. They

really don't want to see us go, but

honestly we're already gone the

moment we touch each other's warm hands.


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