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Music and Books


by Darryl Price


You're all I've got to keep me company, 
but it's a very fine company. So 
familiar, and warm as any cold 
digital fireplace. I can tell you've got 
more in your story, but it doesn't make 
you happy. I really do not feel well 
today. Fun I wanted to have eludes 
me like an otter. And the purified 
drinking water I'm drinking only makes 

me thirsty for something else. But you've got 
your precious more to lift you out of your 
sad easy chair, to move you towards the 
always beckoning door. I stay inside 
because there's no one outside that I know of. 
There are no butterflies any more. No bees. 
Not many birds. Mankind saw to that. The 
stricken trees look lonely as hell. And 
I'm beginning to feel like an old tree 

myself,  longing for a brand new kind of 
miracle wind. But it doesn't matter. 
That's why they are shaking their fattening 
heads in a unified secret disgust. 
More likely looking uncomfortably 
the other way. They don't get involved. They 
only disapprove of any and all 
imperfections. This has always made me 
laugh. Things slow down or they fall apart. I 

flick my player with my tired fingers and 
the gone sound comes back on. Sometimes louder, 
sometimes softer. It's a game I play with 
all the electronics in my room. We 
do what we can to entertain ourselves. 
There's a billion words and these are the ones 
I grab for you. I wanted to be close to 
you. But it doesn't matter. What happens 
is anybody's guess. I think of you. 



Bonus poems:



Stupid Moon

by Darryl Price


Watercolor on paper. That's all you 
are. Stop following me around. Make up 
your own words. I don't want to think about 
any of that sweet stuff now. Stupid moon. 

All the people who said they loved you. Where 
are they now? Nothing lasts forever. Leave 
me alone. Moonlight. What were you thinking? 
You proved your stupid point. We are left here 

all alone. Under glass. Framed. Closed in the 
hidden under the bed chest. And you, with 
your clean getaway, acting like you are 
the first and only victim, crying in 

your bathtub, the mirror showing you what 
you want to see. Moon. Moon. Moon. Moon. Moon. Moon. 
You drown my heart. You pollute the middle
of my ocean. Stupid moon. Go away.  



Big Idea, Haunted Objects

by Darryl Price


The tiger has always been with 
us. It's way more than a single 
story. It looms large in my own 
pursuit of beauty(ah.), truth(ha!) 
and kindness(huh?). Alright let's get 
down to business. There are some 

strange things imbued with souls where you 
might think no souls would go. It's part 
and parcel of the most ancient 
magic of everything still turned 
on, performing everywhere, but 
we are screwing it up, because 

we are(choose just one.) greedy,  and 
selfish or weak-minded. It is 
nothing new. The same old story 
begs for the same old answer. What 
are you going to do about 
it? The tiger fishes with its 

huge muddy paws and eventually 
catches something wriggly 
and bright. It has more manners than 
a bear. More patience than a sleek 
jaguar. More sense than an owl 
who fidgets all night in a tree 

and doesn't eat until the last 
torn moment of moon washes in 
the forest creature's wide eyes. The 
tiger watches all of it and 
licks its stripes. I wish I had that 
kind of dharma. I rest my case. 



The Lonely People

by Darryl Price


"Isn't he a bit like you and me?"--John Lennon



I can see you. I know it's not much. Just 
as I know money isn't the thing you 
wanted, but it will do when nothing else 
is the only other alternative. 
That's the sad jingle of its pathetic 
toss aside. I see you. You want to hold 
somebody's hands without being put to 
the ultimate test each time. You want to 
lock into someone's eyes without being 
sprayed with disinfectant of the heart. Just 
once to be seen as one of us. To be
 
treated the same. To be believed to be 
all there. But you are barely visible 
as a leaf among leaves in the wind. And 
the rest of us pull our collars up high 
on our necks to disguise the rush of our 
hidden gait. The bus takes you in, but it 
doesn't deliver you some place else. It 
only lets you out again. No one knows 
your name-- like a familiar sound of 
something good about to happen to them. 
No one rings your sound in the air like a 

charming silver bell. But you hear them ring 
everywhere just the same. And it hurts your 
sensitive ears like a tripped over thorn 
bush. Yeah I'm as guilty as the rest of 
them. And you know it. No poem I write 
is ever going to keep you safe for 
long, but I'm also not going to kill 
anyone. These words are said in statement 
of witness for you, but they still don't treat 
you as a real person with real arms, and 
a real head, and a real need to know some 

human tenderness, that is without a 
dry medical degree. I'm sorry. I'm 
sorry I said I'm sorry. I'm sorry 
words are just a bristle of words. But that's
what some poets are supposed to do. They 
walk between worlds as dreamers and come back 
awakened and paint new images of 
this sad old world with a wet brush of wild  
words and hope for the creative best to 
leap forth. But at least they have that honest 
hope to be thankful for. I see through glass.  
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