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

You invented god
and hell and demons
and I'm really tired
of it and you

inventors of misery
laying in the sun
on our backs

Do you feel it moving
This wave form that is our current
Understanding

Do you feel it become
something different
While we go to laud it
It is new somewhere else

We are newer faster
Our instruments for replication
Of Ideas

Faster faster faster
breathe
slow down

what reflects that draws you
Why does that catch your eye
Which eye

I'm stringing words
like popcorn on fishing line
and they dont like how that feels

Look under the sound
let it slip off the word
literary malfeasance has occurred

Take a pickaxe to the sound
pry out the meaning that has
latched onto this single frame

Be a criminal getting to live
unexpectedly

See if you can go a minute
without having an opinion
which are turnings-away
and self inflationary strokes

This defines my heart
define:friable

R u ?
I seem
Un

prepared

Is there
a chef

chopping
away
at muh
day

for the
good stuff
to add
tua soufflé

My brain is fried cakes
it stares in confusion
as it knew what this meant
a moment ago

and then I wrote it
and it was lost
and having abandoned
the entire effort

fingers confused and
unknowing as to
which keys
should be pressed

have pressed these
as if there is another
in here too *******
i wrote this not you

not again anyway
at this perplexity
of leaving off
and beginning

as if a batter
rose in heat
and solidified
a triple treat

I was talking to the french fries
about my love of golden brown
You  know how you are in a salty
conversation and you don't know
how you got there when you only
and then that plunge into hot oil
that you know is so-oo unhealthy
and that burn you love that burn
and that shake of salt is the light
of day and you pull up a shake
and slake that crunch's salty wake

These keys asked for something useful
you are not around to press
such a thing upon them

I can log your absence
it seems correct and not useful
as I write it down

the page seems to yield
sparingly unhappy
I leave a skittery impression

Darting away

I am the one
this time
being unimpressed
by your efforts
to get my attention
this is a shoe horse
of a different color
for me and you i think
i am encountering
resistance to this being
my forearms cramping
in this direction is resistance
why is this uphill
is this wrong this
yes

this yes

is a thorn

i process a song

this wrong this little tiny wrong
and its bony burr

but but but
they they they

**** this awareness
lemony perspective
these lights
now on

The universe:
Say this

About me
Tell them that

I want them
To know

Is
Well meaning

Feel
The whole

Of
Which you

Part
Is a fate

The whole of of us
Is lonely

On




Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I've had it
you

don't even

don't even

wrestled down
to this
particular

disappointed
frown
baby

what are you
what are you
coming at

Sell me down
like cigs

you can't even
turn down

sell me down
any price

a soul
this soul

read
my profile

like me
enuf

to read
my soul's

writhing
in time

fruit or
die



Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

First
Getting ready to go

Dread

Yet I know
my strength

Is needed

So I
make some

I'll cry
outside the envelope

Oops
oh well

I do both
equally well

in earshot
of the body

noogies
and hugs

all 'round
laugh release

happens
more poet's work

in the land
of the undone

distilled here
for us


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

There is no them
or there
or then

These physicists
now wonder
can anything else

be

than observing thoughts
observing thoughts
I view my personal

tangled up universe
as continuously
increasingly

delightful
So you are now
feeling
wa-ay better

I had all these things
and then nothing

i'm a little distant
to your ways
tonight

real and i
wonder will
you want me more

as i thread out
to more
distant orbit

in your
view
scape maybe ing

I hit him
in the head
in the  broken
spaces
of knowing
I know
I did

The blood red time is upon us
-No it isn't
The lefting and righting ends now
-No they don't
The constriction is here
-Nah
the singularity hardens against
-It's all gas
the final conflict flares
-gas

Dramatis personae included
we act like lines ask us to act

lines formed in absence of presence
aching, pining, for a time like now

take and run some paint by numbers
universe

they all explode
figuratively

I've let you off
the hook as if

I'm already broke down
and it's a good thing
I've been afterthoughted
left bobbing along here
by the wave of time
eddy my new exciting friend
has my head spinning
that's when I thought of you
needing something
I could see from here
your hidden longing
and if I just acknowledge it
I take part of it with me
and you exhale or inhale
and we all know

Get away
get away all of you
just get away
I can no longer
pay

When gods play
it may not be
a good day
for the lay
and they
will so

You could be
beginning to dance
now

oh this living thing
is is is is i guess
my daily ism
with something tasty
and **** and comfy
schism shmism
i have a vision
about my ism
and this well this

scouring letters
for edges unseen
stacked unclean

oh but i am clean
except for
half of me
that half

living right
up against
the rest
of
what i think
of
as approximately
me

is something else
a pretense
i think
not even you

smoking while
gazing hard
being drama
in your
thoughts

or how
i imagine
your thoughts
in my phony
thoughts
pony
i ride
all day long
like this

So there's this
conversation
we have

Where you are
working
so hard

to learn how
that
happened to you

vexed *****
used
badly

and i
just try
not to sigh

whilst your ego
gits its
high

keeping you
away
from

here and now
as you're too busy
fixing then

which can't be
and isn't
to be fixed

I wonder about you
why you're here
"was it death
is it the beer"
or worse the death
of beer
these not ringing true
say nothing small
about you
poured out bits
poked about
evidence, oh, of what,
are you evidence
and for how long
of what, time lists
us out a letter today

lerilu and kerilu
went humming
merilu merilu hu
hu-alu alu lu-lu

Did you get that
almost musicalness
tyin' ta crawl out a
my eye ear sockits

sock it just sock it
away nameste'
eh
'nucks gratit-rude uh u

The wine burned away the water's taste
though I was glad I drank it

I'm just a man
glaring at emptiness
gathered up
in these rooms
the gears of engagement
gnashed

Gluons abound in the eyes
with which you read this

Hanging on for dear life
clobbered by a photon
of verse

Wishing they were
phonons

Their grip is resolute
reinventive
of itself

Its wail a mostly wretched
song of I'm scared

of separation

The Island of Misfit
strings
entangles me

Grips are lost
time is misled
Thursday missing

Again

Inky bliss
surrounded me
drew out

the Elmer's

And I am unstuck
in time
and really
really
fine

Can I really tell you
I want to tell you
I just don't want you to go
I just want to icily say

go away, go away, go Away
over and over i hear myself say
to your face go away just go away
mayhap more than one isn't icily

this doesn't work this never works
i just sit all day and resist what i want to say
come back come back u effin ****
and always u make me while away

Reflections
     of the direction
as if each woman
     an intersection
of sunlight and starlight
     and dark earth

An opening glitters
     and pulls hard
pillows fly past
     my blind approach
I am know nothing
     light that is hunger

May I open you up
     brighten your infinite day

God the tears
wrenching themselves
from me
the past
dying
with all of its
appurtinances

wire pulled from
the gelatinous
stuff of my life
and it lets go
of form

see me nowwww...

grasp nothing
to your breast
while it runs
through your fingers
into your shoes
to squish
with every
step

a smear of time
with dry cereal
a schmear of leftovers
in a brown
bag
of soggy right now

this permanent
pregnancy of doubt
a blade
turning the soil
of our hearts
borning lines
burning lines



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

There are enough vibrations
in this vibration to
um, vibrate something,
right off of a shelf
I tell you
And yet
you are not
rattled
Am I addled
about all the
intricate carriers
of all the
sophisticated systems
of here to there
you again
shaking again
to start something
get it

Poetry is laughably
serious
If it gets you

Have you ever gone home
with chicken soup and wine?

After a mighty fine time

this could be a sign

Have you ever danced home
with chicken soup and wine

and noticed the stars have aligned

and everything is fine

I've scraped together
parts of things
added aspects
I'm hoping are subtle

"and Rosario is SAFE!!!"

given contexts
contrived to help
"sunshine and roses"
volunteered

"Emmanuel is innocent!!!"

I let it run to page
smile and frown
that balance
bits have flown

"Cabrera not so much so"

this, another overreach
a cautious feeding
trying to feel that thing
you want to feel

I have good days now
Even good weeks
This wasn't possible
under your regime

If I wanted to be
one with everything
I'd accept knowing
you
another nucleus
in this medium
trying to hear
the signal
when we all
act as
one
and I just don't
have confidence
in you
doing that
as you might
be filled
with foolish
vibrations
rather than
good
let that play
interplay
if you hear
a song
there is hope

See the human
Be the human
Move your ***
They need you

I wouldn't say
that broke me
just
another me
left behind
un
voluntarily

Let it slip
Oh I
Oh did I

Slip back a section
at the revolving door

Slip back as they
push ahead

Slip back as they
banter closer

Let the gear turn ahead
slip forward

If I didn't
If I went ahead
I duh-know
Just let it slip

I can breathe
Letting it slip
Past

Breaking further
Stop these gears
digging in
narrowing night

Unsmooth strain
twists
a housing context
shrapnel potential up

Oh I
Am letting
it slip
Now a lot

Grab
One
A day
Better?

What gives me
these women
to whole
with my
half

What gives me
these moments
to have
with my
laugh

Thank you

The crushing I permit
the crushing I admit
the crushing crushed
I have a shirt I say do you

I'm traveling in this acceleration
towards you and something else
that encompasses this interval

it squeezes the frame until
the film speeds up
and meanings are reversed

I un understand racing my heart
these flowers of pressed minutes
paste themselves in my album aorta

Gravitic tomfoolery bleeds over
and weights everything out
that isn't really fast enough

And I shot out the penguins
from under the dusk
where they held back the day
and the night
so they could get gray

I can't ask
for that

I'm always ready to
She said

You know
I'm not going to use them words

She
Did

I'm always ready to
Picture your hottest fantasy girl

Sitting next to you
Half-dressed

Putting her clothes
Back on

Smiling
Deeply

Swollen
Lips

My eyes have never
Eaten so well




Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I have to have time
to grind

myself into
poetry

where everything
is beautiful

even a
raven


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

Where are these
I wonder
Holding my cheeks

And I'm a cherub
I realize
And I've found a way

To know
Even less
'Bout myself

I am getting
a

I am *******
myself

Letting go
my vowel

Proud
to line your screen

with
what the **** this is

at me
stares at me

stares
into the

staring
we are

staring
choosing

fuckit
you should

choose fuckit
have fun

it's your
limited bubble
in time

ddn't you
ever want
to be


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis