On a Black and White Photography Tour of the Moon, with a Sweetheart of a Ghost hanging onto My Arm(revised version)

 

Suppose you could bend your whole 

body backwards, like she did, you 

know, like a taunt, powerful bow 

and arrow kit, and push the 

rest of your truest self forward 

into his concentrated face, just like 

Georgia O'Keeffe did in nineteen-nineteen; 

push it all over him, inside, 

only for his general directions to 

sense? No. My gaze would certainly 

be more than just the official 

poetic curiosity at work, posing the 

ultimate question of man's authority, stopping 

at yet another wondrous & natural 

lantern's heartland, be professionally framed in 

the matter-of-fact context of 

a newly crystallized awareness of something 

profound-- cloud-stacked or no. And yet 

she loved this strangely silent little 

polished man, what she saw in 

him, more than the artist's urges, 

to so quickly uncover what he 

desired her to be. When Picasso 

turned his young muses into stained 

glass cartoons of sexualized beauty shots, 

collapsing even the brutish sun's rays 

into a junk pile of entangled 

Christmas lights laid on their bare 

splattered feet, did he, in his 

wildest imagination, ever notice the tears 

shed for his own lost, human 

sympathies? When Cynthia Lennon missed that 

transcendental train to the new meditation 

camp on a near future farm, 

(without fear and or hatred in 

her poor heart, God bless her, 

because no one was watching out 

for her, not specifically..)did the 

antique glass orb in her falling 

silent breath tinkle into tiny sharp 

pieces as it fell out of 

her tearing up mind's glazing-over eye, 

smashing onto its own black and 

white crumpled paperback street, like so 

much already brown-stained pavement or go 

unnoticed as a broken trail of 

sad smashed trash instead? Listen, in 

nineteen-nineteen, Georgia was in the 

perfectly beautiful nude all right, but 

she was the one setting up 

the historical shot for him, youthful, 

secure, possible, primitive, weather or no 

weather blaring loudly outside. So let 

me pose the question to you 

again, are you willing to watch 

the killing waves, knowing that your poet 

is even now preparing to sail 

towards you with all desire for 

your company, that shipwrecked or not, 

he will crawl on bare hands 

and knees to bury his face 

in yours all this evening long? 

The moon will have something smug 

to say about it all, as 

she always does. But, Georgia, you 

simply got to me. You'd probably 

want to give him all the 

artistic credit. He doesn't deserve it. 

You're the one who entered his 

framed ego and filled it up 

immediately with light and landscape, made 

the impossible look possible. After all,

you spoke only to me, too.

Bonus poems:

Poem for The Outside by Darryl Price

 

Lately I've been using a heavily

opened upside down book for a new shell called

home, unwilling to entertain even

the very nice idea that maybe

I should go swimming out there once in awhile. I'd rather

look out from my own back pages, thank you, just

surrounded by a tight swirl of folding

around free floating words. I've still got a

pretty good view of enticing pretty

 

seaweed dancing in the changing daylight, because

of that I'm aware of the strong sway of

the latest currents. But those huge angry

dark shadows, still here after thousands of

jagged years, that sometimes speed by at such

incredible speeds and depths really make

me want to add a few more volumes to

my already collapsing roof until

I'm looking like my own strange standing up

 

coral, not looking for any trouble

really, just being my floating part in

the swirling about universe. What would

happen if we all lowered our weapons

at exactly the same moment in time? Lately we've

all got so much dried blood on our hands. Lately

we've all got too much permanent sadness inside  

of our still hurting heads. It's as if every

window to the healing truth is fastened

 

together with thick mucky blue paint and

will not budge open. We see the outside

possibilities, but no one's going

to break the safety glass first. So here we

are again. Lately I've been reading the

found notes from my own crying mind, like a

mad scientist, like a folk singer, to

find the quiet answer to so much gathered stuff,

restless sleep invading my sun lover's dreams of soaking up a good life. dp

Flowers On the Table

 

I've got to find my own way to shake it off, that's what they keep telling me,

but, really, I don't know what it is. All the ways seem made for someone else's dance

party system.  That's the only thing I can write here down for sure. The rest is only

me pretending to be taking a serious nap, but it feels pretty empty, searching somewhere on the

inside of looking at my closed eyelids for what we lost when we were just beginning. And you still stand there on

 

the other side of my radio demanding some kind of perfect payment from my least awakened thought.

I know it. You know it. But I'm still flabbergasted at the distance to the sun and

back every day just to maybe find a poem among the poison mushrooms growing by the side

of the road to make you smile again. I thought this was supposed to make you feel

like crowing like you can never get enough, but, look, it makes me feel so tired, all

 

this trying to be something, I mean, whatever happened to loving the moment, instead of waiting for the right time to arrive?

It gets lonely. It all seems like a hideous crime that no one wants to say out

loud has happened. I can't stand having to play a game just to get you to share what's in

your head with what's in my heart. There's your poem, at least for now. My suggestion is

to use it to get into your dreams this very night. Oh, what have we done? Oh. Oh.Oh.

     

 

Happy(an early draft)

by Darryl Price