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Rising


by Darryl Price


The coin, so little, the watch chain, the youth, the fading 

softening speech, each hand and finger, the panic modeled on your own eyes,   

the ashtray, certain stumps along the way, the long distance, the odd feather, the

jazz rope gone, the radiant shadow, the spine in gold letters,

 

the arches, the circumstances, the broke off mirrors, held up to crumbling 

stones, bracing us together like shields and swords, the collective grasses, being brutally torn away, the

nouns, the aesthetics, the city limits, the next year and the one after that, the

correct use of the young money's predicament, the bomb's electic ticking voice 

 

deafening the haunting of the obvious relevance, of this objectively written wizard song, for

only you , these boys, the light from those lamps, the bonkers

world, the baseball cap, the old pine tree, the flapping

din, by contrast then, the most maddening thing, the apartment's darkening torch, soon to be

 

warm to the touch, the red bricks, the chill outside, the window's diffusion, the paint-smell of last summer, the screen

door's swearing at God, the slam in the face, the fireside ceramic animals, that strange smell, that 

endless appetite, beneath, biting the inside of my mouth, the 

small lie, if you insist, the puzzled exaltation of rising.

 

 

 

section breaknote. Just because others have done their best to define poetry, you don't have to believe in them. You can undefine it--anytime you want. Set it free.

 

 

 

 

Bonus poems:



Bat Cave Gift Shop


by Darryl Price


Alice and I went into the bat cave, 
but we didn't see any bats. Trees don't 
come rooting around in there. Water comes. 
Because water goes wherever it wants. 
When it wants. I wanted so much to hold 
Alice's hand. Know I should've wanted 
more. It was probably expected. I 
felt alone, apart from reality. 

She was my reality. The guide told 
us to put on our sweatshirts and to watch 
out where we were going. Things could get kind 
of slippery real fast. Alice stamped her 
feet twice and grabbed my hand and squeezed. I felt 
right then I should do everything I could 
to protect her from everything in that 
strange cave world. It made me dizzy. It made 

me sick. It made me bats. And still no bats 
rotated down from the ceiling to get 
stuck in her auburn hair. Just let them try 
I thought. We moved into room after room 
of stuffy invisible damp curtains, 
but our hands stayed in one room together. 
That was perfect. I felt so happy I 
just wanted to stay there forever with 

Alice, hidden away in the pale dark
from all the ordinary things of this 
mad world, like all the watching and waiting 
anxious bats somewhere above us. Make no 
sudden moves. We began to breathe more fresh 
tasting air, to climb, to see more lightbulbs. 
And then we were led back into the gift 
shop where I bought Alice a red tee shirt 

that showed a bunch of black bats flooding out 
a cave entrance at dusk, disappearing 
over her one shoulder. It looked better 
on her than me and went quite well with her 
clear blue eyes. Ice cream with chocolate bat 
sprinkles. Alice smiling but showing no 
teeth. Car lights on. At last a chance to kiss. 
An Alice kiss. Ice cream kiss. The best kind.


 

 

 As Long As These Words

 

Are here I won't stop them from coming,

But if I'm already

Gone from your heart,then

At least let them serve

For paper lanterns somewhere in the future

 

That once I thankfully strung there.

Silence like snowflakes

Hits the ground, covers

Up many things. Roads

Have taken us nowhere.

Yours was the one

 

I chose to wander through

The most, always hoping

To find you, and

Instead wound up lost,

Alone somewhere in

The middle of my starving life. You can't ever 

 

Change this but I will

Remember your name came  

Like rain, sadly singing to itself this one last Autumn song, like a set of 

Tranquility arms set

Around my mind, like

Sudden bells, like endless

 

Bright weeds on a

Summer's worn trail, and when

Another dawn has

Disappeared into

Another line of

Cars, fat grunting trucks, I'll throw

 

A handful of pulverized

Dreams atop the story's

Submerged lips and bow

Once more to the notion

Of one star in

A hundred billion.

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