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Old Love Passes By Like a Landscape


by Darryl Price


from a moving train. The lost ball in
the tall grass still wants for no one. And
I'm suposed to pretend? You got your
smile from something, not someone. But it  
took all your long hair in the process. 
You've been looking for the one true grace, 
the ultimate answer, again, well, 
haven't you? It's okay. I don't blame 
you. If you can remain present, it will 
 
be in front of you--seeing the stars 
authentically from inside out, 
like you always imagined. The train 
doesn't have to be a blurring of 
your hopes. Let them float. The return way 
to yourself is to feel this moment, 
whatever this is, wherever it 
happens to be. Old lovers pass by,
a paradox of empty boxes

tearing apart in the relentlessly 
busy wind's hands. Not much you can  
do about it now, except enjoy 
the show for what it's been worth up to 
this poem's pretty pout. Let it go.
As you yourself pick up speed, the train
goes rolling down the tracks making a 
grey history of its photographed 
smoke stacks. The old loves were corrupted

and that's what really hurts. I know. The
loved ones abandoned their own beauty 
for some other form of truth. But it
didn't work out either. Because of 
when you allow the bloom instead of 
forcing it into the light will you
be allowed to meet the Garden in 
its true essence. The new love has been
waiting, like a friend, to take your hand.



Bonus Poems:



A Bad Hat for You to Softly Break

by Darryl Price


This isn't exactly a funny place. 
It has its ups and downs. And I've seen more 
than my share of the unkind folks. They seem 
to be everywhere. That's what's so sadly 
funny about trying to make a life. 
It only goes where all life goes, with or 

without us. George was right, but it didn't 
matter much to anyone then, and it 
sure doesn't matter now. You've still got to 
be you and nobody else. I've been out 
the front door a lot, but I can't wait to 
be sitting at home again. A funny 

place if you say so, but it's not really 
anything you haven't seen for yourself 
or heard before. Still isn't it fun? I 
mean the living in so much trouble, so 
much beauty and beer, so much looking for 
the wrong answer. Do you trust yourself? I 

will admit sometimes I'm tired of floating
on without you, past all the daily new 
sorrow, when all I want to do is shout 
how we still need some mercy in here! The 
little acts of kindness become like church 
campfires or stars. They're out there, but living 

in their own stories, even if you can 
see them from afar.They are a painting 
of an outlined hand on the wall of air 
that surrounds everything. We can't help but 
want to say hello to each other's eyes 
even through our broken windows. And all 

the time the oceans drink our foul water 
and spin around in dizzy circles and 
our wretched excess beneath the weeping 
of the moon. We've never been good  making 
the right choices at the right time--and that 
time is always right now. Moving around

a lot or not. You think I have the words 
for this, but I don't know. They don't seem to 
do more than fade as you read them. Is that
what you want from me? Empty words? Places
I have been almost killed me and made me 
old. This is just one more. But it's a bed.




Free Pizza, but I Wish Merriment for You

by Darryl Price


Let this be a no harm zone moment 
shared between us and let us come to  
some belief in understanding, human if possible, just
because we can and we might need to. 
 
The world is fine, but it can bite--
hard!--whenever it wants to be free and 
left alone. Let this be of no harm--
make no mistake--I finished all my drink.  

Understanding keeps us laughing all the way to 
the back end. The world is beautiful, with 
one blind eye to walk careless and away 
with. Is that what you think? Let there 

be no harm, it's only talk, and conversation 
is cheap. Understanding, because I can't stand the 
thought of you lying with him. The world's 
like a bewitched change in the weather. Let

there be no trouble left in these drowning 
downward tears of mine. Understanding is missed ever 
more these days. The world's getting tired of
burning to sleep. I seem to forget, but 

I can't. I can't be angry. There's something 
I want you to know. I lack the 
words. I lack the focus or timing. Needed 
to get your attention. I'll meet you halfway. 

Let us finally understand what we talked about 
when we were lonely strangers at the heart's 
open port. I only pour days into poetry 
now. Then I understood every minute's meaning because 

it meant only you. The ordinary changing world 
has taken everything but this feeling to the 
other side. Still I have to go. I 
still have to. Go. I'll be seeing you. 




Can You See

by Darryl Price


those days add up to nothing if the same people are allowed
to kill anyone they choose for the color of their skin? If
the same people are given more money and power than God it's 
over for the rest of us. If these people are allowed to 

make their hatred into law? If the same people put all your 
love in filthy cages? It's only a matter of time after that-- 
they finish what they started. Can you see that weather shouldn't be 
controlled by those concerned only with their vacations? If the same people

educate with only lies in their books the fires burning within will 
consume everything everywhere. If the same people get control over your laughter
then only tears will be used to smile with. If the same 
people only live to fire their guns at somebody there is no 

safe place for children to come out and play. If the same
people break every promise the water on the blue planet will turn
to poisonous mush. If the same people go to Mars they will 
destroy the world's forests of molecules in a laser second. If the

same people are not tripped no amount of virtual singing from our 
balconies will bring back the harmony of the moon and stars. If
the same people murder all the small creatures in their greed for 
land and resources only the cruelest of predators will live there to 

greet us. Captured flowers and permanently drawn claws will strain the horizon
with blood and coerced perfumes. Clouds will not be welcomed. Rain will 
not be welcomed. Sun will be used to stoke the new trail 
of fevered tears. This is no joke. It's no blind exaggeration. It's  

a poet's plea for the world. Help us! If these criminals are
not exposed for their crimes against nature and man then no way
home will ever see you rest again. If the same people outlast 
our capacity to reinvent kindness over and over when needed then we

have already arrived to hell. If the same people are allowed to 
smite the sick and poor with impunity for nothing more than a
laugh and a beer then we need to find real mercy in 
our own hearts before every doorway becomes a dangerous soul-snatching mouth to
 
feed. If these same people, with their clubs and their skull flags,
are given permission to enter our homes whenever they need a new 
body tied to the whipping post then we might as well let 
them put the wires in our heads now and turn the TVs  

on full blast. If the same people have no need for books 
we must write many more books. If they have no love for 
beautiful paintings we must brush more art on the canvas. If they 
ban all picnics and dancing we must get our red shoes out.

If the same people ban all sorrows tomorrow we must hold each 
other tighter today. We will feel everything. For each other. For all 
the living and dying things. We will feel it on all surfaces, 
bruised or not. We will feel it in the trees, in the 

leaves, in the roots, in the dirt. In the wild winds, no 
matter the season. If the same people make the same mistakes made 
in the past they have learned nothing, are not capable of  helping
themselves rise above the fear. Put courage to the present test now. 
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