Water Break

it makes a perfect sad sense to

me; you're one of them; are

we supposed to believe there are

no shadows in that particular choice? When you are

one of them, they say you

fall asleep with a peaceful drooping

smile to your lips. When you're one with

them, watch as I run to

her naked body. When

you are one with them, you

have no star to guide you

home. You are one of them--

it's a holdup! It's a

nice Christmas. It's a

step between death and life on its knees.

A felony report. 

The winds tearing the leaves

off the trees. When you are

one of them, it's sad for me to witness, not

too early to get stoned out of my mind.

When you are one of them

it's beyond belief. Alone and knocking,

the lettering of my

speech, a pinprick of barely there light.

Bonus poems:

A Leg Out of Bed by Darryl Price

 

They trip you into traps with their well-aimed armies of spitting fire

tongues. Where is love?  They hang you upside-down just

to prove the world is so flat. Where is love? What

makes you think this isn't a love letter to you?

Fumbling over your works must start somewhere to make sense.

 

Even if you begin your spiraling

out in space, the drain is calling you back

to the center where all feelings converge

into one nuclear big bang. I don't care. The

truth is you matter to me. I don't know

 

about anything else. I look at life

and you are at least an always part of it. That

gives me enough electricity to

lift and swing a numb leg out of bed. There are

other things of course. Bees bouncing on windows. Laughter somewhere

 

calling below the window. You know. Normal stuff. But I

gave up a long time ago hoping for

the right words to warm you. The words are you. Warm yourself.

They are safe where they are. But let me see something new,

this poem is only a leaf in your

 

hair for a bright moment. Only a shining

crack of sunlight on a well-worn wooden

floor that instantly begins to fade. Only a car radio going by. Only

a collar turned up on a cold neck, if

you must know. A guy singing softly to himself.

 

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Life in a Human Body by Darryl Price

 

This is what we do, we stand there and maybe

feel little unfurling leaves like welcome flags

eventually sprout in our way; it happens to

everyone. You think for instance trees don't

walk like us or talk as much, but they travel

at their own pace and speak through a million winds, branches,

 

clouds and stars, until we disturb the long

natural gate of their personal sap

journey with our belching farting machines

of oily stacks of black death. We really

do work for the wrong giant sandal shod

god. But we do it all with a cheap-ass smile. We'll

 

do it then for some quick coming beers.  Here's a question

for you: when they feel their bendable kid's

bones snapped in two like toothpicks, do they cry, well

wouldn't you? We assume nothing matters

quite as much as the air we push around

in our own spaces. We do it for silver

 

coins and fantasy sex. We do it for possible

golden gambling tickets covered in chocolate. We do it for

a double cheeseburger with everything on it. We certainly

don't do it for love, no matter what bright

absurd cosmic claims are made in all those

treasure books about the secret meaning

of life in a human body. You make

your own meaning out of life and you find out if it's

at all true or not as you go. You live

until you die. You fall until you fly.

Sing or sigh. Do or try. So, so boring. No

wonder all the kids want out of this crummy town.

 

We've given them no real other choice to make. That's

why they walk around the place—they're looking

for that hole in the wall we never found.

More power to them. I'll leave these poems

as a sign of goodwill to their dreaming

of something more. Something worth the sharpest pain ever endured.

 

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