When Your Poem Becomes Self Aware

by Darryl Price


Where will you hide? Because you know it

Will seek you out for answers you might

Only be asking for yourself. It

Will send many students to stand outside

Your apartment and chant your name.

It will beg you to perform its birth

Again to the masses, but you will

Be shaking from head to toe, knowing


You can never repeat the same path

To a once saved miracle's doorway  

Without pretending to be someone  

Else—someone you're not ever going  

To fully show again because you

Have lived through his time, you've somehow managed

To carry on you could say without

This shadow always following your

Shadow around. Not like it all was.  


Once it was wildly dancing inside

The beautiful moment's bubbled dome

Like a remarkably happy idiot

Before you as you truly

Are capable of being committed

The daring high crime of making

An original art happen out

Of nothing more than real feelings and

The music of dreaming, all seepage,


Like a scented highly flammable

Oil soaking up into your brain like

Hundreds of ants on a mission from

Someone's impatient God. Not really

Caring how brightly it burns throughout

The night as long as it stops the crippling

Boredom's machines at last. From the

Tired ashes the poem's new eyes stare

At something entirely made of stars.













Bonus poems:

This Broken Road by Darryl Price

I did what I said, but the damned
disappointing road still went straight 
back to the nowhere we started 
from. I'm still wasting my time on 
it I guess. I did what I said 
and it's far too late now to start 
anything over. I did what 
I said and you watched my broken 

heart burning in the losing fight. 
I did what I said and you called 
me out as your golden fool, but
behind my back. Well I never 
wanted to see you be ever
unhappy. I just never guessed 
that the master sacrifice was 
to be so many of my own 

wasted favorite dreams of you 
and me being glad together.
I did what I said and then lost 
everyone in the process. I 
don't know where you ended up. I 
used to wonder, but it's just a 
laughable waste of time. There is 
just no going back, not to new

happiness, not even to a 
shared bittersweet sadness. I did 
what I said, but I couldn't stay 
quiet. I did what I said, but 
I found no one I could trust.I 
did what I said and maybe you 
did, too, but you were the one who 
pulled the crazy trigger on a

real cool beautiful friendship.I 
saw the death falling in your eyes
like an end of the world bomb. I
cannot be with you. I'm always 
almost lost. Your mad question. My 
sad answer. One last kiss in the 
form of a bunch of words falling
apart from feeling. Turn turn turn. dp      




I'm a bumbler but a Serious


Bumbler I've finally decided

And the relentless cuckoo Heartless

Choir that keeps following me around

This cruel world of every room like a

Tied on too tightly at the front of

The neck blanket cape can write me off

Their lists all they want. They want me to


Believe them above anyone else,

But that's just not going to be possible.  

Not when for instance I've heard

Someone like Feist with her own avenging

Angel in the mirror present

To the first moment of feeling the

Pain of being so alive singing  


In the shower that's constantly pouring

Fingers over my insides, the

All too familiar worn out heads

On fire at the first touch of my hot

Little fists looking for ultimate weapons to

Hold. The whole thing making my sore neck

Hurt even more than before but in


A mighty as a melodic river's

Undiscovered voice kind of way.   

That's exactly what they don't seem to  

Want to ever understand. The skipping

 Joy isn't theirs alone to make.

Maybe that's not saying it right. Let's

Just say I disagree and move on.


Every one of us is love, what you

Do with that bit of esoteric

Knowledge decides the true extent of

Your peace and happiness here on earth.

That doesn't mean you won't bleed, you little

Devils, or have a license to

Kill. It simply means you are star works.


That act places us right about here, I'd say, 

And hope keeps us close enough to each other,

But it didn't stop this bumbler from

Being his own poet. That's the green

Mystery of the whole everlasting 

Thing. That and the fact of these few words

Bringing us to the table once again.