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The People


by Darryl Price


 

 

living in the cross current lawn-care worlds don't give a whit about the so called

deeper things. They don't have to scrape and you can't

make them go to the river to see a sunset. They've got all their

bonafide luxuries in a smart little row like a monster let loose

in the house.  But sooner or later we all close out

everything we've collected to the obnoxious debates going on between

 

those of a nuclear laundry list say and the latest, commercial

cookie-dough dress codes of an ordinary life. It's all alright you know.

What's weird about when you do have any actual visitors from 

outer space? They never really visit; they just visit with

each other. Same old same old. Isn't everything already lonely (looking) enough

on our planet's tear stained face without our starting a

 

new uncomfortable war over that sad, long remembered, misunderstood dream

of an America we can all agree on? The mushroom

cloud's already made its pointy way up to the delicate, fragile sky in maximum fashion. I choose the healing poetry of a

newly sounding out life full of throat. I've seen their fires broadcast to the fine

hairs on the back of my neck. Give me another five

minutes. I'd like one more curve in the collective noun, please.

 

The correct use of a neglected blue sky, not Christ-like,

but still running. Life goes on. There's everything to fear.

That's what makes me laugh. The softly whispered mediocre lights-

out obsession with statistics as the ultimate law of the

desperate lowlands we now live on. The Beatles had it right

first. There's joy to be had in here among the

 

ruins as long as we have each other. Anything else

is a ticking lie. The empire goes on. We're the

ones with our passion suitcases spilled out onto the fair grounds like cheap poured thrills. Sit pretty my pretty. You'll be

fine, wise as any generous sower of dreams or else and even as well 

otherwise advertised. We are all time travelers. Like fingers, deep in the moon's

rise, roaring, awake, seeking. We run, dazzle between bursts of real life and its desire to be nothing more than a finer thought.

 

 

Bonus poem:


The Wind is an Invisible Army

by Darryl Price


 

today. I hear the clang and

tromp of their direct coming upon

me, a long deep breath grasping like

a train. It bangs inside the

meat of my cold window's veins

like a steady heartbeat, getting louder.

And yet I see nothing in

the parched up street but a

few tossing, twirling ballerina leaves, tacked

swinging from my mailbox a noose

holding a shrouded Newspaper, wearing a clear

raincoat spotted with dew, and there's an abandoned skeletal

bike animal rotting in the long reaching fingering

grasses like bamboo snakes. Any other sane person might

simply solve the new math problem by drawing

the blocking curtains together and squeezing down

into the corner of his favorite lumpy

chair and waiting for nothing and no one. I don't think

so. I'm like Dr. Who, in

that sense. I don't immediately reach

for any gun, and I'm somewhat

almost always interested in all new

forms of life presenting itself to

me. The army of the wind

could be a very beautiful, colorful

thing, even in its ugly, loud

advance on this safe house. One shouldn't give in to

bullying of course, by wind or by

any other means, but the opportunity

may arise to discover some fierce

mortal truth you haven't yet fathomed 

about the known universe in your

own backyard or circumstance. So the

ideal thing would be to put

on a heavy enough coat and

simply go outside and be inside

the thing. I think I'll do

just that. Now if you'll excuse

me, please. I've enjoyed our little

adventure, but it's time for me to go.

 

 

 

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