The Sorry March to the Even Sorrier Sea
by Darryl Price
goes on and on. Like it's a sad mad season on Mars, well it isn't, is it? Sometimes I have to
wonder whatever happened
to us, to make us forget how well
we already know how to
sing as good as any larks do? I have never wanted
to drown, but I've fallen asleep
and found myself dangerously adrift in the thrashing sheets of sorrow,
closer to the always
walking away from us hungry waves a squishy bit of time or two.
I guess that's about all it takes these days. Oh please just
wake up already. Wake up please, for me, for yourself, then come back my lingering on the frosty edges of morose mundane meditation love. Remember yourself. You are you.
Here's what this is: me tapping
on the cold cold groundswell like a groundhog, or else throwing wind around in a cage like silent shit to the stars
simply to see if you are
still out there/in there/ listening somewhere
for the sound of another
beating heart and if you
are then we are not ever to be so very lost and alone again, we are not, we have never been, even if
we are here together just this one particular once upon a time. That's
all. Any more would just be too cruel to the unborn dancers among us.
Read into it what you
will. It's your freedoms we are
talking about here, not those to come. I'm just
saying hello my fellow prisoners. How are you feeling today?
The rest of the conversation
depends so very much upon you wanting to listen in between the rubber talking masks of doom and gloom.
Your own fingers or whatever else
you use to make sense of doing the walking up and the walking down on
this dreaming staircase we call our wobbly little life's walk about. We've been taken away
by born absurdist thinkers,
dangerous activists of cracks in the ground. It's
the very arrogance of
their impunity that strengthens
a class system that harms
the poor and all animals. Wake up! A pillow is no substitute for the real thing-- into your waiting arms or nowhere I say we go, again and again, until it's morning again all the merry way.
052610
What I Would Like to Say to You
Is this the place, where I finally
end up frozen dead in my tracks, found walking alone with a stick
and a dog,sporting
a cat hat, alone on the tip
top of a hill, no longer
concerned with the wind's
icy fingers scratching down my neck? I'm here
and yet I'm also at home everywhere in this God forsaken place.
I prefer the big rocks, you know, and
the soft and green and thick
moss of mid to late summertime, the
great fluidity of
that enormously beautiful animal we love to see and hear
and call the water,
soaking up the sun, the
burning maidens splash dancing all over
with little white clouds tied
around their fabulous bellies. Ah, who
would ever want this vision to
end, brothers,without starting
to weep uncontrollably?Yet there it
is all perfectly wrapped up
in an otherwise grey
chunk of missing road laid out here long before me. An end. The end. Every step
or misstep I have taken now leading me
around in circles of sorrow and grief has
finally dropped me off the grid's fingertips without you at my hand or elbow today.
Whatever rain there was a moment ago now
has pulled itself back out of
the mist shot like a reversed arrow into the past. Perhaps these
angels they love to talk about so much
are only made out of the
things you cannot ever truly see for yourself.
Nobody's coming, not
for me, not even buzzards,
no wolves or snakes unless
they're already here
and I'm just what's left with
a few bones thrown in for
good measure. Did I make
this poem up or did
it make me up into its own private touring song this morning?Oh well then perhaps
one more cup of cola will do
for the long night ahead. This letter was
never in my pocket
to begin with and shall
never be mailed to you at all.
Darryl Price 072706-060110
wonder whatever happened
to us, to make us forget how well
we already know how to
sing as good as any larks do? I have never wanted
to drown, but I've fallen asleep
and found myself dangerously adrift in the thrashing sheets of sorrow,
closer to the always
walking away from us hungry waves a squishy bit of time or two.
I guess that's about all it takes these days. Oh please just
wake up already. Wake up please, for me, for yourself, then come back my lingering on the frosty edges of morose mundane meditation love. Remember yourself. You are you.
Here's what this is: me tapping
on the cold cold groundswell like a groundhog, or else throwing wind around in a cage like silent shit to the stars
simply to see if you are
still out there/in there/ listening somewhere
for the sound of another
beating heart and if you
are then we are not ever to be so very lost and alone again, we are not, we have never been, even if
we are here together just this one particular once upon a time. That's
all. Any more would just be too cruel to the unborn dancers among us.
Read into it what you
will. It's your freedoms we are
talking about here, not those to come. I'm just
saying hello my fellow prisoners. How are you feeling today?
The rest of the conversation
depends so very much upon you wanting to listen in between the rubber talking masks of doom and gloom.
Your own fingers or whatever else
you use to make sense of doing the walking up and the walking down on
this dreaming staircase we call our wobbly little life's walk about. We've been taken away
by born absurdist thinkers,
dangerous activists of cracks in the ground. It's
the very arrogance of
their impunity that strengthens
a class system that harms
the poor and all animals. Wake up! A pillow is no substitute for the real thing-- into your waiting arms or nowhere I say we go, again and again, until it's morning again all the merry way.
052610
Voting Instructions
"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."--Aesop
"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."--Aesop
I'm for people.
I'm for mushrooms.
I'm against ants, maybe. Is that unkind?
Absolutely for sunflowers.
Against those snakes
who kill for shade.
For elephants.
Against hunting
for fun. I'm for
comic books and
against snobs who
think art is worth
more than a tender touch.
I'm for laughing
at the movies,
books, strawberries.
Against cheating
the oceans out
of their bounty by dragging nets.
I'm for coral
reefs, sharks even,
but against the
scientists who can
only believe in
what they can prove in a test tube,
philosophers who
love to argue
to the death.
I'm for loud music,
against bass
as the only
heard instrument.
I'm for wild trees
and plenty of
them! I'm against
houses being too
close together.
I'm for nectoring
monarchs who
could care less
about us human beings.
I'm for pictures
of my friends, not
files, living well
in your own chosen way.
I'm against the
definitions
of God. I'm for
a starry night.
I'm against smog
just so we can
make some big cash to stash.
I'm for chewing
gum but I'm against
littering. I'm
for poetry,
against writing
to attack and
wound. I'm for a love
that defends all.
that forgives all,
and includes all.
The only reason
to go to
the stars is to
realize the
light extends down
through all our concepts
of why we
are here in the first place. Not worth
fighting over.
Darryl Price
What I Would Like to Say to You
Is this the place, where I finally
end up frozen dead in my tracks, found walking alone with a stick
and a dog,sporting
a cat hat, alone on the tip
top of a hill, no longer
concerned with the wind's
icy fingers scratching down my neck? I'm here
and yet I'm also at home everywhere in this God forsaken place.
I prefer the big rocks, you know, and
the soft and green and thick
moss of mid to late summertime, the
great fluidity of
that enormously beautiful animal we love to see and hear
and call the water,
soaking up the sun, the
burning maidens splash dancing all over
with little white clouds tied
around their fabulous bellies. Ah, who
would ever want this vision to
end, brothers,without starting
to weep uncontrollably?Yet there it
is all perfectly wrapped up
in an otherwise grey
chunk of missing road laid out here long before me. An end. The end. Every step
or misstep I have taken now leading me
around in circles of sorrow and grief has
finally dropped me off the grid's fingertips without you at my hand or elbow today.
Whatever rain there was a moment ago now
has pulled itself back out of
the mist shot like a reversed arrow into the past. Perhaps these
angels they love to talk about so much
are only made out of the
things you cannot ever truly see for yourself.
Nobody's coming, not
for me, not even buzzards,
no wolves or snakes unless
they're already here
and I'm just what's left with
a few bones thrown in for
good measure. Did I make
this poem up or did
it make me up into its own private touring song this morning?Oh well then perhaps
one more cup of cola will do
for the long night ahead. This letter was
never in my pocket
to begin with and shall
never be mailed to you at all.
Darryl Price 072706-060110
Wonderfully strange & evocative, Darryl :)
Oh Darryl absolutely brilliant beginning! starting like it had been going on silently somewhere else. This took me in and did not let go...
Loved it!! Def fave
Enjoyed this poem, DP. I like the mix here - absurdist thinkers, dangerous activists, another beating heart, fellow prisoners...
Thank you for these important reminders, Mr.D.
Lonely but free?
I've often thought of poetry as a kind of secret code for talking to others of like mind. John said the world is run by insane people. Certainly there's an argument to be made for it. But my point is as long as we have each other's presence in mind there's at least a bit of hope--of some kind. And I know how trite that sounds, but I don't care. We need to make the effort to take care of one another even when we ourselves are feeling lost and so alone.Writing a poem is a way,just one way, of taking care of you even when I'm not around you. Let me try one more time: they can burn everything to the ground both visible and invisible but a poem on the right day at the right hour can resurrect the sun.
this might sound weird, Darryl, but reading this poem i imagine myself as an oil covered sea animal in the Gulf saying these very words. Very well done!
I like this idea very much, Sara, and am tempted to put it into the poem somewhere. Although obviously it's already there.Thanks for that wonderful image.