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.
note. 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:
by Darryl Price
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.
4
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This was first published in its original form by Gemma White for sacred/profane issue 1.
This neat little poem thing was written as part of a much larger series of poetic utterances as word paintings that I called NO POETRY (after I had read the submission guidelines to a new literary magazine) that no one seemed to care much for at the time of its cuckoo birth, but I felt it deserved another shot all on its own two rubbery feet. I'm happy it came to me like this. I stand by its final creation.Then and now.
Does anybody else realize how absurdly asinine a thing it is to say NO POETRY? Really? That's like saying no beauty, no chaos, no new thought, no dancing, no fooling around,let's see those hands,no freedom thinking, no deeper meanings, no exploring in the dark, no coloring outside the prescribed lines, step where we tell you to step,no noise, noise, no poise, certainly no grace from within your own spinning top,nothing on your own time mister or in your own hand,dear god,no stopping to rest, no choices except those we choose for you, no new students allowed in the classroom, no room period, no strumming, no humming, no skinny dipping, no players from another planet allowed, and please, let me say it just one more time, what a perfectly boring ass, it's like saying no sex, no fooling around with this sacred thing we all worship for our jobs,(this is serious business missy and for only the most serious minded of students who are all in agreement to be just like us forever--members of our one and only exclusive little writer's club only), no blacks no reds no yellows no whites without the bulbs included(It's nonsense I tell you! Why? Because all great writing throughout the history of this great planet is poetry, that's why? Ever read James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, D.H.Lawrence? Harold Pinter? Virginia Woolf? Faulkner?) It reminds me of the rich kid with ownership to all the baseball bases--you either do what he says or you won't be allowed to play with his swell stuff. Well you know what I say to these incredible bores, you are all snobs of the very highest order(congratulations!Another award..) and I say let's have even more poetry from everybody, all the poetry we can get, and from everywhere on earth we can get it! And let's forget about even labeling it as such. Poetry can be anything you want it to be. You're the inventors. Go make something you can believe in again.Others have given it their stamp,so far so good, so far, but to quote a famous movie, "their hearts were no bigger than yours."
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"the small lie, if you insist, the puzzled exaltation of rising." wonderful form, first thing i read this morning and it inspired me.
Marcus, looks like at least 30 other people disagree with us, but I want to thank you for seeing the merit in this one.I still love it.
Good piece, DP. I like this form.
"the correct use of the young money's predicament"
Superb.
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Great language. Very much enjoyed.