Old Shoes for Stranded Soles

There are stranded people just like us, that's

Not necessarily what I'm looking for.

Negativity won't pull us through the

Barbed-wire halls of hate. And even if I

Was the only one, I wouldn't want you

To look any different in the mirror. I'm older

Now, no one invites me up to their moons

Any more for a peek at their special stars. That's about as deep as it gets.

I don't feel all that good about getting

The ghost vote from you now and not then. It would

 

Have been so nice to know you cared when I

Was freezing in the loveless city corners and

All my straggled about books were crammed onto the

Crude visionary shelves like lost toy soldiers

Acting out some crazed uninvited scene

Of feverish battle to the death. It was bad enough

Without your sewn up sort of love, to keep me thinking I was

Warm, to walk me to the bus stop, to keep

Me from going to trial in my own head. The

Wildflower scene I was interested

 

In was the one we were good at making up for ourselves. There are

Clear enough people I'm guessing like us

Out there walking around, but they have gone

Through so many gravity punching jealous

Changes by now they only half resemble

Themselves inside quiet mistaken gestures. Wouldn't call

Them out because no one needs to take my

Place in line. Let them have their exhausted peace in

The big goodbye mirror of life's endless pageantry. I'm still looking

Outside the gates for more than I ever

 

Bargained for. Oh shit they're telling me all

They really want from me now is more free entertainment,

Less trains, no conversation. Well I'd rather

See you naked again. I'd rather get

Closer to you. That's as much as I know, as

much as I want to know. The battle of 

the books was just a metaphor, a kind 

of staged plea for some sanity against 

all the stacked loneliness in this cold cold world, a

last attempt at finding one's true presence among so much shadow to come.  

   Bonus poems:

I Don't Know Where the Buried Lantern Goes to Sleep When It's Hungry

 

When your steaming dragon like hand has so

casually dropped the treasured pine cone

of our hearts from its celestial stitch

like a too hot to handle glowing star.

I'm not even sure it is up to me to

name such altogether pedestrian

phenomenon, taking the risk as it

were for generations after that, i.e.

 

we would always know such rich witness and

cry out on your behalf like any group

of trained to please acrobatic bears for

a few sad hours of cramped sleeping together and something

indistinguishable to eat. No, I

fear this time you've missed your practiced mark, and the moon

long ago rose up and gave its greatest

single performance to a bunch of wild

 

dogs pouring themselves up and down the soft

heavenly hills like a warm pungent syrup. But

that is of no real consequence to our

little circle of flaming tigers is it, and

poorly painted ponies, is it? We are

after all still in the midst of this small

folding poem of ours, thrashing through the

many fake paper drums like disturbed birds

 

but finding no exits, when with all our

broken heads we believe the end of the

performance is a foregone conclusion to anyone with a brain.

I wonder who gets the satisfaction

out of seeing the lights come on again inside?

Yeah, now I see where I'm going again.

These spelling footprints a misplaced refrain.  

You've squeezed your last song out of my throat I swear. 

Ash

by Darryl Price