by Darryl Price
All along scared of the lovesickness finding me.
I'm not proud of sending that sweet choir
on its way without a kind word chopped into
its begging cup. Who cares? I'm scared. The problem
is this house; it's sad. I notice when
someone floats a shipwreck in front of me. Things like
gold, scattering flecks of something sparkling rotating around your
eyes as magnificent as newly minted satellites. I don't want
to fill in the blanks for lost keys. I've
had enough of that long suffering turning around. All
along scared of falling to the dark side
of this feeling because it's just easier than
admitting to the light of your presence for me. Still
I feel like I'd do anything to keep
you lit-up like that, but that's not my
rightful voice, is it now? All along scared of
the lovesickness. I'm not going to show you
my understanding. This map shall remain where it
is buried, inside another useless poem's pocket. Just a
bunch of rattling on words, forcing you to draw
the curtains shut, slamming the door with an insulting stare. I'm still able
to see you, but the rest of me
will fade more and more along the edges. A star belongs
in a star's ocean. I'll try not to
disturb you as I wash by. Maybe scared isn't
the way of saying this, but thank you
seems so little to say. Asking for nothing—
there's a deafening explosion in my chest I
can't seem to explain, except to say it
sounds like your name being sung by a choir. Asking for
nothing—I stumble back to my car door
reeling from this trance like driving into first falling
snow. Scared of being there, all alone without
your head to hold, to kiss, to connect
me to everything that matters. Not interested in breaking an
already broken heart. Not interested in a world
torn from you. Not interested in a
symphony if I can't hear your teeth talking
in my personal space. Not interested in being a
stranger exiled into the sad wilderness of nowhere
near where you are being alive. I'd rather be lost
anywhere close with you as my dearest unknown friend.
I'm now waiting for my heartbeat to slow
down, I can feel my escape through the burning
fire. All along as I said scared of
getting a lovesickness; hey, at least I'm never
going to hand you a lie on a platter. But neither
will I pretend living without you doesn't blind me to the rest of the world.
Bonus poems:
A Violin Window Begins to Play by Darryl Price
You Were This Close by Darryl Price
I don't know if we'll meet again
in the sea of light. Circumstances
aren't only up to human
beings. After all maybe it's
all drunk circumstance, but that doesn't
answer the blinding question,
it only poses some more. This
is what we know. You are what I
knew surfacing in the sky, a
deeply flying dream on fire. That
doesn't give you anything to
go on. It's a story stuck to
another story's moisture pack
inside a larger jar of sad consuming stories.
You can see this picture from
your bedroom window if you like. You can know
its raw material when your
feet suddenly hit the ground. I held you once
and it didn't feel like the end
of the world to me. That's what you
give off. I'm a different kind
of continuous animal.
My hair is full of birds and wheat
fields and luminous leaves. I can't
deny this. I no longer want
to. I only meant to find the
right words to thank you. And gift you with
this. All else is what'll betray us in the end.
Milk and Cookies by Darryl Price
The door to anywhere swings because the
universe is hanging on by a large
loose hinge attached to a butterfly's weeping neck.
That could possibly be your own dead town's cryer
if you wanted to live there, or you could simply
pass through, get something to eat, and maybe bed
down for the night. We could always say no
to their pitiable, imploring songs of cheese--
you know when we had each other's ears to chew. They
only need to still own you for the small
battery life left in your star. You don't
get to make sense of it all, even your
wish to be somewhere alone, when alone
is the one thing you can't stand to admit
to hating. After all they sold us all
those failing lies a long time ago and
we decided then to believe in our own
innocent attempts at understanding
the art of not fighting, only you went
crawling back to them with a million fake
arrows in your chest, saying how sorry
you were to have behaved so badly in
front of their protective gates, and could you
oh, please just have your old plastic crown placed back
on your sorrowful head? You said yes to the
milk and cookies of enormous greed. I'm not here saying I blame
you. I just happened to notice when you
were gone, that you stood in a Barber's shaped
garden forevermore after that and didn't move a muscle. That's
the thing that broke my heart, then and now. I
once believed you could talk to animals
and make tiny green things grow out of the dirty
ground, even the hard hearts of stones of others. That's my
fault. I was looking past you. Looking for
a friend. That Someone I used to know so well and liked to smell.
from What Did You Expect?
well, I'm trying.
Sad moon child, eyelids painted like sea shocked green walls of wave. I see it and it hurts me a lot. I'm not just lost on your face, my dear cousin!Candles throwing melted circles like burning nets made out of nothing but the ghosts of blazing fires around you, whipping up storms all to surround the clammy flickering walls like ghost dancers in stoned out love. No naming the special thing we made between us, but a snotty questioning of its deepest intentions instead. I do get it. We are not always going to be around to play this full thing out for each other, right here as now,but what about in the right now of the now we somehow shared together then? I say we're only lost in the moment's tree bark parking lot because we stubbornly refuse to be found out as truthful servants...
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"What Heaven creates
let compassion protect."
--Lao Tzu
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Gripped the heart and didn't let go. And this line took a bite out of it: "Not interested in a symphony if I can't hear your teeth talking in my space."
Thanks Mathew.
Beautiful.
*
"there's a deafening explosion in my chest I / can't seem to explain, except to say it / sounds like your name being sung. "
Thank you, Bill. I know I say this over and over again, but it means so much to me to put my heart and soul into a piece of writing and have it mean something to someone else. This one took a lot out of me because I refused to let it be easy. I had to make it honest, and honestly that hurts.
Heartfelt and true. *
Beautiful Darryl, you and your poems. Loved these xo
Myra and Charlotte--thank you.