On an edge
bliss or dissipation
a holding pattern
call it judgement
fall in a direction
hope for rightness
not righteousness
that sugar
a favourite of
demonstrative
accumulators
are you one
no not here
u aren't

*****
you *******
you females
you confusions
you want
you scream in my head
and smile
as if


gloat
smile in your power
while i
channel surf
distract pretend contend
anything for that smile
that scent
that spent self

like a shot gun shell
like a hot bun shell

I am scrambling in time
you *******

while you twist down
on now's taste

you are the clamps
of time keep me here

singing and not knowing
why and your eye

you don't even understand
your power

nor do i
salty piece *******

onto the surface
of a sun

There is sharpness against my skin
of my soul skipping
Hard against
Now falling out of night
Landing ok I've seen now
While it flies burning

I am cretaceous
in the best way
in the morning

In the afternoon
I remember
Saginaw

I know
what you saw
not my pa

Sunrise in our eyes
reflected off
***** and hope

When do you notice
your hands

under a lens
typing for you

golden or some
color i can't name

fretting or
doing my bidding

Do you have these too?
Infested. I think. ******.

Panged into
something

Pangs haunt
my ***

tomorrow
has its own

pang place
where they lie
in wait

governed by
pangs of
dread

naught ever
pangs
on time

pang pang
you shot me down
pang pang
**** me now

poet with
a head
of steam

panging away
like your heart's
a target

and i found what hurts
you shot me down
what are you
panging
on about?

how has this word
hidden so long
when it its
my state

of pang

pang of the day
panged over you

pang me up against the wall
already
I'm steady on
haltingly
typing while you do
your worst



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Wrestle more quietly your knowing
of murmurs and tumeric and ash
let these neighborhood sounds ring
down streets and lanes of parked cars
Watch coolness and shadows sweep thru
are they seeking you or inimitable eversalt
how the tongue of life wants for it
Carved into sunrise this night flops over
gorged on love and delight and steak
All that mystery scaffolding of supposed
unwritten from the sky and earth held
truths gone with morning mist & night need
that this may ease the scouring of yourself

Piece and peace
Push

Part
am I

Push
for doesn't matter

Push
for a piece

Doesn't matter
Part of

on the side
turning

toward
seeing you

parting

paring down
pieces


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

we are in the cell
amorphous perhaps
a darkened patch
near others
touching some

do we swim
no, we aggregate
and flagellate
everything
close by

near enough
is all
touching
as long as I am
touching you

is all
that matters
and then
i am not
and am lost

Let me tell you about the parts of you I hate
Oh wait
I think
I love those

up in my  face
smashing
Like Godzilla
civilizations
Deserved it



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I can be this body in this chair
I can I can
I can feel this weight of myself
I am I yam
Lighten into whimsical lyric
"Green eggs and ham"

I lean and drift and sway
reaching for play
so clenched away

All else is harm and noodles
maybe rice no roni
with too much salt

remembering singing
i can't get up there
song

Sung in this chair
finding thru weeds now
wet old things that sing

I spelled this moment out
of something
it didn't like
and it was grateful
if confused as to which
whatever next

And it stood up fast
impetuous wrinkle
time a clenching
scenes bunching up
it a little aghast
whatever next fast
it thought

Poetry is
paying
this price

irony
of ache

constant
and held close

nursed
on

flowing
thru fingertips
to you

pount keys
you can't hear
ache

splendidly
and save me



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I was arresting myself
like a heart sometimes does
when the beat dropped
and I thought thump thump
thumpthing seems wrong now
or thumpthing themes right now

The spoils of war
lie before us today

This waveform
rat-a-tat-tat
is for you

of or not
the vibe
drops the mic
on your day

wakes  your ***
superseded maybe
by your electric shaver's
buzz

in the moment
you are drowned
reach
for the sound

of high heeled boys
toyz
someone's attic
emptied on this line

zing zuhing
zang
clangs in key

and ahm rahmin
and bumpin
an
this tangs

are or are not
of
the vibe

what is the lot
of not
at this level
note less

ring not
give not
live not

and Thursday
is the day things
feel better
sliding down

slammin'
charge down
my gullet

against
some good song
drenching the backdrop
with rich darkness

squirt i know
is the down
down down down

ahm just reachin'
your backteeth
grit ting

on now
tearing  out
you now

just ink
and not even

just link
the pulling
from tomorrow
'cause today



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Perhaps affirmation
is what  you lack

Or you are
too ...

Lines I leave behind
plea for a peek on the page
when I click save
and think
nope

I swear I hear them
realize
I mean
they'll never
see the light of day

Sad rejected puppy eyes
as the lid closes
them in darkness
oh alone

oh god I hate my stuff
has always been true
will always be true
sometimes includes
pants I wore

In this frame of iron and light
bent time and thick gravity
turgid things curl and twirl
find tastiness and bright sparks
with which to entwine and bind
imprint themselves on smeared time
in black light on white light

I want to give you something beautiful
a hand touches the hair tenderly behind your ear
caressing warmth down to the skin of your neck
it is your hand or is it my hand or is it this line
sliding downwards from your hair
onto the skin along the nape of your neck
reversing the chill of this nights air
with soft warm skin that feels for
just the right taste
that you arch against

Fragments of art
float just outside
the reach
of my furious
snapping claws

Picture art
dressed in letters
harrumphing
at my noisy
axial scrabbling

What is this inky
blackness
that hovers
quiescent near
my heart

Ready for you
your inestimable
***
and smile
and smarts
and God that smile

this heaping transaction
that wrenching response
*** at a cost
Nothing can be lost
so I whale on
sniggering self
satisfied steerage

Eat the words of night
get clear gain weight

the solidness of anything
given the gap of orbits
you invent
the mayonnaise of
apparent time
slather it on interpretation
win the game
without knowing
you are a piece

As we all
find our way back
to humanity
and shed
mythology
and all its
twists
on us

Yes, you can exhale
and needn't worry
that these mf'ers
define you
as not
acceptable
here

They are not acceptable
here
and may take
their condemnations
over unruly
hardons
and blow

Yet, middle ages
still rule some tho
I think they recognize
their own demise
and are uglier
than even
their usual

Someone said
in my head
about
my poetry

Gifts

I think of
unhealthy
things to do
to cause
poetry

I feel
I should also say
I think of things
of beauty
to cause
poetry

I am
unclear
as to which
stitches what
up your
intake

We sell the edge of things
to each other
to gather strength

We buy the edge of things
to ease our *******
of time

To moderate time's friction
on our hearts
and sense

We are a constant pitch
and changing curve
at no matter what

We imagine is out there while
Only what we imagine
is out there

Oh to fill this cool September night
Something more than this array of distraction
This day from end-to-end
Was about your arrival
Your presence
Your ******* blinding presence
I tell you I hate you
It is how small I am
I hate

You are a whim on a song
At that time of the month

I am always going to hate you
Please please please pleas

You ***** exalting
I am just a mirror for your power

I don't craft vases
vazes that is
I don't craft 'em
unless you say
that i do
then i
happily do
I craft vazes
all day

This may not
sound right
I am
So tired of me

And I can't even
see me

My results
I am alone
writing
my shipt
to you
prolly alone
too
readin' mine
tascape your own

Maybe we're too alike
to be more'n useless
have resorted to the beauty
of this mundane
solitude
hoping for art
and his knowing friends
to clap us on the back
and say things
we won't believe
even if they are truer
than your latest
fantasy

skin
lips
time
stir

Time's handed me
it's distraction
laughing

It's a grip
the unknowing has
of fear

that leads
us to
break bread

**** you and your smile
its half life of just past sleep
get out or in deep
no more
place holding



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Blundering in some direction
is scheduled for tomorrow
whether i admit now
my complete huh-ness
not to mention duh-ness
an' enlightening wuh-ness
or not these prime skills
will gracefully guide
my lurching about panic'd
smiling folly of a poem/day
walking a confused beat
that dubiously ends here

Talkin' ta me is like
talkin' to goodness
wi' jus' a lil badness
for fun

How do I play?
What rules do I follow?

What can you expect
from me?

What lever
do I hold?

And what does it move?

What difference
does pulling it
make?

Am I
a sandwich
to salvation?

Do I nourish?
Somebody?

The DNA
experiments

Gather in
a choir
to sing

Don't know
if ahm a note
or a lyric

particle or wave
or Wednesday
or whatever

Wears you up
now
to this level
contact

is a web
now is
just you

sauntering

Sintering societal
Silliness

Back down stripped
To just
Magnificent us

You should
strut

Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

It is this
confrontation
of the moment
we seek
and hide

Oh we could
do better
we think

shrink

or inflate

now always
makes it
too late

I am herein
and heretofore
choosing the universe
its polarity
to its polity

I am directing it
to continue to be
the early knocker
the look out focker
the I'll be
what you see

Rollover and scratch verse
and some throw and catch
verse

The I look there
and you look there
for no reason
and see
seeing synchronize
to simultaneous
sighs
and looks

that acknowledge
the experience
from inside it
knowing only my seeing
is all I'm seeing
so let's see it this way

Now can I see your
****** of verse?

Do something
I'm just trying
to write a poem
and I need
something
not boring

and they
asked me
are you
calling me
"not boring"
I wish

You are a crime
against my soul
Please tell me
you'll come by
Later

These hatreds I feel towards you
since you're rich and good looking
and lucky; enough to have my envy
in your packed pockets too

What comfortable shoes you wear
strolling magnanimously through
my imagination my inflammation
my constitution my restitution

Yet you sit in your small space
and wonder at my accusations
wonder at your own perniciousness
and why you haven't recognized it before

it's that you lack imagination specifically mine
it's what writes you in and out of confusion
it's what gripes you into roles so guilty you may as well
resign now and admit I've got you

Let this liquor tell you
I don't care
Shield me

Mostly, it turns out,
From I don't know
I panicked

And wrote this down
so you would
save me

Will you save me
as I am empty
emptied out

This latest
*******

offensive

This latest
self-styled angst

not even

a direction
when i need
a sacred direction

saving for

deferring to


no
no
no

There is a lot
to be filled

fill
I starve

Sincerity for rent or purchase
Authenticity is behind the counter

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

I realize I am no longer
a guy writing poetry
now I'm a poet talking
which is an admission
of a surrender
I just discovered
I made

I looked Death in the eye
quizzically, and asked,
sincerely surprised
Why are you here?
Death seemed surprised
too
That's not what
I usually
get asked
it said, kinda measured out
listening to itself and thinking
obviously as it went on
Why am I here
doing this
anyway
While I wondered
where else would Death be
or go?
if not on the job
is there a hangout
ghouls after work?
and now Death
was glaring at me
well even more really
and well even quieter than
and I wondered why I
had even asked
as if it weren't my end yet
Why are you here?

I feel the pressure
the vibe
of the line arriving

when you hunch
over your journal
or keyboard

tense and scrunching
into the feel of it
this elixir this small birth

i get a line
and i twist away
in exquisite tension

back quickly
with more
hammered in

it's a
keyboard for me
this time

i bring myself
to one vibration
one level of tension

this presses
words out of my forearms
fingers are pistons on keys

legs clench
toes curl
a gulp of wine

**** this
is how
i write poetry

or it writes me
into time
and you

Love them all
I say
Let ...
Sort them out

Just a body
wanting to be rubbed
lyrically

Enuf, I callout myself, my life
selfishness, conceit, self--centered
perhaps I am as I should be
or why did I grow this way
lessened I turn to you reading
calmly, curiously, judgmentally
I regard your air your breathing
your overall regard cooly distant
searching for what you know
in my miasma which I've poured
out upon paper napkins and time

I either create a groove
or i don't
right?

censored