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Through a Sudden Window


by Darryl Price


There is someone looking for you
for himself or her. I don't know if they'll 
keep on looking forever when 
we live our present lives so far 
apart from each other. You might 
as well be behind a glass at 
all times. But I still would want that 

lucky person to somehow reach 
you and get consent to hold you. 
That would make the whole world trip thing worth it. 
Even if I can never see 
that feeling or feel that sighting of love 
myself. There's someone who completes
your chemical composition 

as himself, but he may not be 
that unselfish. He may refuse 
to know you as you are, and that 
would break my heart for you. Coming 
close to being almost complete 
is not the best way to walk through 
this ticking down life. But maybe 

he'll feel the inevitable 
pull, break the glass, or maybe the 
spirit of the glass'll recognize 
him and open itself up like 
a sudden window or a door 
inside the air. That's a moment 
wished for you. That's all I can say.  



Bonus poems:



I Don't Know by Darryl Price

how many more
times I can

see her without
falling in love.



Days by Darryl Price

I don't have anything left for you. Maybe 
I did. If you say so. Wanted to. 
Your rules are nothing I can obey as
I always write what I want. I say what 
I mean. And the days go by. The things we 
care about are disappearing, making 
their lightways up to heaven. What we are 
left with doesn't feel all that good to me. 
I don't know about you.  I can't live on 
the things that once made us glad to just be
 
alive, when we were the brave young and free 
dancers. It seems so historically  
alone and pathetic now, thinking that 
we could stop the world, shake out 
all that terrible greed, planting more and 
more beautiful trees, learning to listen with the 
ambassador dolphins, watching the 
days go by. And the bombs are still laid like 
eggs, in the dozens, collected and sold 
by the awful basketfuls. The eyes of 

the sun garden people are no longer 
blazing but growing so much dimmer. I  
don't hate you for missing out on the time 
of reflective dreaming. It's not your fault. 
As the days go by. Everything sounds the 
same everywhere. Only the crying of 
the poor wretched earth is being drowned out. 
She was our childhood friend. She believed in 
each one of us. We had no idea 
what we were becoming then. But the rules 

are not being posted around here. Days 
go by. I can now make my poems out 
of anything I encounter. I leave 
them on the ground for insects to carry 
away. I toss them into the air for 
the white zooming birds to catch and gulp down.
I grab some sticks and write them in the dirt. 
If it rains, I let the rain lick them off 
my face like so many tears. And the days 
continue. It's hard to fight, but we do.  


Seashell

 

Here it comes then, that strange familiar feeling. There is more

Of something inside of everything else it seems. Who knows  

what might just as instantly be made into a new feeling, a particular warmth

come over them within the same spot of stance as you? Well

perhaps that is too much to be asking the audience for right now.

There is nothing left of the old life but something

crunched out of a cardboard box and left on the window sill

to begin to fade over time. Still there is something that speaks

of community I can't understand that I know as an

understanding between us and summertime. Perhaps another mock language other than mine here

 

would have given you a much clearer picture. You're the one

who picked up the poem so it must have been

meant all along. Hello. Is that too simple a puritan phrase?

We're nowhere near goodbye,not yet, not until you drop the last

point that contracts me back into another sand of its

own make and model. We'll have to eventually make sense out of the

present facts together. We have finally met. I can't say

I'm not glad, but I wish it were in an

area where we could at least look into each other's

living eyes and see some plain truth there. Perhaps we are. Who am I to say

 

how the old world works on any new level? Who's to say

that eyes made out of words are not the better for it?

All I know is the further I get into line

I know you were meant to meet me here, and

so here we are. I have absolutely nothing fabulous to tell

you, but I do seem to be humming something amazing

whenever you are nearby. Even now I can say that's a

very good song to hear. You resonate within me from right where you

are and from right where you have found me. I don't

want to know how this magic works. You can slice

 

and label all the mystical loveliness you want out of this world but it still

won't answer the ringing bell's ultimate question. There's a hillside.

Can we go and sit somewhere and watch nothing but

the color blue turn into a circus of stars together?

I like the breeze. Is that part of your being

here, too? It's nice. I wish I could always stay

with you like this, alone, free, away, sharing everything and

nothing without meaning to. But the ground says it's now about time

to go, so here's that goodbye I promised. Here's to a certain

light made more vivid by our coming into contact with just one another.



Fly by Darryl Price

 

Love, how can I

Be you if I

Can't even see you?

Who is buried in

Your grave. Love, I

Don't belong to your

Generation any more. Love,

Don't you recognize me?

 

Love, stop talking your

Fascist nonsense, you're scaring baby

Jesus. Tell me what

You want. Love, why,

Must you always get

Me into more trouble? Love,

You've been such a

Bad judge of character,

 

Mine and everyone else's.

Love, let me give

You my new address.

Love, I can no

Longer feel your hand

Beneath my heart. Love,

We were very young

Once. Love, you are

 

A fraud and I am

Your proud fool once more like

No other. Love, I

Am not worthy to

Hear another useless apology from you.

Love, I can't find

My way home. Love,

I am from the lonely

 

Planet Earth. I have

Not come in any kind of peace.

Love, don't you understand—

Your spell is always

Killing me where I

Stand. Love, I brought the

Music you asked for, what happened?

Love, take these words away. dp



The Light in Any Room


by Darryl Price





I never got to say goodbye. I almost forgot
to fly. It doesn't matter to anyone but me.
That's the hardest part. They never got to hold

you. Not one of them ever made you laugh.
You used to shake your hair into your face.
I could hardly stand the wait to see your 

face again. I never said goodbye. You knew how
to take off your shoes without causing a fuss.
But I noticed every single time. It made the 

world seem tame by comparison. Nothing furious or brash
could compete with your skin. You lit up the 
light in any room. I never got to say 

goodbye and walls I'm in now seem like too 
much of a sacrifice made. You walked slowly, like
a free and unafraid animal might. But I heard

you crying in the halls of my heart. I 
only wanted to say goodbye. All my words choked
on themselves before I could swallow and clear the

passageway. When I found my voice at last you 
were already gone from all of us like a 
spell of a summer sunset. We sat stunned, frozen  

to ground. I almost forgot to fly. I wanted 
to say goodbye. I still do. This is as 
much as I'll get. You were the deepest ocean 

I ever knew. Goodbye, my dear sweetest human being.
You continue to bring out the best we can 
offer. Goodbye, glad we got to see us believe.  




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