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Song to a Plum


by Darryl Price


"In my life, I love you more." John Lennon/The Beatles


We were never really rolling in the
same Chinese dragon bowl together, but
our heart bag was just big enough for two.
I loved that. Chocolate is such a good
peace maker among friends. Don't you think? I

mean, it's the cake that brings out all the sharp
knives. However, we could use them to cut
ourselves a large enough hole in the back,
when no one is watching, and escape out
to the night, which is just another black

bag. Potentially, to square one again.
If we were in the same blue bowl, it was
more like some kind of scattered light from a
nearby window pane capturing sunset
than a little fire started from a dream

spark. I saw your instantaneous speed,
like a landscape from a slow moving train,
skating on by. Go out of frame. I've spent
my whole life painting different clouds, in
search for the right sky, ever since, on all

the ceilings of my life. It's the least I
can do. That's what Rembrandt taught me. You can't
return to anywhere, but you can be
mentally present and accounted for
by your actions in the now seat. That way,

you can also see into all things, back
and forth, like with deliberate brush strokes,
finding exactly what you are looking
for still being itself in the not so
lost after all moment. That bag's always

sitting there, where you and I left it. Some
people might go mad looking inside it
much too eagerly. Others get mad at
deciding if it's worth the bother. For
me, I like the realness of its domain,

just as it is, without putting too much
false hope around where its portal lives. Does
it really matter if it is endless eyes or
a kissable mouth you are drawn into?
You can't suck the wisdom out of its wound,

but you can kick the knowledge of it on
down the road with your travels--but only
if you are not already carrying
enough heavy bags with you . You've still got
to be steady on your feet, my friend, eh?




To Cry You a Bird

by Darryl Price



The table is the first thing to be set, but
the stage is always being dismantled, by some Joe with
no remorse for the carpentry involved, in that particular sorrow.

He's always standing in the wings, with his cardboard box
in his hands, waiting to sweep the place clean, the
silent moment you exit. Time for something new to start

the next chapter. Immediately, if possible. You can join in
or you can bloody well fade away. Being on the
lonely outskirts of newly happening towns is no summer picnic.
It only causes your own forgotten parts of a dream

to glow again, for a lost moment, in muted recognition;
nothing stays the same. It doesn't matter how much love
you added to it in your eight days of heaven

or hell. It has used up all of itself in
return. At least you gave it some of your own
motion. At least you made it move toward the freedom

of silvery dancing in the alive moonlight. I know how
much it took out of you. We all do. There's
only one thing that can come alive now, in that
same way, just not in that same room. Don't cry

for birds. They get to fly, whatever else befalls them.
You and I get to be ourselves, if we can
find ourselves, amongst all the modern wreckage. It all ends

up in the same warehouse, after coming off the same
barges, to be unceremoniously dumped into the same mountainous hole
full of cracked, broken and used stars. Even the ones

who remember your name won't want to carry that burden
forever. You've got to be the one to say your
own full name, to the whole damned, indifferent universe, and
mean it for as long as you can muster a

somewhat steady, whistled tune. It's not a prayer. Don't bring
that nonsense into it. It's a declaration of independence, a
self-proclamation of being alive, no matter what dimension you find

yourself inhabiting, before the big red balloon pops, and spoils
all the fun and misery of life itself. Solving the
mystery doesn't solve anything. It only makes
it go that

much longer. The mystery of the mystery's like an onion.
It will make you cry, if you don't chew some
long lasting gum in the process. Turns out, the answer
is whatever it wants to be, because it's all in

your head. So choose wisely. Be mighty. Birds have very
little to do with it. They are the representatives of
just one simple, and at the same time, grand
possibility.

One unsure outcome among many mundane ways to get home
again to the place where you will always belong. You
can never go far enough away from yourself
to forget

to remember the human folly, but you might, to forgive
yourself for being curious of the obvious dangers so often.
We aren't the angels. We are the people. We made
beautiful music out of stones and storms.
That's our story.

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