Safety First New Poems by Darryl Price

The Sky Here's Full Stopped

under a blanket of
blue snow. That's my
reality. But even if
one of those thread-like

clouds throws its swallowed
light after you I
suppose I'd be happy.
I want your footsteps
illumined on the path.

And if one wild
wind might detach itself
from today's army to
gently brush back the
hair from your cheeks,

well, you know, I
think maybe what's left
of all the free
floating leaves in the
world could not mind.


After

you save the world
someone else is going

to have to do
it all over again.


Wonder Woman Talks (On Rope) to the Foremost Job Candidates

"Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow".. D. H. Lawrence

It's not about the lasso. That's so easily dangerous and
Petty. Instead it's always going to be about you learning
To accept and respect what awesome powers it
   represents, that
It'll so quickly place into your sore and bleeding hands
Like crushed ice. It's an immediate, felt responsibility. There
   must

Ever be striking the cold clang distance between
   what usage
Does while in your care to yourself and what changes
It may bring forth in all others just as it's
Finding fashion for justice or for ill—because you'll likely
Strum along with your own body in motion. And that

Will have its own lingering consequences for answering
   for the
Rest of your life; a mission you're expected not to
Survive. But the grand mystery of things has never been
Solved to my own personal satisfaction. I believe
   there's every
Chance you'll find a lasting Grace with which to walk.


Safety First 

I am not a gun but I think I may just
have pulled the trigger in some kind of real world
way before. You? I am not a plastic water bottle
but I may have bought into the notion of it's

somehow being better for you than a soda
pop and therefor a badge worthy of being
carried around to show we are the civilized.
Why do we make these heavy lies so

transparent? Show of hands. Today I saw
the most beautiful weeds I mean it
growing up through the cracks in the
median as I was slowed-down trying to

get onto the free way. Beautifully formed
leaves of such exquisite craftsmanship and symmetry
that it took my breath away to be
made aware of their presence. I'm sure

workmen will eventually cut them down before
their prime--whatever that is. Will they
have time to flower in more than
my imagination hours later? Here's a strange

thought I bet you didn't see coming: whenever
someone says that they like my stuff I
immediately feel like a failure. Like is for
ice cream I'm thinking. Like is for sex and

walks in the park. Where's the love? It's the downfall
of my house of poems. One more thing: even your
most creative impulses should be about your freedom
   of expression.
Water flowing describing everything it sees with
   a timeless certainty.


The day's thin blue swim suit

has once more been casually tossed aside like
a cartoon encrusted food wrapper on a worn
out irrelevant street somewhere in the soulful
west of a dream. It represents the well ordered
world as we want to see it, with erasable,

laughable teeth. And friendly as a ghost our seabird
goes through the pockets hole by hole looking for
the meaning of its own ancient hunger. No one
tries to stop them from coming as one easily turns
into a half dozen. I've been standing here

before I guess. This empty feeling is an unfortunate
home I ran away from a long time
ago still looking out for your foot prints. Why pretend
leaving everything to chance wasn't all about
believing in nothing? We only had a
moment alone to live in like any new song.

I'm pretty sure I've memorized the whole thing weird
bit by weird bit by now, but I don't sing it all
the time to myself like I used to I admit. Oh
let them walk away from the story's sad chapters.
It's what they do best. They've never cared for anyone

not in their shoes. Yeah the little poetry
leak is happening this time in the early morning
hours. Some part of you just becomes wide awake and
nothing ever seems to happen the same way again.
But it happens to everyone if they're somewhat
lucky in life. The problem of course is that

no one welcomes you back from Paradise. They can
see you've been severely beaten about the head
and heart. You could use a touch of the good stuff. You
think maybe you shouldn't laugh at them as they pull
their sails closer to the shore as fast as they can.


I DON'T BUY THE NEED

TO BE BEGGING TO BE
GRANTED IMMORTALITY. ISN'T IT ENOUGH
WE GET TO TRY OUT

OUR LOVE? SURE MOST OF
US DON'T HAVE WHAT IT
TAKES TO KNOCK DOWN ALL

THOSE STARS AT ONCE WITH
JUST ONE KISS. I WAS
LUCKY YOU WANTED TO BE

WANTED THAT'S ALL. THANK GOD
IT WASN'T PURE GREED. I'LL
PREFER THE PASSIONATE LIE OVER

THE SICKEST TRUTH ANYWAY. THAT
PERMISSION WAS BETTER THAN DANCING
LOST IN A DREAM GIRL'S ARMS.

I HOPE THIS POEM FINDS
YOU STILL ENJOYING BECOMING YOURSELF.
WHAT MORE CAN I SAY?

MAYBE NEXT TIME I COULD
TRY HANGING ON A LITTLE
BIT LONGER BEFORE BEING TOSSED

OFF THE BLINDING LIGHTS AND
HAVING TO HEAR SOMEONE ELSE
DELIVER MY LINES TO YOUR

PRETTY FACE. OKAY YOU CAN
GO NOW. THERE'S NOTHING ELSE
HERE. NOTHING LEFT. JUST AN

EMPTY CAGE. WHATEVER CREATURE THESE
WORDS ONCE HELD HAS LONG
GONE. YOU MOVE ALONG, TOO.


No One Will Ever Give You This Poem

and say did you know it was written for
you? But I will. No one will walk up to
you on the street some day and say he loved
you so. But I'm telling you now. What good

would a pyramid be or a hanging
garden or a starry night without your
delightful creases capturing the songs
in their own wondrous folds? I want to be
where you are. Not to travel not to stand

before a charming place nor to be present
where you are not but always where you are.
What good would it do flying in a car
or on the back of a horse or sleeping
under an arousal of spread leaves if

there was not your arm to touch your hair to
sift next to me your face to press against?
I get it now. That song. Nothing Compares.
How'd I come up to this edge of notions?
A little bit more and I'll be buzzing

to pieces like a moment then I'll be
becoming from a completely different
angle and you'll be living still in
the same world as my love. Somebody please
find her and give her her poem. Do this

for me. She is the only reason I
believe in this world. Anyone can view
this story. I was once with her without
her. There was no other way. I know she
deserves real truth. Crack open this heart then

eat what's left together. But that's for later.
Right now I just want you to know that
these feelings exist in our time. May I
never utter a false dream again but
always keep your name where I am going.


Unwelcomed Mice

are not always unwelcomed guests.
Certainly the mouse mother wants
you close to her whiskers
at all times. The little
wet nest welcomes you back
and forth like a sweet
familiar hammock after it rains.

And in a much different
way so does the hawk,
so does the snake, the
cat, the owl, the smelly
fox or the not so
lost glowing little boy who's
been out in the dark

long enough to see through
the blinding shadowy gauze and
twigs still hours away from
dissolving into tomorrow. I bet
they don't think about the
danger one way or the
other. Let death live and

let death lie. What good
would it do? There are
mouths to be fed. You'd
only continue to shrink all
your hopes and fears together
down to the size of
a crumb or one world.


Like A Pop Song This Is The Head Of A Sunflower

This is the head of a sunflower as well
as the butt of a beetle as well as
the membrane with its busy veins of traffic between
sky and cloud as well as the upsidedown skeleton
of a raindrop as well as the groove twisting

in a line around your sweet kissable thumb as
well as the balding white spot scuffed atop the
toe of your mowed down old moose slippers as
well as the polished slick talons on the eagle
somewhere pumped up from the kill as well as

the moment the feeling flag slaps its stitches against
the pantlegs of the day begging for an icecream
as well as a tired old poet making a
sad grunting noise through his chin as he types
with one finger as well as the colorless mass

of cocoons blowing away on any given spring day
and turning into flowers tying on their new bonnets
as well as you still crammed into my heart
like a folded map I've kept for all these
years or a message I've never been able to

code out or like some pyramid on the horizon
I just can't seem to ignore anymore even though
I want to as well as the milkyway flying
through outerspace like a swirling rush of water all
lit up from within from its own blushing crush

on life as well as this unwieldy ball of
sentences as well as this fishing line cast into
the unknowable electric currents of now and never and
maybe forever eh as well as a tiny spastic
hope clinging to a fast falling building as well

as any dream lingering on the edge of sanity
as well as the boy who forgot to go
home and grow up as well as the girl
who fingered her hair and smiled at the boy
as well as vanished years that tumbled into rainbows


Places Are Spoken Of

In leaves this time of year. Another
Language that like every other tongue argues
More existence please with lots of everything
In regular doses--sun and wind and
Rain and room to throw one's arms
Around each new day, but a deliberate

Emerald will green from within. Greed gets
You acquisitioned next to the wall. Someone
Is bound to have a pair of
Scissors sooner or later with your name
On it. Is this what's happened to
Me? I exploded over the time with

A beard twined of wild flowers and
Swept the local moths into a volcanic
Disappearance of dust-Like proportions which choked apart
Any chance of making new friends with
The surrounding scenery? Too bad. I couldn't
Help filling my legs up with all

That fresh pleasure and carrying it back
To the hive of my purest dreams
For later offering to the Muse herself,
An organic moisturizer she might easily dab
On between gigs as a silvery pulsating
Star or the mature breasts of the

Moon goddess. Let us celebrate moments like
These that conquer us so elegantly. Why
Let the circles close in all around
Us when we are made of the
Stuff that keeps strumming into the
Eternal one's palmed ear canals?


A Coat for Your Hiding Place

There's something secret being said everytime
you look into the words I
write and smile back from wherever
you are. It's a language invented
by the faulty moments of giving
up on being made of such

distant mystery and disappears just as
quickly.This causes a strange pang
in my thoughts. But I would
surely know that sound of you
slipping down just about anywhere,anytime
in spite of my many sloppy

heart beats. And because of that
I might hear you coming out
of a single drop of rain
racing into a million drops of
rain like a revved up robin.
It could be the splatter. It

could be the splash. The fall
itself. But I've noticed you often
hit the bulls-eye with uncanny accuracy.
I suppose I'm dented somewhere on
the inside by each and every
stride you make. So there you

have it. Nice and simple. A
portrait of the wanted. Another day
in the flow of molecules. Here
are some things I can't help:
you are large enough to fit
into the whole building I'm sitting

in like an invisible Alice. You
stretch across the highway of longing
like a hypnotizing rainbow. You are
also small enough to sit on
the end of my finger and
cause sparks to crackle out and

type these words without any help
from me.You appear in dreams
as yourself, always. But here's the
real rub: I feel like I've
already loved and lost, like because
of you my poems flow forth.


How a Poet Puts on His Pants

The beautiful thing easily
entered his brains this morning just
like a live radio with a
timer on its otherwise smooth
forehead goes green and then bingo
you're further awake somehow than
your dreams let on just as he was
about to exit the bathroom

of all places. Typical he
thought of these kinds of Faery gift-
givers. They like to catch you off-
balance, maybe a little more
relaxed than usual say, less
unencumbered with today's suits
of armor than yesterday.Still
nothing in the universe is

free. The theft of this barter had
already been made to lower
the scales on one side. It was up
to him to figure out the price--
probably at the same time it
was to be extracted,be it
a fall or a shove, a nudge or
a wink, like a too loose tooth. Something

had already been given and
someone would most likely have to
give something back or else.Isn't that
how these things usually get
the goat? Hey he wasn't feeling
particularly ungrateful
but taken by surprise.He knew
he could feel it, he could,right then

and there with a birdsong like that
stuck in his head, sing something quite
wonderful if he would only
choose the moment that chose him, but
also knew there must come a time
to let go of its wing and plunge
back down into a numb empty
nest inside the hollowed heart's crook.


Bonus poem:
In Memory of Lily Burk

I don't know what they want. Anything you give them will never do. Most fear pain because they cause it. Hate happens over and

over. As if they have two nostrils but no real experience of air. This is beyond sad belief. The apple hits the ground no matter how

many times you drop it. They've failed to connect this in their brains and so are heartless like zombies who want but cannot produce life. Instead

they attack a young girl on an errand for her mother and force her to die like a butterfly pinned to the dirty wheel of sensation.

And for what? To get close to the moon? To lay their heads upon the liar's tongue? Apples tremble on tiny stems. Oh Love get here first.


Bonus poem 2:
The Thank You Parade 

Let's go with those precisely marching shiny clouds
over there for instance. They can lift whole
oceans up like baby children for a series
of smooches all of unprecedented and unapologetic radiance.
Oh they surely do get angry from time
to time enough to darken our view of
the rest of the planets but they are
quick to forgive and offer hugs all around

such that the sky's once tearful eyes turn
happily bluer than newly born balloons. Then there's
my favorites the trees. These most ancient of
beings are the wisest of all pulled together
atoms. They push and pull every kind of
energy all around the world with their toes
and fingers at blurring speed. They appear to
be standing still. Instead they are lighting and

relighting their feathery bodies with the eternal green
flame. They provide a much needed warmth between
the dreamer and his dreams. We are most
grateful to you for this free and lovely

service. Let's not forget our flowerfaced friends! How
could we ever find our way out of
the fearful memories without their wafting songs leading
us onward to so many new tomorrows? And

finally here we come ourselves! We are here
to provide the four directions of the wind
their central function as a rightful purpose for
life's passions. See you next time. Same time.