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The Zilch Belches Out Its Own National Anthem To the Trendy Crowds


by Darryl Price



 
" Not a day goes by/ that isn't stabbed with common sorrow"--Maurice Manning

Crazy's alright by me if it's a harmless plea for some little sanity, or unavoidable by birth but it just won't do
for tricks. Like say I go over there right now
and poke that sleeping sparkling, smouldering dragon faced thing
right in the eye socket and then chase  
him back into a thimble of a pocket 
clock case for you and snap it all shut tight again before
he can even begin to singe the
flags on the ropes hanging above our sweaty little heads--
 
with just a wave of my four magic
fingers and a remarkably curvaceous assistant thumb or two.That'd be worth
a little applause maybe? They secretly think I
can read their minds. Are they out 
of THEIR minds? What I want is
to get close to you. Going to the top of the
moon someday? Just a hunch. Me? Hoping to catch
the corner of your eye. That's about it. Honestly. That's about it.
 
All colors on a kite to me. Different stripes of
flowers in one hand or another will still disappear sooner than later. Have
to keep it fresh you know. But that's a momentary madness. I swear they
could all brick themselves in like a living pyramid in 
front of you and I'd still notice
your presence as being the most interesting thing in the room like a
fresh green morning smell you just can't pretend not to notice. You instead wait
to laugh with the rest of them. Wow. No exclamation mark needed.
 
Even if you raised say your sweetest, quietest and softest
hand silently over your simplest mouth yet you can make and calmly looked far enough
away, I suppose I could take that. I wish
I could give you such outbursts of utter joy. Believe 
me. I'd balance on one wheel on
top of a big rubber ball sitting
on a cat's eye marble all day long
if I thought it would delight you
 
into forgetting your own earthly sentence for
one single minute and let it all be
okay. Not cause you to blow ice
blue crystals out your nose like a 
human slushy machine but actually move you
to smile at me and think of
happiness as a worthy act. That would be
what it is to try to be brave I think. Worth the other, better try. Well, enough so as to keep on 'til morning brings us its cold wet newspaper warnings.
 
 022310



Spring Rain (The View from the Marcel)
 
Under the sky we are as it
were a hooded lot of ambiguous bent
forward trolls protecting our bellies and knuckles
as if they were made of gold,
bent by clouds as easily as a
knife bends butter to its scraping will.
Even the few birds who wish to
swim in such an electric current are
reduced to nothing more than brittle pieces of
 
feather sticking to the bottom of a
giant pair of soggy shoes.Everything is
splashed or splashing splashes all around us. There's no
point to the hat that's drowning in the ring. The rain puts
its thin little fingers right up under
all sides in trying to pull it
full off over our heads. There's no
point to the shoes the pants
or the coat.These have all been
painted the same color as the all
 
consuming paste of rain. You either embrace
your right to be this wet or
get out of the game as soon
as possible. What makes all this tolerable
is the fuzzy cool frosting like image of
your cone shaped slicker twirling out in front of me like a lost
cherry blossom around and around your white
and wading skinny knees. It's like a wonderful
toy that can't be seen except in
times like these and can't be played with outside 
 
unless you are the one willing to go
where it first appears--and no one knows
exactly where's that location until they see
it true for themselves. And so I
do not pull the collar up around
my neck. I do not step lightly
through the deluge. I say drown me
in your loveliness. Melt me in your
brave little stance. I'll run into the
sewer when you're gone like a suicide.
 
Darryl Price    030110





Bonus poems:



White Powder

These trees today are
like kites tied sideways
to the ground.I 
live in a window you see, the one
where you left me.
I feel a breeze
but I feel nothing else

but this space I
fill up with my arms
and legs. So many
people find each other. 
They hold onto the
fact as they bow
to the wind and

smile and don't ever
get cold. I am
aware of the paint
that was once young
and smooth,now shredding 
little by little into
a fine white powder.

Darryl P.


If It's Not Love Maybe
 
it's your iPod. If it's
not love it's your TV.
If it's not love what have
we got? If it's not love
it's the philosophical
 
elephant in the
automated sea. If
it's not love what was the
question? If it's not love
what was your laughter for?
If it's not love it's the
 
last lemon. If it's not
love it's all strangers in
the grass. If it's not love
it's living alone in
the city. If it's not
love it's your not destiny.
 
If not love that's not
the real you. If it's not
love can the universe
be trusted with caring
for us? I've no answer.
If it's not love I quit.
 
 
Darryl P. 



A Novel

A single slice of leftover yellow
birthday cake has taken quietly to
the air like the most natural
creature alive but only because a
small white saucer pushes it along its way.

This still moist clump of last
night's bittersweet memory with its thick
chocolate tan line is sunning itself
right where there should be a
warmly overlapping coffee shore run.

Instead it slowly continues its climb
away from the red and pink
checkered kitchen table cloth as easily
as a child jumping up a 
flight of stairs, wobbles, maybe once,

maybe twice, before literally sailing around
the room like some Saturday morning 
cartoon spaceship. Three sets of eyes,
none of them belonging to either
the boy or the dog, saw

and recorded everything in minute detail.Then
the phone rings. The dog spoke. 
The cake on its plate crashed
loudly into the linoleum like an
unwanted newspaper, spilling the irrefutable facts

but unable to hide or contain
the sudden truth. And the mess was
a truth that had to be cleared up
but with an unmistakable headline still
visible through the tangled wreckage.The

dog looked up at the boy
with absolutely no emotion in its voice and said,
"Don't answer that. Try again. I
really think you almost had it
that time. Dad would be so proud of you."

Darryl P.



Apis Indica 
 
I really don't
have the heart to
try and write the
love you deserve
anymore. It's
taken everything,
every breath, every
circle around
 
the sun just to
hold the pen against
the paper.
I know you want
it all and I'm
much less than whole.
I'm like a moon
stuck in one year,
 
illumined but
stopped and chipping.
You've still got plenty
of stars to
be swimming through.
All I can bring
you now is a
slight dusting of
 
the same light you've
already seen
blowing across
these waves. Go now.
Swim that damned channel
before we're sunk
too deep to rise
again in Spring.
 
D.P.   12/09/08










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