I yearn 50 dollars a day
I burn a little less
There is upturn
and there is down
turning around again
fate being a clown
reckensee around
and I don't get sound

Lean away
                from hold still

Branch out
                from stay here

Dash away
                from so what

Advise you
                don't listen

Especially
                 common

Hands press keys
                 useless

Lee
                  rest easily

Engines of disuse
disguised

draw strongly
I

sail
smaller in presumption
taller

craftier
in my

time as if it is
mine


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

It looks like
I've gotten

all the poetry
I'm going to get

Out of you

Else
Would be angry lines

I
now discard


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I'm just here
in my life
imagining strife

and the printer
prints out
these letters

and the ai
shouts out
its cure

the sound
of words
no sinecure

I just want
to be a story
perhaps a flat

when I realize
its about balloons
i inhabit

I have a clear place
I drove past it recently
at high speed
and I saw
myself there
driving by
I was going
really really fast
and writing
lines of poetry
at the same time

I spelled distasteful with my life
So I sit alone
And right




Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Once again I discover
that I am trying to render
myself unconscious
with a palliative device

this is the downhill side
of my chair's revolution now
ninety degrees to the left
and I'm on top of the world

Ruv you
Ruh-uvving you
(high notes)
I wuv ruv
ruv ruv ruv
ruvuling woo
woo-oo-ing woo
no idea why

And now I'm thinking
with a wrinkle
in my response
deflected by chemistry
and calculation
and

It broke down
that bubble upton
tannic in my cheeks
setting teeth to grit
in the skin spasm

you can lead an ion
to a source
of left turns about
a vague unsatisfying
uncertain
moment

you wanted to come here
and i
given up
on arrivals
said no to leaving
and left

Lurching
from line to
line

Crossing
this little bit
of time
with you

Hoping a beautius one
wetly writes itself out
down here
with us

In this hole
we arrange
around our soul
to suffer in
and fester
sometimes
in song



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I'm carrying intent
in a relay

Thru serpentine
now

Curvilinear
answers

to The Daily
Question

I could catch
covid or I could
catch monkeypox
or  I could catch
a bullet when
times are good

Wrestle a day down I say
wrestle a day down
and let it go

The speaker hams it up
laughs it up
lets it flow

The inside turns out
turns in
days all a spin

Lies and rhymes
callous lines
this is fine

Coughing up slime
finding the time
this is mine

I stench this moment
with fulsome smell
of you at your earthiest

blown away now to nose
at a rose of spectacular
lid lowering sweet musk

I'll wait for your imaginary
neurons to catch up and
breath deeply of that would be

wafting through imaginarium
the exquisite elemental smell
of you nearby

This day rolled and breaded
in dried loneliness
with a pinch of salt
on a rim

Filled with screens and chats
these thin reachings
and easy feelings
living whim

This gun I load
now

Explosive bullets
Hollow tips

One at a time
Snick into place

Snick, snick
Chank chank

One is in
the chamber

Poised
Waiting the go signal

Go go go
hissing

through cooled air
a hard line

ending in a cough
A nasty carriage return

A denouement
searing inward

Blood smattered verbs
Moving

In recoil
I laugh

It's a giant ha
DNA pruning DNA

the captain wants
the wave to come

So many things
to be undone

So many things
to be caressed

And itches
galore

The next day
Is poised in the chamber

I am listening
for steps

I know you're
coming for me

Over my shoulder
Glimpses

Smart
the way u fit n

I read you
tho

and your unholy
words

I can smell
burned soul

pierced thru
Oh
this place


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

Sluiced with her smile
I fell down in denial

Ah revolution when is your time
as things have evolved
to a known way

Form, good form has been worked out
Rules codified and agreed upon

One half of the involved Humanity
Happy in the known
Known at last
Peace

The other half have had it
and are ready to blow it up
and start again
revolution

Usually these two are married


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I was raging
I really was
I was caustic
aiming
to dissolve
all all
memory e
take out
the best
so's not
to feel
its absence

Stuff to write with
Stuff to write on
Stuff to write about
Stuff to enjoy
Progress

So you feel you have to be acid
and all else must be dissolved

I have exited my head
to, admittedly, another part
of my head, a better one
this time and here
is why

Something uncertainly beautiful
melts you into it




Copyright@2019 Dennis

Fewer reads
is good right?

What happens when
the DNA talks
I wondered

as if a molecule
could come alive

and talk it's way
to the safety of the stars

It's not as if
we're walking
hunks of DNA

Sharpening ourselves
on, well
Everything

It's not as if
we have a lot of fun
mixing the stuff

or even tryin'
to get that right
thru practice

You know
that expression
right

It's not as if
it hasn't lost patience
with time

and tissue's
slow perambulation
forward

And is now
off shoring sense
to silicon

It's not as if
What climbs
this ladder in us

thru us
to us
is writing this

is a hound scenting
the opposite
of decay


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I went to write
or rant
or rescue
or change
electrons
somewhere

The grip is in
the way a fin
grips the flow
of water
these lucid
flows bend me

to bend me
time flexing
on space cadet
exalting tock
crowing at
intervals

Do you see
their hands
feel their
breath
sense their
heat

These seconds
to firsts
these instants
long in the tooth
hands out
catching

Threads offer
movement and
sewing in of
well everything
into this fraying
well everything

I broke open
like a meadow
in spring
breaks wet
grayness
with seams
bursting yellow
purples beneath
in a field
of green shoots
shooting
like the green
lantern
striking
goodness



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

a stallion lunges
forward
threatening
warning
hoping you'll
back off

you're licking your lips
at the horseflesh
hungry as a lioness
you grin
into

oh this battle
of flesh on flesh
a victor
a meal

or an escape

and i know tomorrow
having imagined myself
there so often
winning

abate your self
interest

create a space to buffer
passion
and the instants
that used to
save lives
that now
confuse

enuf is said
in one day
to save us all
yet we fall
continuously
is this direction
away from home
and mom

it draws us back
this vein of tomorrow
this fount of can i get there
this loss of
losing

i am found
on a line
by you
here
thanks
i needed found

bound to this thread
of breath
til it fogs no more
and we kid ourselves
until then
or live



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Languid fish
moving just enough
to stay still
in the current

They explain
in the sun
to river moss
and rivered rocks

the minimal
nature of flow
and balance
in quiet form

Water swimming by
appreciates
not being
held up

Says so with cool
caresses
fish desires
and stone fears

It's just what I want
I think sitting alone
wondering what
actually works
with you people
anyway

Distance is unobtainable
if I keep you engaging
realizing yer wrong
in my imagination

That is the one
I'd be close to
Am close to
must end
now
~

Do you inflate
your pain?

For attention
or art?

Lips to the
plastic ******

blow
hard




Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

It's all about the song
gotta forget about me

It's the song
that has to be

It's the song
you came to see

Sought from the source
the sound 'ats you 'n me



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I have ridden in
some elegant moments
where I was resolved
within beauty

Always surprised
at it self ignorant
beauty breaks upon
our day a rooster

in beaming sunrise
silhouette on a fence rail
a blinding after image
or right now's want

I can't see you anymore
I'm thinking with  each
entreaty to burn here
here and right there

wants of fire and cooling
needs of held and soothing
swings of hurt and proving
I am certain...enough

I just discovered it's Thursday
way way better

What insight
to a mind
do you seek?

Or is it the simple
beauty of
a sound

Does this
bring
you round?

Or versus
what / in
your mind

Do you
live
to opine

this small
effort's
value in time

and this
you should
know

is always
a slow
dance

always a dance
rather
i swallow slower

being nearer
to what's in
hear waiting

You are allowed
to be beautiful
You are allowed
to be fun
You are allowed
to be *****
You are allowed
to lie
You are allowed
to know
It's you that
allows

Everything is an eternity from now
where i don't want to be
so alone

so of course
poetry take me home
Nothingness in a song i yearn to be so

Only ever
a temporary synchronization

'tween fleshy machines
green beings

knocking against
some

never known
limit

with our
self hardening hearts

support system commencing
to sell tickets

make itself
small sandwiches

little i-know glances
held back smiles

whoosh

we mesh now
"could it be I'm..." - is playing

hard by comes
Orbison's "pretty woman"

"Leaving" -of course always follows
"on that midnight train"

Love the molecular
puppetry

Love the cascade
of you

Stoning me
Exuberant

"Someone told me
there's a calm before the storm,

I know, it's been coming
for some time."

I think belonging
shifts

and we
are reformulated

targeting
some other limit

dragging our souls
on a hopeful leash

Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

Water thinks I'm late
to its swallowing
so I rush leaving

wetness fending
off the masquerade
of my dryness

finger licking
yes I'm thinking
you're shrieking

O I had a feeling
about you
crinkles it's nose

what little garamble
of smirtin accors this
off the page miramble
sossin and ossinn rought
ime an lessin aim aim so

Thus wokout sayeth
the sooth

And we kniw
meent

** rise in
rocks n lines

raint by rays
unknowin

ha this sun
brite

fits in
your tiny
happiness
jar

I'd like to dispel a rumor
about poets
they actually are
best in bed

Tears bring me here
where you don't care
aren't even here really

Fester, I fester here
in this white petrie
as you sniff nothing

And I'm angry at  you
say your perspicacity
must be poor and failing

not the artlessness of this
effort at resurrection whilst
lonliness' crooked smile reigns

Write these lines
Read your comments

then your
lines


get really mixed
feelings

and write
more


the blank lines
are where the universe

talks back
is always laughing

thinks itself
a scribbler too

thinks us
it's lines

really mixed
feelings

this poem contains
a universe

and we both know
you're rep'ing it too

So I end up
talking to myself

A lonely 'verse
writing home


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I am pandering to who
Or is it whom?

To whom am I pandering?

Is just **** silly. You can't pander
grammatically hah

Which three misguided
individuals

Am I
Trying to delight?
And ...
yesss
that too

R u here to chuckle
moisten or
small chance
be impressed

I'm here to undress
publicly
my well endowed self

you'll have to
take my word

preen
like nobody's business
is going out
on the town

aren't you smitten
with these *****
underhanded
norms
we flower up
or smash

On our windscreen
of twist an' rhyme
and twice burnt
nite time

I'd like a basket
I am thru the brake
I'd like a basket
It looks exactly like you
I am woven accrost

simple ru les simple ounds
an' lookin' like you could
kiss me

to find wha tinside
singing your h ands
around my kybd

capitalization lifts
its top
oof is much said

long for another doncha
when they say thas all

I am a quantum
a large quantum
i have an effect
a large effect
don't be jealous
it isn't funny
when there are
entanglements
that just go on

I hate that there's all this good poetry you can read
and not this crap