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The Planetary Phosphorescent Horses


by Darryl Price




sprang straight up to their full galloping heights roaming over your hills like constantly shifting eyes, your 

strange approximated illuminating 

hair like ghosts giving birth to a tender smell 

of green sea foam. This was all I saw, but it was 


quite enough to imprint its smell upon me with your brilliant 

and eternal hymnal in hand. No voice cried out louder 

within my own sacrifice at the great sad 

invisible risk involved, no breath penetrated 


its fragrant tendrils to my deeper soul. And for this I am 

to be forever pulverized like a sand 

castle on the stone dead kingdoms of a once 

sweetly abandoned rain moon's pocketed face. You're not waiting 


around. How is this not poetry? There is 

not a green drop of dream left to be had, of brutal fever, 

of unprocessed wind, of paper sheaf you are 

not the secret central ash made flag of, in 


my staunch piratical mind. You shape rain into 

an apple. Thunder is your drum drip from the 

honey vat of all my letters, my pungent paints. How 

is this not a beat for me to bang heavily upon the door with? How am 


I not supposed to chant you are of lights made? 

The songs of colors elevates your beauty 

like the head of a diamond cathedral 

shining in all directions and nothing else 


plunders me more silently, while unfolding

my secret smile. So I go on, across the struck down 

universe, an ancient house, with a handful 

of stars inside, ticking like a reprimanding Grandfather clock's grinding teeth. 





Bonus:


Thoughts Before Jumping Out of a Window


by Darryl Price


I.

 

       The vile departed head barker sends around once more to

       capture the smudged meadow infested trees, but of course they move in different

       smuggled time circles than us and are able to look directly


       at you without breaking into many blue pieces of their own smashed lovemaking. That is their

       porcelain strength and their elegant purpose in this reimagined life—to continue

       their mad cap mushroom adventure around the whole wide world, observing


       and recording all the poor bastard seasons of everything to come.

       That's why it's sad to poets like me that so

       many truly ugly machines have been made to massacre


       them and us. We built our paper houses out of their fantasia

       slices because we know deep down they will likely stand

       the test of time until the end of all days. That's probably when


       they'll finally open up their many sad eyes anyway, instead of

       seeing everything through a prayer of roots and branches,

       and try to forget this ever happened to them, like this, until then they'll


       likely have memorized all the names for all the animals

       who harmed them even a little. It can so be helped.

      That's why to see them as they truly are you must only believe in yourself at long, long last.




 II.


Again. Feel the water animal. It is a familiar

form that came from the stars, too.

Inside its body there are a million

ways to smile pretty and die. The storms at

sea are a conflict between the explosions

of light and a sudden urge to

walk upright. Even the tiniest shell that

 

makes up sand wants to be found

out by something still dreaming of sky. I wish there

was a simpler way to tell you

something surprising in complete and utter silences, but it

wouldn't matter. The only thing you can

feel is the song you are singing

as it makes its way out of

 

your inner most chambers to dissolve like chalk in your rain. You

dazzle me all by yourself. These few

words are only fingers walking along your worn away

edges, seeking some truth that is hidden

inside the grooves like a running off the plate grilled to please sunrise.

It happens and it never happens again

and it never stops happening to me.



III. Please

 

 

Here is a sword never laid to lamb

before. Here is a tree top

on a fast slab of harvested moons. It must

all be eaten up immediately.

Here is a wild wind containing

your hands holding mine and 

in its same breath. It will always

 

carry our flag down the

stairs with absolute love. Here's a sound that

no one else is capable of making.

It's spinning out of control

just for you. I can't help it

if it only wants to see

you shout at something. I've said it should belong

 

to everyone in order

to truly be set free, but

it will not vibrate between

any mountains of cloud without

your pretty shimmering

presence currently on board. That's the way these things

work. Here is a whole minute's

 

worth of silver bells ringing just because

you slipped on a certain

pair of old shoes this very fine Tuesday

morning. Type that out. They'll get it

if they want to. You can't make

art for anyone but the

ones who'll never truly know why.



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