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We Are Not Just A Bit of Irrelevant Pollution


by Darryl Price


"It's hard to make a man understand something if his livelihood depends on him not understanding it."--Upton Sinclair

I understand what Zappa was saying,
about broken hearts and assholes, but, well, really
what if yours is already broken and already gone to some bad seed?
Everybody's got one life, they say. What if all
the very tall people have a
secret club up there in the thickest of
clouds, where they like to smoke smoldering cigars together
 
and tan among their own kind only?
I'm just saying. Taking the piss

out of something newly formed is usually just
another tired excuse to be somewhat of a  cuckoo yourself. Or, is it a matter of a shared community-like
cruelty? Some people enjoy the sensation.
It makes them feel so damned good about themselves. Isn't
that a funny bunny? Who doesn't want to
be the golden bird for all to see? I don't.
I want something I can't even
put into words, which is probably
why I can't get at it. Just as well. 

And what would I do with
it, except ruin it with possession
and gluttony? You can only have
what you are willing to leave
alone in its natural state. Isn't
that a crazy way to love somebody? We should all be
laughing our heads off by now. All those
old sayings haven't saved us one
bit; although John said there's no

one who can't be saved, I'm
beginning to wonder? But, of course,
what he meant was after the
thing has already happened to deny
its truth is to create false gods in your little red phone book's battered pages.
Here's a thought: all men are
assholes when it comes to women,
and I've yet to meet the one
exception, brokenhearted or not. Isn't that a 

knocked down state of extra marital affairs? Well, we could just go
on and on like this all night long I
suppose. But I don't want to. Really I don't. You see
I started out with every intention
of writing you something wonderful, for you to sit there and
behold, but instead I've given you a bunch of nonsensical crayon
scribbles upon more thickly layered scribbles. Isn't that so very very very very very awfully wretchedly not so
funny? So funny so funny so funny so funny so damned funny. Here we
sit at the end of the last day's 
poem, for I shall so name it. Stick a flag in its head, folks. We're done here I think. Go home. All of you.  
 
061410  



 On the Surface of the Sand
 
 or rolling out of the sea's
 open palms like sleepy little diamonds
 they all look pretty much the same, some with
 
 different colors,some of different sizes, but
 the more you look at them
 they do seem to start to differentiate. And
 
 more will come in all the time
 and by then one can't help
 but start to feel a sense
 
 of lonely loss for them, half
 buried in the sand, like remnants
 of another civilization, away beyond the crashing waves.
 
 


The Tiniest Flower

gets my visit today.
I thank you friend for your softly swaying welcome.
I have come here I must
admit to be alone.

Yet here we are proving
that state of mind to be an
illusion. I believe in the very real strength

of your leaves. To me they
represent that which is
more honest than the black
winds. We have met upon

the road and now must part.I have your fate in my hands and you
know mine. However I
am now one flower more.

Darryl Price 2004-2010



Sometimes I'm feeling Somewhat Stupid
 

like I'm boring even myself to an early death. You're
only here now because I'm over there? Really?
Is that how this sick thing actually works? Sometimes I'm
feeling beat to a slick pulp, listless
and sweltering in my own skin like
a heavy leather feather. I'm just
really feeling so cat tired. Does that
mean my heart has too many split seams
to carry much blood to my toes? You

know inside some places we've sat there's
still a small ache that travels the length
of my old dreamer's body and back
again over the ditch we made together. As 
they say it's a real beaut. Sometimes I 
can't keep going on like this. Wish I didn't
have to present you with that cold of  
a news update, but I'm afraid it's 
this ordinary looking pocket 

pebble or someone else's happier than crap 
lie.I'd never hold both out to you at the same time.You know that by now.   
Not my style. Sometimes I don't know what
a feeling is supposed to feel like--
rattling around inside me like
a too big to fall back onto the
ground through a small cut hole in my skull 
loose ball bearing.All the racket in there gets
my goat. Just sometimes.Not all the times. I never could give

you the kind of scripted answers that brought out
your full set of teeth. Well maybe once
or maybe twice. But now that's not enough either. Not for me. And not for you.
And most certainly more than me not for you. Not on
my watch,sister. For some of your friends that came
easier than for me, as if you're
not opposed to being led by a
strict stone by stone path up to the house
where all tomorrow's rain waits to spill.



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