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When You Look the Other Way


by Darryl Price


does it satisfy your God? 
When you make the decision 
to lie to our questions, does 
it feel good? When your faith is
in nothing, does the money
buy you happiness? The Beatles 
once said, fun is the one 

thing that money can't buy. They 
were crucified for it, but 
kept alive to satisfy 
the manufacturing of
a certain fruit stand's appeal 
among the potholes on the 
streets of your town. When you look

as if you've never witnessed 
an ancient tree in a plowed-
up forest, do you still get 
a special thrill to rip the 
innocent flowers out of 
their only homes with a sub-
machine gun stuck in their defenseless 

little faces? Oh,  
black birds are watching everything 
you do. They're writing an 
observational history 
with generations of their 
wings. I wonder who will read 
it all and weep for mankind?

When you look the other way 
and pretend it's turning the 
other cheek, do you feel the 
grave pull of the wheel as it 
mercilessly squeezes the life 
blood out of your free thought and
will? We are not their slaves just 

because they want it that way. 
We have to want war, too. When 
you look the other way, kindness 
dies. You must speak up, not 
always down, out, not just inward,
but in all directions. 
When you look the other way,
 
you are closing your legs to 
ever walking again. A 
poem is just a hand print
defacing a wall. A noise 
among all the other noises.
But also something more.
Something new that you can use. 



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