I have no ability
outside that
which is called for

by your thrumming
incessantly
even if quietly

so I dance to this
tune that is you
abruptly blue

You are deaf
and in a rush
otherwise
I would
send you this poem

and know
you wouldn't
read it
whilst thinking
what a////
slashing me

and you squish back
to central now
where the vibe
and the fits
are clear

and nothing else\
well me
is dear

I'm slipping
behind this
instance propping
up hope
and it's words
benedictions
bent in the current
are you wondering
could this be
nope
yes it is\

disgruntled
as a human heart
chambered rounds
pumped into
the pain body

i am setup
to fall
upon a sword
that is actually
a dipstick an'
I ahm only
measured and
wiped off

I will take you
to bed with me
drink

I will gulp you
down at once
drink

I hope you do
your job tonight
drink

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

Am I twisted?
Am I serpentine
pretzel logic and
tubular bells and
earthy smells
Am I something
you would notice
I hope not
so I hope so
I fear not I fear
and there we are
always are hoping
and fearing and
napping
napping helps
with the fearing
ok yawn i'm back
where was i
oh I found myself
being serpentine
and it made me
wonder how
i am used by
by some fungus
to write this

A mysterious woman
reached out to me
online yes online
and asked me
what are you looking for?
someone, I said, with a huge
and cleverlerly broke it in two
sense of humor
"please send me a picture of yours
this is non-negotiable"
she sent me a picture
and, well, I checked the box
anyway

I am of slight value
to them
it seems

And
I
Am
Angry

Uselessly
as usual

Oh if lashing out worked
I'd know what to do

Sulking
I've done past remembering
the reason

Cut myself off
put them out

Makes me smartly
alone

That smarts

These smarts hurt
enuf

Hurt enuf

Something must be learned here



Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

delete me
please
delete me
like a little
bit
delete me
complete me
i was on
set me off
oh i've gone
already sawn
off the stack
in the heap
being brave
the legs on
this verb
ad
don't they

I'm just getting started here
I got out ran around the other side
and got back in

There's twelve people in my room
they know how to use
this

I'm getting pregnant here
knocked up with feeling
as if I'm stealing here

It's just a pillow case
it's just a mild case
I have a case
don't I?

I swallowed it
that knowing

Fascinates me
with its
hardly there self

Often hiding
something
folded inward

This long crease
a fault line
or spine

depends
doesn't it
we think in parallel

forces sandwich
a choice
differently each time

as if
there is
no crust
on just now
writ small

and I can hear
the light rain
cry December down
the storm glass
in rivulets

something in me
reaches for tiny
home of that look
u get or give
that say's everything

It all seemed too much
posed as chaos
U ache to encircle
spray it down
to the ground

That it always
comes back
clue
not confounding
Co

Surprising
what i see
now as me
or me
as it

Lines not drawn



Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

imagine myself
mattering
somehow
being only
a wire to some
maybe stay
alive baby

This smooth blend
of anxiety, discomfort
and generalized fear
eases my Sunday dark

And mythical monsters
come the very next day
early, desiring a good selection
of my tenderer parts

against the onslaught
I wield would be art
with wannabe heart
for imaginary tarts

Am I happy
One part of my brain asks another
Let me check it replies
It sorts through something
I Endeavor to maintain
And never admit to or name

Having run some calculation
And come up with a sum

I say myself with a good
Or bad hum

For the interval just passed
you were gassed

Can I sustain
what do we want to sustain
in lyrical
s machina s

A death or a deep
love i've been taught
are necessary to the nare
narrative the money

of threads  i'm grasping
am i part of the weave
ing am i part of the weave
not to repeat myself am i

I need you to come smear our connection all over me

I need you to wrestle me to the ground and hold me to the grill and put me under the fire and make me be right here right now and okay with it

Even better than okay with that I need you to make me ecstatic with that

I need you to be the connector between me and the world what pulls me and reconnects me and plugs me back in and connect me so that I feel part of things again and not lost in this mental space that is only sometimes poetic

Bring your Darkness to my light bring your hunh? to my yeah

I am your crack into the future you are my crack Into the Now wow I want to spend some time at your crack

Sorry sometimes just be honest who made Beauty anyway who made desire anyway

Self getting over self getting over self getting over self leapfrogging self

And there she goes around the track a brilliant Sun

I squirm under this intensity

Of now in the presence of beauty

This is my core wiring singing

I'm hanging on for dear life wow you look good


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

There is this
dissonance some
confusion over
innocence an
inhuman
diffusion
begging for
resist dance
and I comply
mashed potato
pie in your eye

Or is this a poem
that talks to you
on its own
about how it's
written
and that
alone

censored

What if this angst mine
this sometimes beautiful
crangst list of syllabic
****** and flowerings
wailings and whimsy
this double illusory
shell of opinions
has just gone hungry

and the beast feasts

Some **** storm
of 2019

News people
*******

this this this
exceptional thing

we are telling
you about

so heroically
comically

I am
watching

stopping watching
writing

out of this
alone
goddamit


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I observe future snowy slopes
from these slithering wisps
of seventeen degrees
sliding against
my foolishly bare knees

I observe my turning hands
warming themselves in nests
of fingers and cupped palms
rubbing around
each other's need calms

I spent two days
Snuggling with myself
After

2 days
Of contentment

Ball ringing
Memorializing

Smiling out
Of nowhere

Smug in
Love

With
A comet's tale


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I am
one dragon away
from catching fire

I've been collecting photons
but not lightly
they come with a shadow
an absence

These carriers of time
but not timely
arguing amongst themselves
like spies drinking

They seek pressure
to pressure a field
of me blooming
as is my insistence

florid with atoms
of disregard and
disrepute balling
like fireflies

can you see
the crinkles
then you know
about crinkling

Softer words are needed this Saturday morning
For softer deeds need done today

Soft days are so appreciated

I open this
opening
to you

every night
sneezing and
expostulating

verbs I often think
and sounds
for which

I can't find
any meaning
for you

I just have them
in my hand
right now

and don't know
what to do
with them

You
so hungry
for the edge
or that
which fills
halt
mid sandwich
your
consumption
of this
deflection
you smell
human

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

Haven't had enough to drink, yet
to write really well
Inhibitions yet to be defeated scream
fighting that fade-to-cornered gibbering
buh buh buh but what about buh what about

its supposed to be

its supposed to be different
this is supposed to read well
save your cornflakes and all
from becoming soggy

Wondering about direction
Wandering without connection
Displaying words some fresh

This uneven land this scramble
of eggs like days beaten with spices
from unlabeled containers
I'll eat that I know
smiling

the bit not in my teeth I wonder
where you are sitting
where words mix in with your milieu
what you have at hand to sip
how fast you move on

These bullets
they are so **** hard
slamming

I've been spending
my vibrations
on ammo

Loaded always
locked less often
pocketed

Transmutations
inform on me
while tearing

New holes
in my flesh
while passing thru

So, I am having a poem
I thought you should know
it's not your's

It's another muse's
well something
just not

because you've
been off
somewhere

I don't know
where
just

not here
just not here
lately

You'd think
while my radius
shrinks

I know
these words lumpy
and promiscuous

Thinking themselves
watched
somehow heard

are nothing
compounded
until sweet

I had to laugh with joy
it just seemed like
such a good idea

Let's call it
Egotistical Anxious ***** Redux
the whole "clouds in your coffee"
ego in charge meme
"all that and a bag of chips"
worthy of worship nutbag
of little-girl-gotten-away-with-smile
not fair universe
unnhh no words
help this strain
on goodbye

i'm not answering
the phone
her texts
and still
it's a conversation
ev'where else
an here an here an here
while there is not there
to even talk with

just a nuclear reactor
i wish would pull up
and walk in apology
on those lips i'd rush
to accept forgive embrace
'sted here ah am
wresting love from lyric

and margarita and...
numbing things in
three flavors plus
chocolate
and i find this joy
at not being under
that knife of a voice

free of the crushing reality
of 10 minutes listening
to ego caterwauling
dark enough to wish you gone
forever or two days apparently
where'en i'm fully prepared to
renounce my principles
'gain

Look it
the **** up

I just did
"archaic"

Feel that
like an angry poem

crawling up your
esophagus

it wants out
and into

your ear
cover 'em

retch into night
small words

their letters
spread

and you know
these hands

don't you
know this soul

wannabe wretched
in ease

solidarity

a sandwich
only i can eat

you
you are not

here
may never 'ave been

here

I will be
here soon

i only hope
for you

to someday
be struck

as i've been
become bereft

as i am
of yesterday's content

Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

Another death
my  brother
this time

I don't know
how I can

Offers out
No draw

Nothin'

No purchase
at this depth

at this time

here
to say

alone

I crest in time
for a while
'til some shore
runs me out
Where does a wave
go
do i continue
through the earth
am I one of many
songs softening
a ball of concen-
tration making
spin a majestic
chord in prog-
ression just now
is this
am I
dancing some-
how could this be
dancing some-
how with
particular abandon

Are living within darkness
fighting towards an always distant
light

Hunched over
under the weight
Struggling with being overwhelmed
It's too much

I am in this envelope of Darkness
because
I am certain
I have licked the glue myself

Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

Scrambling for pieces
little uneven pieces
with an uncertain color
and a vague shape
maybe some ruffles
scattered on the floor
right through the open door
on our knees gathering
in some tenderness

"I heard this and transcended"
so I'm listening to follow
which is some part
of finding my way

And I find always always
"we'll remember always"
to be a song I love
and would sing for you

and surprisingly I'm
snapping my fingers
and the saxophone sweeps
away all of my thoughts

unavoidably you blaring
like i'm staring at warm
and caring but i'm outside
and i am upended even

they all in jail
they all somewhere
filling my need
such satisfaction
at a demise
today, i read, village
stones gang member

you take the gun
and pretend
you're a gang member
I'll be a villager
you've preyed upon
and I'll hit you
with stones

This garment time
made of illegible
old paperwork
and garden slop
and almost always
ill fitting

encumbers
everything with
smears of meant
and wasn't meant
and peppermint
and I never meant

everything did i
and I never meant
every time did i
ever mean what i
sank down
in the mud of now
on my knees to say

but today with you
being gone and all
on the way there
to not here or this
again but not again
or ever again i guess

outfitted in today's
threads ticking quietly away
like some bomb vest
hand stitched of veins
and thin bright tracts
of beliefs writhing
in dreams of ruling

I just want
Some of now

I hold ink in a strainer
wearing a rice paper robe
in time nothing is written
while stars steamroll pasts

I've condensed my thinking
into prized rocks of empty
you can fill them perhaps
with pity or awe or aww

Just as long as you fill them
even with some scarce thought
about good good morning
or a knowing **** smile

know one saw every thing
apart in a confusing manner
right when you said I know
about all of this mayhem too

write against time
don't you have
some place to be
no, i am a place
to be

carving on now
my face a chisel
my arms
whirligigs amok
seeking purchase

i can't even
reconcile this
bit of bits
with my hopes
to electrify

Some peace can be had
here

I assure the grain of the table
on which I write

Music even
to go with

A scratching i wish
was another's hand



Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I'm back
in this Oh'etry
space
eyes closed
mind down
in my spine
pawing at

When you slide your hand
over their skin softly
in disbelief