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In This Lifetime, Oh How We’ve Drawn This Close


by Darryl Price


 

Together at last, we'd gotten this far toward the warm end of those sweet

Promises we made, once, with our sincerest written and passed down smart

Words, done all on our own deeds, with some real gusto, and offered them as Christmas

Lights, set precisely among shadows to burn full

Glad away, til dawn, as bright as many glasses of silvery

Moon water, ever poured freely out of

Love's dearly scruffed up mouth corners again

And again I say, and that wants, always wants, only to

 

Be bearing many new forms, to be more

Often than not, life's opening

Salvo. That we find ourselves here at

All is a welcomed miracle

As common as finding one slick

Wet cheek among a million  

Rained on, and yet we will feel it; the

Overflow of feeling, overwhelmed, thankful, the scramble of climbing to the top

 

Of one another ,our sentences spewing out 

In every language,and in all directions, all crying

Over to us veering on our sides,“Spin gold, spin gold, or leave us

Alone forever!” I set the

Beautiful and flaring blue evaporating

Match head atop their dry bald spots, and

Splash the sharp hot sparks into my own face, afterwards

With new relish for the verses already coming alive in the darkest throes of oncoming night.






Bonus poem:


We have nowhere to go

 

Where they don't hope to eventually 

Find us exchanging our new

Love presents like tiny fireworks.

So we long for the

Few unnoticed as blooming moments we actually

 

Get to sit alone together

In a soundproofed space of

Our own dreaming, without hearing

Their old broken down weather-related questions

And answers all the time which they offer

Up in twos (with buns)

 

Like newly branded mystery dogs.

Why go any further down

The rabbit hole of our

Vanishing futures with that greasy

Image haunting our panting steps?

It fits the hole in

 

Every head so well,they must imagine, a  

Gasoline soaked finger, tailor-made

For such fun occasions.

They want to see us burn out 

Like them. The brighter, the

Better to break your heart.




Revolution, Pass It On


by Darryl Price


There's nothing I could want from those fried bread

Devils. Don't want to dive into their cash

Filled channels either, biting my way out

Like a radio controlled shark, or be

Seen falling out of their night-time cars like

A teenager in love, flying face down,

Or leave the field of battle drugged and dragged

On the back of some horseshit golf cart, lost

In a purple haze of flash bulbs, or to

Worship in their funhouse of cracked mirrors,

 

Demented as a clown fish, or to have

My hungry belly filled with their hateful

Memory soup, chained to their pristine walls

Like a prisoner in a painting, or

Be forced to watch their horror films of home

And hearth, to laugh at nothing more than old

Shadows, or listen to their traumatized

Musicals of an American lie,

A torture of cowboys and Indians.

Nothing is like the sting of their kind whips.

 

And since they own everything already

It makes them afraid to dance without a

Whimpering partner. They've captured the poor

Naked moon, but it only sits in an

Unopened box, never to be played with

Or even plugged in. I really don't want

Their education rites poured over my

Head, their money bags saddled to my horse,

Tickets to an exotic vacation

On Mars, the hideous joking letters

 

Of recommendation. All I want is

You and I don't have to own you to say

That and mean it. I don't have to build a

Tall tower to let you know. What I want

Is to accept and celebrate all of

You without a precise plan sticking out

Of my back pocket. Like a wave I want

To crash into my own freedom and break,

Like a good day rain I want to put my

Arms around each tree and flower until


They smile back like happy children, and fresh

Dreams become our only true faith, like a

Wind I want to lift your hair from your face

And kiss you as if nothing else matters.

There is nothing I want them to know, to

Feel, about our kind of love, there's nothing

I want to say to them now, we are not

Puppets. We are not their wheat. Not their last

Meal. We are not the late hour. We've never

Been the answer. We will make our noise. Our


Noise is a joy because we love it. Is

A bell because we ring it. Our noise is

Made for no one in particular. We

Are the rag tag army of peace. We will 

Never win the war. Our noise has its own

Echos to find. Let them take every red 

Food colored cent, let them shoot every cloud

Out of the sky, we are butterflies. We 

Will walk the pebble paths to our final

Destination without selling our souls.

 

 

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