by Darryl Price
from here with its brightly polished fingers spread easily amongst
the cresting winds off the choppy
sky, circling the sun and sea splattered
cliffs like a lone marble rolling down a
smoothed out incline only to be turned invisibly
over again as if caught
swiveling inside a tedious glass
hour. It reaches bottom and it reaches
the top almost simultaneously
to my mind, living like a song on the
hairs of my neck, giving me this poem
to give to you. I only wanted to
breathe more deeply my peace and quiet this morning
without having to pay one red cent
of tribute to Beauty's restless wandering
around. She's like a sad old starlet
looking for a lost shoe from a long ago
coming of age party. That shoe will
not bring back any innocence to her
wrecked feet. Yet I must admit every strand
of hair that loosely dangles close to her cheek
still invites comparison with a million
lights shooting into forever,
some crazy waterfalls dancing inside
other even more wondrous waterfalls
ad infinitum. It's all a dumbfounding,
puzzling miracle's what it
is. Like looking into a wishing well's
big moon soaked watery eyes and not being
able to blink away. And it's happening
to me right now. Would you believe that thing's
still going at it? The thrill ain't gone. She alone
will always remain walking in and out
of that solid enough picture, a whirlwind behind all the illusions
of our world at random, being
nothing more or less than always herself. I guess
that's what I'd like to tell you. That and the
fact I'm obviously getting older than the trees now.
At least we're able to catch a little thought of her
before the sun breaks down into long blazing heaps.
Bonus poems:
Sea
To our credit we bravely walked into the coral
caves with our ancestral humanity about our necks and
opened a doorway to the sky with an air of resolute courage intact.
To shore, of course, and then to the big messy overgrown
plants that have always been the island's staunch receivers. Stars like someone wearing little
lavender shoes command all the attention of the big winds as always.
It follows from this that the slower-moving
molecules among us will have this same energy path to gain momentum
eventually in the grand scheme of things and turn
back into absolute mind, to one being, rather
than to the name of God, a good landscape for the sun to
affirm or deny the truth from again and again.
my Euro pen-headed friend but you've just about
forgotten to remember the Alamo, the one that's still asking you
to make your quick choices known or get lost out in the wilderness of another writer's
story, in another time and place, the one floating on your mind like
a giant golden Buddha belly, perpetually laughing all the
way to heaven and or hell, because you can't have both the mud god's good nature and
the sky's relentless pounding sorrows in your ears to hoist yourself upon and
to cling to unless you are also willing to walk upright like a man in
a man's body. Bears only get to do it on all fours because they've made
a workable art of it for instance, and that painting is still drying
on the easel of life on earth as we know it. They might turn out to prefer
space walking. Or the put upon salmon might well invent a better
way to die trying and change the course of all our histories. A pebble is as
capable as a bomb to destroy certain bendable truths. Dying isn't all for
nothing you know. But is part of the actual abundance that blurts out
our way continuously. I don't have to tell you about the many
amazing fruits and different kinds of existences among vegetables, now do I? All things
talk as they grow until they're completely out of breath, and even then can
make you weep for their stories. They speak for no one but themselves I am told (more often than
not). And I'm only here to speak on behalf of one of them too. Oh anything
else would be disingenuous. And yes my Dear lovers-of-the-
world-at-large please do come together as always, once more, and welcome the
inevitable changes that bring us new bird songs, bright brash winds, fresh smelling clouds, the grumpy
creaking behinds of the new little trees gaining their ancient woody wisdom from
the sun and the rain while we flicker on and off their screening leaves with both
incredible violence and undying love bleeding through our parched lips and
from our overwrought hearts like terrible banging ornate gates. Or do you simply prefer your poets to shut up and behave
like civilized guests when at the dinner table? I'm afraid I'm neither.
And I don't belong to you. I belong to me and I give myself over
to you sometimes, but that's another dilemma altogether. Shall we dance then? Are you ready for this?
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This is to show you what poetry can do and be when given the freedom it craves from you. It walks with you wherever you want to go,but it's no dog. It talks things over with you. It gets you to think about things on your own. It observes the land in a language all its own special brand, but can send delightful pictures dancing into your mind. It's playful that way. It's almost always serious. It's strange but not unpleasant. Whatever. The point is it is everywhere, if only you will look and see it striding next to you for your writerly self.
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"Like looking into a wishing well's / big moon soaked watery eyes and not being / able to blink."
Darryl says he's older. Maybe he is, but he hasn't lost the spring in his writing step.
*
"She's like a sad old starlet"
What a line, so original. Evocative.
Fave.
I love this once, twice, a thousand lyrical lines later. Older we might both be, but what youth exists in our hearts. Love.
Fave.
A wonderful poem Darryl. I love how you can keep a line going and interesting and wow and delicious at the same time.
Fave.
"She's like a sad old starlet
looking for a lost shoe from a long ago coming of age party. That shoe will not bring back any innocence to her wrecked feet."
YES!
"a sad old starlet
looking for a lost shoe from a long ago
coming of age party"-love this imagery, and the way you weave it in - the star again in the final line" "the sun breaks down in blazing heaps."
And this, from "Sad to Say": "do you simply prefer your poets to shut up and behave
like civilized guests when at the dinner table?"
I like the spirit of rebellion in these lines, of BIG written quietly, knowingly.