I wish I were made of stone
So your words would never hurt me
I wish I were cold as ice
Then maybe I wouldn't be lonely

I wish I were made of steel
So my strength would never waver
If only I could turn back the clock
To a time when I felt safer

But I'm only flesh and bone
And your words have left me bleeding
My heart is torn apart
It's a wonder it's still beating

You made up your mind
Given me your final answer
What we shared is in the past
Time to write a brand new chapter

I will fix my broken heart
Some how glue it back together
It may never be the same
It'll bare this scar forever

But I'll be strong, I'll be alright
Though I'm not as hard as steel
And I can't turn back the clock
In time....my heart will heal

When I look into the eyes of an animal near death,
I feel their innate humility.

They accept their degeneration as much as the sun that rises, and
They do not ask for opulent eulogies.

No one will stand at the podium and orate their qualities as if by Speaking them into the air they can
Stave off
The decomposition that is intrinsic to mortality;

No, careful embalmment and a final red dress will not disguise the Roughness of dying
In an animal near death.

They fade into pain and disintegration like dust kicked up in an Indifferent wind, and unlike us,
They never ask,

Will I live again?

I see her vision is fading.
Her bones are grating against one another.
Each breath is a struggle,
But unlike us,
There is no space for complaining.

She accepts her fate and
Wags her tail
And I just feel that the world could, maybe,

Heal

If we all possessed the simple grace
Of an animal near death.

Through white
nesses

pressed into dark
nesses

Concentrated timeless
nesses

tattooed

Onto nothing
nesses

hot skin
She writes

She writhes
She rises

Her time

Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I wish I could find
The correct words and sequence
Of them to explain

a letter from reality
like little scraps of paper
i can't quite make out the words
but the sentiment is appreciated

to all the feelings I ever hurt,
to your help from which I turned,
to the pain I probably earned,
a lesson rots,
your side untaught,
so much unlearned:

i'm sorry.

forever words,
i don't deserve.

With all the stories
In my head
Wish I could tell you
It all instead

Wisdom began
as a toddler
for a thousand times
it had first to fall over

I move through your blood and through your veins
You cannot see me but I’m here just the same
I am the fire that rages out of control
I am the darkness that attacks your very soul
I am the scream you swallow
Where you go I will follow

Dream in silence
Dream all day
Dream of light
Dream of May
Disappear the strangest way

I will make us coffee,
& you will make us tea -
in leaves and grounds
our fortunes found,
& and what is meant to be.

someday it will
come again.
someday someone
will come in.

a star
with the deepest depths in the eyes
with the gentlest of breaths
and endless soul in the smile

one day
i'll forgive this pain
not forget -
forgive.

When the fearsome face appears,
When the senseless violence emerges,
When the air is saturated with red,

And when my surroundings become ruined

I will feel the lightning

The lightning
                   run
                     through
                                    my
                                        veins.

Do you ever feel
Like
   you
      might
         be
            falling?
Do you ever think
                            That
                         you
                     won't
                   be
             able
          to
      get
  back
up?
Fight that feeling
A
n
d
And take the
                    st
                    ai
                  ­  rs
                      to the top floor.

the black ink smeared by tear drops on my paper reminds me of the sky the day your parents told me i was the reason they cried in the shower at night

silk sheets burst into flames
blood drops of a victimless crime
devour me with your ruby gaze
pray on me one last time.

~for those who will read this and weep~

the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-Job experience

localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!

the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life *****” advertisement

I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs

summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created

so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)

but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early

got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind

these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived

When I say
that you are my Sun,
I don’t mean that you are
Luminous,
Brilliant,
Gilded,
Beautiful,
Bold,
Warm,
Or even the center of my universe.
I simply mean that
I cannot look at you
Without hurting

So I cut my hair
And changed my barbells
Switched out my hoop
And bought new clothes
Rearranged my room
Changed shampoos
But still I feel the same

Dear me,
Your whole life is out there. It's just waiting for you.

Even though your life is still short, you've done so much with the time you've been given. Can't you see? You've written endless poems about friendship and love. You've lived in many places too. Even though it did affect you a little bit, you still did your best to make lasting friendships, despite knowing that you might only have a short time to spend together. Others might have just kept to themselves if they were in your place. And though you got hurt at times, your heart never became angry towards the world. The way I see it, that's the attitude of some of the strongest among us.

That's why you shouldn't be hurt if sometimes you don't get the things - or the people - you love the most. It only means, they weren't right for you...yet. What will be given instead, in time, is not what is right but rather what is best for you. Just trust in it.

You are stronger than you think.

Yours,
lmbf

-

Originally written in Tagalog.

Nandiyan po ang buong buhay mo. Hinihintay ka niya lang.

Kahit maigsi pa ang buhay mo, nakagawa ka na ng marami sa oras na binigyan ka ng ating Diyos. Di mo ba nakikita? Nagsulat ka ng maraming poems tungkol sa pagkaraon ng kaibigan at sa pagmamahal. Nabuhay ka sa maraming lugar. At kahit ikaw ay naapektuhan ng kaunti, pinilit mo pang magkaraon ng kaibigan, kahit alam mo na baka maigsi lang ang oras na kasama mo sila. Magtatago na lang ang mga ibang bata kung palaging ganyan ang sitwasyon nila, katulad sa'yo. At kahit minsan sinasaktan ka, hindi kailanman naging galit ang puso mo tungkol sa mundo. Sa tingin ko, yan mismo ay ang ugali katulad sa mga mas matapang sa ating lahat.

Kaya, huwag kang maging malungkot kung minsan hindi mo nakukuha ang mga bagay - o ang mga tao - na mahal mo ng sobra. Ibig sabihin, hindi pa sila bagay para sa'yo. Ang ibibigay na lang ay hindi yung mga bagay, pero yung tamang tama para sa'yo. Tiwala lang.

Ikaw ay mas malakas kaysa sa tingin mo.

You said you would take me higher,
To a place where I don’t feel so low.
You promised me you would deliever
But you only take me lower.

You were my angel.
You bought me up to heaven,
Holding me by the hand.
Then you dropped me back down.
Sending me plummenting into the ground.
I fell into a new low,
From the highest place one could go.

I am digging below rock bottom,
Reaching a new low that I didn’t know I could go.
Lower than low.

This is my new low.
The grave I dug for myself to lie in.
I look more dead than these skeletons
It is too deep for light to enter,
There is no love down here,
Only hate.

Theres something I need to say
A truth I must share
I believe this true for many of us here

This isnt me
This isn't all I am
I am not only heart break and despair

The me you done see
Is that of smiles everyday
For when im happy I exist elsewhere

When I am drunk on life
And my heart is a fluter
I am out there living for myself
Not dying in here with you

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

spring planting, spring harvesting, spring garlic

One of the great joys of having a job in agriculture
is to think days, weeks, even months ahead,
One of the great joys of having a job in poetry,
like a fireman,  a patient planter of love,
you wait to be called,
then becoming by being,
part of an all consuming burning

come spring, take advantage of the cool, wet weather of spring
to put in multiple crops of peas and lettuce, also a great time
to get your perennial vegetables,
like asparagus and rhubarb, started

the planting cycle is not an either/or,
come harvest thy labored fruits,
nine crops to harvest come March,
kale, pick leaves as needed,
leeks, best left in the ground
and harvested as needed,
parsnips, purple sprouting broccoli,
rhubarb, spring cabbage, spring cauliflower,
and of course, my personal fav,
Spring Garlic

Garlic, like like love, is generally planted in the fall,
before the frost and harvested the following late summer.
But from March to May,
once the ground has truly thawed,
the young lover plants, spring garlic or green garlic,
can be harvested.

it’s a long bus ride to Western Canada
where the garlic spring has come,
ain’t complaining lots of time to write foolishness
and plant a few good bus poems in northern ontario
and even michigan,
the window slides, and the seeds scattered,
but at every bus poet stop,
those that need it,
planted many inches deep


April 2 naught how I wish I was nineteen again

The Cat is in the box
The box is too small
She sleeps by the fire
Caring not at all

In a drop of you, I lost an ocean of me.