Who are all these rough looking people, hanging over me, itching me with their shaggy grapevines for arms? Like twisting, dangling down painted cloth Gargoyles on a quickly coming apart dried up rope?
It's always been the same old perch to view from. You wanted to know what I am always laughing about. About all these people, hanging over me, like twisted animal limbs, blowing in the burning air, some jostling for the only updraft like dumb
balloons. Let's get serious. All these people, with their greasy French fry fingers, like
wet spiders in a flimsy paper cup. Like the next train. Like spies in love with
swimming pools. I don't want to leave you here without taking you with me. That's always
been my big to do plan of military action. I'll even take your blunt haircut home with me if I have to.
But these people, hanging over me have to get their own ride home. Let's find a nice quiet
place under the half strung lights. These people hanging over me are like
too many teeth in a grinning mouth. All these people hanging over me like clouds thick with
sleeping crouching bats. A row of silent horse riders then on a squiggly hill, waiting for a smoke signal. Sometimes I feel alone in my pain loving you. Who
are all these people supposed to be to us? Crossed over rivers or hidden figures in the trees? These people hanging over
me make me want to walk into a wall or a river. All these people hanging
over me like a bush of nothing but plastic bags. With their cigarettes falling out of
their pores like ashen worms. These wine soaked people hanging over me like
too much pasta on a plate. Like a tripwire pushing against my tongue. A tear stained
crumpled red picnic napkin, balled on the ruined grass like a strange
lost marble. All these people, hanging over me, look like a bath of candle
wax. A flight of expensive shuttered doors, all competing for a slice of the same endless trunk of blue sky. Let's get out of here. Let me be the impossible
one who finds you smiling pretty fed up in all the wreckage of the hours after all. All these
people can have their enormous beds of oyster shells to sleep it off in. There's nothing we need here to be happy. A little bird told me so. It only takes you. I agree.
Bonus poems:
It
wasn't as far for you to fall from the enormous blue
sky. It took me a little longer to
find my center of gravity. I was already
scared. I needed to concentrate to let
go. Already, you were walking further away.
Hello Is All There Is
by Darryl Price
to honestly say to you now. Once I would have maybe
written a single limited edition book
on a whole forest full of leaves about the uncertain stars
shifting above and around you just to prove that
these were the only ones I looked at real close and
personal in my life. But that has become too
lonely of a profession even for me to
endure. But those same perfect clouds now hang drooling
in tatters out of the basement's banished corners
in forgotten boxes like dead paper fish kites,
folded into frozen statues like dropped clocks. But
I have never agreed with you about any of this, any,
I never will. I'll see you is as good a new
grown greeting as you're likely to get from me. But I
remember opening the gates and you standing
there firm in the dirt, toothily smiling like a
skeleton key about to turn on all the charm
in the universe, only it was my world, my
room, my heart, my stars, even if I didn't know
it, in danger of becoming a mostly flooded path, a bloody bath.
There's no return engagement. But I've finally
put my hand back in my photograph. But that's all.
But I'm going. But you weren't supposed to forget.
But this is where we mean goodbye. But I dream on.
"These wine soaked people hanging over me like / too much pasta on a plate."
And much much more to applaud!
*
Got all my attention in this one. What a great trip!
"I feel alone in my pain loving you"
Such a beautiful line.*
Great flow of imagery, DP.
"Like a trip wire against my tongue. A tear stained
crumpled red picnic napkin balled on the ruined grass like a strange
lost marble."
*
Smart bird.
I like this one.
Your internal I/Thou Black/White Yes/No split is put to good use here.
Like this.*
"Let's get out of here. Let me be the/ one who finds you sitting pretty in all the wrecked hours."
Do it, man. *