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Save the Spinning World

by Darryl Price

or do we tickle each other's private

stocks of fancy instead? I know which one

I would choose, but so do you, and that's how

the question's always changing places with the wrongheaded

answer's velcro-lined vest, bullet to blasting point, so nothing's ever

strictly black and white in our little bone of a town. Don't worry.

I've set the controls. We're free to roam the

interior of the poem at least

for a small while before it starts to wonder

where we've gone off to and starts to look

around for us with its webcam. See, that's

the risk you have to take when nature calls

you out to play a friendly game of hide

and seek. With its own stars for home base, it's

a con game to begin with. Everything

else is dealing with the risk and risking

its own neck in the pursuit of some good

old tasty meaning of life. Don't let them fool you

into thinking maybe its otherwise on the far eastern shores of Mars.

We're all asking the big questions even

while we're floating on the immaculate surface of the bluest clear-eyed suburban

pools imaginable, blown up like plastic donuts, daring

the universe to prove us wrong again. Do it.

Go ahead. I dare you. Make a great big honking noisy splash

right up here next to my ear, right here, and right now. I

dare you means I don't want to ever have to believe

in being so alone ever again. Show me something invincible,

touching me besides the burning

sun on my skin, the trapped water and the tethered wind

playing let's rip the invisible band-aid

off and on that stupid male donkey's

ass for some quick laughs ; I sink my own day further into

a feverish dreaming of swimming for my life, but

away from what? Well for starters how about those

puttied together paper politicians

who cast their doubts into the crowds like free mint flavored

tickets to a sold out baseball game all

in the name of getting a good paying

job for themselves? They're not actually

going to help you in any way once

they are elected. They're going to buy themselves some nice, new shiny

stuff. But I'm not going to waste my inches

making you another long list of things

that will always bother me. That's just no fun.

Leave it at that. Well we'd better be getting

back to our breath-taking seats. We've still got a job

to do. I just wanted you to know you

are among the good enough reasons to

believe in being here and getting there. Let's go show those crazy stars a great big beautiful thing or two.

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Author's Note

The irony of this question is of course that we always try to save the world and ourselves for at least one more day, one more round. Nobody's going to thank you for this, and even if they do, that moment of recognition will pass, because the danger will return, the need will return, your time is not up. So you have to be doing it for reasons other than respect or reward of any kind. You have to do it because it is who you are. Simple as that. The other half of the poem is about not being able to do more than hold hands during the fight, if you are lucky, with someone else you admire and love. You do what you can. What I can is write poems. I'm constantly baking them up and leaving them on your doorstep with a thank you note. Why? Because I'm pretty sure I could never do this, nor want to, without you.