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The road is nothing but a blind beggar banging a tin cup against the sun's piled up with snow front door


by Darryl Price


 

 

alright, alright but not so much of a friendly

    little cigar-chomping companion-like a friendly

ghost! That sweeping hair of longed for sleeping only

    awaits you once you've drowned too

 

many missed punches already into

    the feckless chin of  a Mr. Faithful (TO KNOW YOU). That

hanging lucky number seven is never

    anything but true to its written word. You don't

 

have to worry too much about that

    kind of thundering blues hitting

you where you sit. They'll find

    you out. Just embrace the morning news like 

 

you are alive somehow however

    it arrives. From that

lonesome train window gaze out

    on the sea of possibilities

 

and don't let them tell

    you there's nothing on the other

side of the end of the

    world. No matter where you are

 

tonight you are someone who

    might just as easily fall madly in love as not. There's stopped time in every minute you know. Have a walk around.

Just know this one thing before you go—even

    if you win you'll still lose something very big

 

as you stumble upon

    your luck like a bundle of tied together magic

sticks. The cold cold message is all

    the rage these days. Everything changes.

 

No love is really safe. This camping

    out in your wildest dreams in ditches

is a kind of melting on false

    stars if you ask me, of long lost treasuries, just memories,

 

of wheels marching up to make sure

    something runs straight on ahead into a thick brick wall. The endless fire

is just the familiar cost of it all,

    of the roll of so many angel heads.

 

Again this is all worth it,

    I think, just can't be stopped or

reversed once it's started. Hardly anyone anywhere

    gets to say goodbye anymore. That's what

 

always sets my own words apart

    from the chain—I want that

late chance, even carved out of

    pure nothingness but a true physical

 

sensation in the cold night,

    sitting in a beat up room

of my own making, waiting

    for the next sunrise to make

 

me admit to myself that

    no one is coming, everyone

has left.  This terrible racket

    is all I'm ever left with.

 

 

Darryl Price    Saturday, August 10, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonus poem:


A History of All Wild Growth Individuals, Mixed Emotions, Chocolate Bears


by Darryl Price


The door was open. Maybe we fell in.
Maybe we were pushed. Maybe a silver-
backed dragon pulled us in, hanging between
his flying whiskers and baked enamel

like human spaghetti. They make up their
minds to do something out of a complete
trust in the symmetry between pale and
dark the way we make up our minds to make

a joyful noise over the loudspeakers. It's
all good, or it's all at least as much as
we have time for before "the ravages"
sweep us all down river. None of us were in

any big hurry to climb out. So don't
pretend we knew something when we didn't.
We just decided to go on from there
for a laugh. It only got scary when

the dragon came back demanding moral
compensation for some lost bit of youth. We don't
subscribe to your religion we shouted
together, but he soaked us with his drunken breath

anyway. This could leave a gaping hole 
in your heart if you let it or it could 
simply open another vault in your 
already oversprung minds. We prefered 

the dream. Just for the freedom of it. That's
the real story, but we know you aren't 
listening to that nonsense right now. You
want that dragon to be slain, but we're tall

vegetarians who like to eat meat, 
too. So don't get us wrong. We like having 
dragons in the world. They may not have the
best manners when it comes to household things,

which are not treasures, but they make up for 
it with their enthusiasm for play. 
That's all it takes really to realize
you're not trapped anymore in an adventure-- 

you didn't know you'd started the moment
you fell in love with everything. It all
comes back to you, not them, not it, but you. 
You and a cardboard bar full of brand new friends. 


 

They Don't Know

by Darryl Price


 

what they are mooning about. They want to scare you with

their caked on close up sinister carved smiles. They are pretty scared of you alright.

They are so afraid you might not love them anymore.

They remember love happening to them and now they

are so cranky after the fact, waking up from that mind-numbing dream. They

remember turning away love for spite. They want to say they

are sorry that we were hurt by their prickliness back then. They are

not very good with real words. They have used words as weapons

to misinform and disarrange you all your life. They have brought this last

supper upon themselves they will say through their many fallen tears,

but that is a lonely penance and not good for much

else than stone cutting. They were learning children once just like you and me.

They still do you know deserve to give all you've got to the

waiting world in your own way. They want to take your places,

remember this, only if they are evil. They should

immediately allow you to rightly take the

world over without a world war of the hearts being started again. They can't

understand or accept the time is now. They live in

their balanced haircuts like frozen cups of coffee offered to

an ice queen on holiday. They live in front of their

stolen money TVs like endless hungry gulls

circling an open air garden restaurant all day and night long. They are

constantly pretending not to notice the holes in

their shoes are letting in cooler and colder air. They

really don't know what they are so mad about in the first

place. They are sad and anxious. They still deserve your respect.

They still must have dignity in them. They're soon to be gone. They'll

become whatever we resurrect to take their places.

 

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