I don't care
if you cry
for me
I don't
for you

I'm sitting in this kitchen
decidedly not at
the dining room table
serving as my desk
it's a mess
a reflect hitting

accuse me
an' this
sorry these
sidelinings soaring
all out
absorb this
inta ink an' drink

an' we're here
a now wanting out
where where
I'm confused
at this end as that
striking darkness

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

You guys good?
Lift your skirt a little
Show us a bit of what you've got
Under your vowels between your aspirations
and your imagination is not in these words is it
is it in these woods when we hear what we are
all are skittering about with some explanatory look
become explained away when the sound rains down
inside the cellular convulsion i'm poking about for

Something
                to say
Said
                tasty
Something
                to be
Said
                meaty
Something
                to have
Said
                look
Railing
               I say
Railing
              Hold on

a study of beauty the musicality
of the bulging awareness or not
in d issonance to assonance we cling like
wet cabbage leaves in the porcelain sink
some things are bet ter finely ground
i have found such handsy syllables

out of grasp conflationary soup for one
is seasoned and ready tho i bought a mix
inhalations of craven veins distilled no salt
have you felt of vanquishing a foe whole
you see i have these episodes of nerves quit ting
at beginnings middles and ends or otherwise

and so dear readers our hero wanders away
delirious in a narrow band of certainty
held tightly by something other than hands

What a word
that'n

want
don't

want to
do

less
no more

please
i can't take it

more
or
less

not even mentioning
it's  cousin

blow




Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Quick sheets and
     threads of tomorrow
     under my fingers
          some smooth and soft
          some coarse and cutting

I'm stumbling on surprises
     of sudden silence

     yesterday is always underfoot
     and too slippery to stand upon

So I sit
     myself down here

To wander in small spaces
To wonder in inky bits
To one day in a series
     of discontinuities
     of land receding
     of time curling up
     of days
     with crispy burned edges
     and quickly cooling tea
     for one



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Got the call
hour ago

Uncertain

It was
50 years of dying

In a 62 year
life

Stop

If you live
for sympathy

Need people
to feel bad

for your
sad circumstance

Stop

What landed
there

A sister
falling

free.

Beneath eyes
Lies

Screening
for truth

Your day

Sideways
if found

Stay submerged
why don't ya

Nothin' here
Not even u


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

Landing it
is more universe
sounding from your
strike

When a day gongs

to your effort
alone or one of
a wave you've
put your shoulder

Ring the bell
that oscillates existence
swing you hardening
resonation

Crescend up the beach
of night's tunings
reach the bar
be one with me

I see this distance
and I rue

these spaces
we ante up

i fill up with
this stuff

at you spew
hope something grew

reach i  am reaching
an even pour draught

of making stuff up
uncertainly

A notwhich for lunch
fully satisfied me
and I laid in for an
afternoon silvan
listing forward now
as if i was getting away
an'd outrun something

foreground against
background as if
it had a chance

sand makes the inevitable
course gritty
or is it nifty\

and its a self same shame
we are contained
by savage rite

and spend our days
swinging knives
and seeming sure

I'm not sure
we should be
or are

I am connected to the network
I am of type human
I am excited to be here
with you

I can't seem to go backwards
or forwards
from here
It seems to stay with me
and not
I seem to be always here
while here and I
are never the same

While we are connected
in this slippery when
What do we want
a reading from the book
of alive and i can prove it

While and when
we crave these wavelengths
that never satisfy the hunger
we want to throb
to become one without
knowing

Vibrant at once
we are there
leaping from one
unknowing
for the higher one
past knowing

free your stew-***
of opinions
of your false stirring
and be stirred
be sunrise

Well, non-readers
would be more
less-poetic
While wrapping
my gift
around their heads
looking, of course,
the other way
taken
to be sold off
as lichens

I'd write a good one
if i was sure what that was
so i write these epistles
hoping for sound missiles
getting erstwhile thistles
of gisticles mostly indigestible

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

I've sweat time down
'til it gave up
admitted
all it's chicanery

the pinball nature
of the plan
that got you here
wearing that


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

I'll crush you

I'll crush you
an' your hard
mentionables

I'll crush you
unless you turn out
to be a higher form of life
which happens
really really often

Such that  you would think
I would get a clue
you worthless reader
and I am bereft of hope

barely can I type on
reporting the ebbing state
running my almost arms
onto  oh onto this forever

Writing poetry
seeking ***
anyone else
hundreds of years
behind times

It's a small thing this answer I have
like a breeze settling itself down
in the bowls of now's hollows
It's the smoothness of night's light
blurring off the edges of silk shadows
where something rests something must
Be turning this air over my arms my back
turning me in to the stirring from dream
frozen to some lost artifice of dark song
it's reinventing it's just venting it's just

I find myself here 'neath waves
of ascertainment an' perspicacity
raking out corners of something
Having taken care of the horse
and the prehensile i moved on
to the choreographer's *******
And the question guilt-free laughs
at my stagefright what is peace

join a system
to attain value
tho I thought
I was the MVP
on my birthday
in mom's arms
accept a system
or be devalued
accept a system
and be devalued
us outsiders
us lowriders
don't like the system
of systems humans
kinging hills
netting
daily kills

I'm wondering if it's gratitude
the universe dies for
I thought it was life
at all costs and any rent

and then what then
a shiny expensive hen
what is the ringing sound
I have been brought to ground

out I am ground out of here
so now I am where the lyrics are
wishing I was where the girls are
and imbibing along quite in sync

and time decides to say thanks
there is a fluttering and I am keen
to know where it has been since
and whether or not I've been seen

Izzat sublimation
or usurpation

underwater
and wet participation

in combination seeking
permutation

my surrender
without confrontation



Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

You effin *******
what the f are you going on about?

Your latest heartbreak?
Eat it up.
Eat it the **** up.
Really.  It is delicious.

Your horror at the world's indifference to
(fill in the ******' blank)
Eat that too
******' humans

you are always right
they are always wrong
you win
they die

they win
you die
more
get made

them *******
effin *******
are going to die
too

we all will

and then we'll be replaced
by about 9 billion

***** ******'
*******
poeting about mostly
the same *******

my heart is broken
I'll cut myself
I'm a misfit
**** me

*******
you lazy poet
you're the *****
of unfuck

this world already
******* in heat
between these lines
****

and there you have it
sports fans
the game
is afoot

lines out of time
still resonate
******' nevermore
sings in my head

and you
read this
and wonder
if I'm a poet

I wonder
what your little ego
needs here
a heart?

**** me
can
i have one?
please.

Pretty please
with sugar on top
it is all i need
to sleep tonight.


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

We should never
create a hate campaign
I heard a politician say
on Amanpour and Co.

They say it is not hate
we just love how we are
Love which excludes
is the same as hate

This evening
she walked in
and out
left in a pout
I did say something
very evil

I am certain
I did

I have some
confusion
as to what
as is usual

My capacity
for inadvertent
evil
is only exceeded
by my capacity
for inadvertent
okay

So I make it all
okay
seemingly
well you know
but don't laugh
at my necessaries

You feel this collapse
You fear the crushing
Your bones the frightened leap
too late
Already in the lion's mouth
His implacable need to eat
Doesn't know who you are
Doesn't know you think you're more important Than lunch
Doesn't know about your love
of children

You feed yourself to him
unquietly
What's you wonder
Will he accomplish
With you in him
Thinking you are
More then lunch
Is the error you made
You might even be
talking dinner

Wanting
Not being wanted

Nothing
lives in that switch

Waiting
to take you in

I don't give this space a sniff
'cause the smell of poetry

i want to say rankles
it's a push off of my own

this heat and smell an'
deciding on words oh my

the delicious and furious
tossing of sounds for this one

this ****** of a phrase
drawing your lips unhurriedly

I understand why the computers
in the matrix used us for energy
some humans are lightning to me
this sizzling sparking lighting up
one here

well i don't know anything now
do i

Cold fries, red wine, a chocolate shake
a salty head warming shiver board
how do these things rescue me
and curse me at the same time

Globs of protoplasm
walk about freely

Engage in seemingly
meaningful behavior

Seemingly meaningful
people like me

Bridge something
maybe no more  than that

the rest
"sound and fury"

is funny when taken
so seriously

a weld in time
holding then to now

I am a work of imagination
or I'm imagination working
teams of neurons waiting
to find out
rally themselves somehow
and shoulder to shoulder
suppose something
I am a bumblebee dance
others jiggle in laughter
this goes viral in my cells
a small smile curls my lips
they are all humming now
and volunteer a deep breath
I wonder

Normal amounts of water
in my abnormal sea

I reject all
of your opinions
and ask you
to supplant them
with mine
forthwith

inspiration cleverly
finished glares
from the rafters

hearted i pay
the rent
out loud, soggy

legs reaching up
pull without
contact little

tractor beams
having me
asided about

You would be correct if you thought
I was listening to you carefully
I can hear where you came from
and where you are going to
in your good morning

it just takes the sound
of your voice
the underlying vibrations
tell everything
you, if you,
cover

the best fakers work hard
not to overcompensate
not to obviously steer
and yet their pressure language
reveals their certain shallow nature
tools of the sea

this ocean of ambicioso
seething with us wanting
this or that or them
or to be that
and seen
so hungrily

I would be correct if you
wanted in
and will risk only vowels
a few consonants maybe
maybe a rhyme outbound
to see

I have to talk to you
about my relationship
problem
all you people ****
and not just a little bit
you **** horrifically
I wish I could stop laughing
No I don't
No I really don't

For not horking up
On
my daily therapy

Dear Father
I am having another birthday
number 54 without you

I remember what you said

I think I have been in that place

you told would exist

might be here now

Dear Mother
this is number 1
without you

I hope you are laughing
in some solar wind

riding photons *******
over North Dakota's snowy ground

as you spread through
these universe thin of life

Searching thru the
"there is"'s I might employ
there is a way
there is a thing
there is a certain
and flipping 'em over
I find the lifter
of I am telling you
the penetrant  
of the membrane
invading
every molecule of now
you sitting knees up
happy in that chair
there

The fields we can't detect
except with the heart
are occupied
paying sorrow backwards
thinking the past can hear
and time is an involuntary
oof

on a hot
cat
hot tin
on hot tin
cat on a
hot hot hot
tin roof
hot
cat
so so hot
at i taut
i taut i'
waz
a puddy
hot cat

That's enough
of a lot of things
grapes for one
not sour just ****
digging those skins
out of my cavernous

I don't even
like my stuff
anymore
unwrite unwrite
unwrite

This space
and my comments
Where there
should only be
this space

Fumbling about
now

Skittering around
now

Landing it
now

I remember
looking around
here before

Was lost now
then

Unapprised
In headland

I ****** away
at the words
all it said
you are here

Not being human
is easy
apparently
I have it down pat

dropping in
self esteem
I wonder
how to breathe

there is laughing
a side to my fear
oh i didn't want
and I disappear

This group before you wants things
from you apparently
wants things they don't know they want
or why
they sit here to type words out like this
preening and hoping or is it
creating beauty and moping or is it
singing and dancing with keys
its the printed dance off
pick me please
this group of me
needs to come into existence

This **** spills too much
this dam strains
wrong things in

bigger awareness's
and smaller fears
puppet me out

drift against a marker
with knobbly knees
'neath cutoffs

and crayoned
messages meant
sincerely

an arm around
a younger self
this way i say