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

The breakdown
of belonging
comes from stability

If I've enough
time
to know you
well

I'll find
something
to not
like

make it the issue

the why i need

to fly

to the next
plant
I no longer belong
here

Not everyone
does this
or do you?

Re-ravel yourself
more
it's ok


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

the calculations of coffee
and cream and cinnamon
round off and sip slowly
round the lucky tongue
should i make another one

dizzying numbers and
numbers of things move
a trillion beings splashed
gasp in delight, smack
would be lips together

things add up amplitude
modification by bird song
with dog barks
and car door closings all
setting their own volume

the average cell in my body
is above average it thinks
the uncountable me's
all counting their votes
yield up a molecule of smile

This is dangerous
and you should not
read any further

I'm going to reveal
the secret
you know the one

don't worry
you are not alone
in here

comfort will come
from those of us
making you up

those of us
taking this in
will forget

the awareness
the branching
net of narrative

making cells
not even yours
step in

and have
you looking
next

the deafness necessary
the deafness wished for
if only i couldn't hear you
all being
which is just loud
which is a vibrational disturbance

you are a disturbance
in what would otherwise
be a smooth universe
like butter

crunchy things to hug aren't we
all up in our wave fronts
slapping forward
in our blind nows

every inch of territory won
lost
faster than immediately
nows you win nows you lose

now you standing wave you
smithereening everything
in your universe taking
all in at once again as usual

can't can't just can't be here
and in the first stanza at once
knukin fows
and it's the echo is all

or the smithereens shadow
like a Hiroshima shadow
i was violently not here'd
just nows

ringing like try's oh sure
they're cries isn't everything
just banging around in the wow
fut the wuk sow of a day

of an unhurried look
held softly steady

stirs even swirls
the room like a drink

I am spinning
I am circling

orbiting on a tether
to your smile

Lost, bobbing
along in delight

When you laugh
at your power

Yes
You still can

Rock a room

Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

The desperation
of dying memes
trying to survive

They hunger to
Leap into your brain
these
diseases of thought
are systems
once helpful
now more often
costly hindrance

Your's, I'm sure, is alert
wondering "me?
I'm no meme, I'm real"
Yes, I mean yours, ours
Now defend and attack

Yes load

as if you knew
the game at hand
from a figment
sincerely passed

this is where
the chain of trust
rasps cruelly
through us

ends up
justification
for slaughter

time
the ******
meme wars
end

We live in a glut ov pent up
luv starvin' for it

You got yurs right?
I got mine

pro fuken tected
against yurs

protected against
mine

safe
behind

a
lone

gene
yus
is
all

The framed moment hove into view
skint 'tween and back lit
by a shining tale trailing
into tall dangerous grass
feeling just like home

turning in to everything
on its way to here
and here and here
these endless solidifications
sound like crisp pepper shells
bursting nows instant thens
heavens connected to their hells
carried like neatly packed brown bag
explanations of nothing we know
we make up keeping going
and all its movement
since were arriving
at best

arrive at best is the
nature of arrivings
is the nature of endings
or end a river of nows
here and now again

Here's this feeling again
wistful

Which suddenly seems
ambitious

In the lap of lonely
luxury

It has this taste
fitting

Into the story
of me

And the music in the
background

Tells you everything
to fear

Side threads enter
the fray

The fumbling hand doesn't lie
uncertainty is a true thing
of aiming

Unlisten to the metallic framework
given to all kids, read aloud
sounds like

Certainty just because we want it
granted to all, before the fall
feels like

Let man's dark things go
already
these turgid ways
made on some *****
of some hill
so salty and red
this ascendance
my ascendance
now leaving dents
in the firmament
of tops no bottoms
no sides no guard
rails
so push me off
or I will you
again and again
if hills could laugh
at dead clowns
it would be
the only sound

I'm sinking
through the floor
is vaporous
theatrically disappearing
arms raised

i am the phoenix
immo
late
agin

sorry though
now that I have you here
are you interested
in a discount soul

i'll throw in
carefully created grief
misery and doldrums
misshapen nights
hands off guilt

you needn't do
or don't or won't
shan't all over
tomorrow as if
the imaginary cared

just read to here
i lie i lie i lie
into time
elaborately inventing you

rah-deh doesn't understand the blows he is taking
his arm over his head
does nothing

this is an inland characteristic
raising the arm
doing nothing

bleeding does nothing
and that's the trick
rah-deh needs

he is in the weeds
flipping thru old screeds
scratches on his arms

when he dies
nothing is left
to die

he circles back
wretching
easier days cooler nights

both places
see him
at the same time

and unravel
their can't be's
and can't say why

It's poetry time but there is no song in me
there are commercials for songs I should feel
"I wish to be shocking like an eel" is my sponsor
"I wish to be rounding like a wheel" is in my corner
I'm doing personal development 'cause my market
hasn't formed yet but is nascent if not a coming attraction

will you buy now?  Will you ascribe?

narratives duke it out on a would-be
storied night when you are playing
to discern the light and right

I want to skin in and I don't know
to what may not even care
disappear amongst something
be one of

if it has a burr or a thorn
ta ache against always
Then we've the constant taste
repairing blood

We ensue loudly at ourselves
Ringing Bells of being
As if loud does not
attract the unfrightened

Knowing better
Knowing of
of
Again

Them's some hot
neurons
you got baby

I love
your
hallucination

your fascination
response
lickety-split

second
charge ups
and releases

ohh
your heart muscle fiber
strong

blood thoughtful
nape insightful
and supple

I  am in your thoughts
as they scatter
from touch

Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

If you could nail a 2 by 4 of pure light
across the hole of your heart
I could cross back to you

In Poetic News Today'
Nothing rhymed
with anything
alliteration and consonance
got confused counting
and accenting this and that
and decided a nice cup of tea
with brandy and a nap
among dusty books I imagine
in a square of sun from a high window
like a lesson in perspective
you find interesting and turn past
would be nice this afternoon
and tonight and even well we'll see
about a poet's tomorrow
when you're more somber
and know better so you can

I've dropped erasers
that had your head
body and lips to uh t
nope not undoing me

I would have
a conversation
with you
if I could get past
(so many things)
chickenpoetspeaks

I would ping you
and listen
for the echo
to see if, indeed,
you are solid

then I willrunaway
and watch
from a safe distance

and accidentally
get closer
if you seem

you must seem
and in my 'verse
be so seen like on
and incapable

i am trying to avoid
being eaten
beaten
or chewed

do you have teeth
are they the kind
that bite
when no one sees

did i marry you
did i carry you
and put me down
then i will
of course i will
haven't i

Its not the rhyme or
the rhythm
Its the finding
of yourself
exposed
in a lovely way

like you
good is of little concern
has it been given love
by someone
is what lifts
us all here

the objective, I've discovered
is to make it all play
it's the thing
you must admit
to be eloquent
there it went

You know this point
as you approach
and go past
over and over
don't you

"That's so cool"
What's your
over saturation
of stimulation
and is your
imagination

to blame

a flame

billowing sails
of not here now
carry me away
was i with you

in crashing waves

was i with you

in laughing
tho borin' days

Oh I hate that

an instant appears
time mastered
between us

you didn't
feel it
did you

If only
you
were here

The present opens up and swallows everything
the couch, the chair, the floor,
the window
and the stars I see thru it
All them galaxies exist only in this brany moment
this constant coalescing while vanishing trembling now
peaked on the pinnacle of time's cresting wave
is all

Bit of seafoam somersaulting on the unseen dark sea
is all

And everything is so small as to fit around you in here now
is all

The universe a second skin one instant thin we wear
is all

This alone contains stillness
its in that corner
keeping the room
from being taken
by the usual wind

play into me it says
opening darkness up
i smell hot dogs
and potting soil
and taffy being pulled

I've landed alone at an airfield
on sore wheels and mixed fuels
I just know I've landed that's all
and you must be here somewhere
light something so I can see you

I've looked up having just
stepped out and the sky
is blue and suddenly holds me
out of wherever i had been
out of everything yet arms down
I yield skin to heat shut eyes to light
artery red warm light filters in
fragmenting in my appreciation
either side some dancing on  
seems to have been called for

Somebody read one of these things
it was the end of a long night
they couldn't settle down
looked for something
really soporific
found me

In gratitude they
thanked me
next day

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

There are
and I keep writing more
and you
whatever

There is
"There is" sounds so solid
declaring existence
so soundly
breaking time

like it was ribbons
on a prize

sinking through this
surface of now

as if

as if turned inside out

is of shaded thinking

is of feel
the almost connection
breeding loneliness

on your neck
is where you feel
missing


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

There is another level
that you do not perceive
where sensibilities beyond yours
register what you do not detect

here at last we find
answers that have eluded us
like just around the corner
flees from our dream pursuit

and i flee from this leaving
of what i have outgrown
or have i out egoed
and its always on Thursday

where the week adds up
not trusting Friday
for keeping it going
we bail and stop

what do i owe you
here in these lines
some explanation of
silliness in time

waves to your passing
time standing in a towel
hands on its hips
waiting for our answer

this is not today
this is not even
foreshadowing
this is a draught

throwing this at you
in your small youth
heart open or corrupt
by soft pain

i don't know
if you learn
if you change
i just write

a step up or down
from passing chunks of dna
passing chunks of
heart

hearts here abandon their day
as hollow leaving them hungry
this is starving this is starving for you
and you starve in another direction

and we all yearn goddamit
elsewhere tilted to do that please
and we  sacrifice
die without

this is left this is right
and the simple
is mystified
and written badly

and i laugh
and i cry
and i left
this moment

looking for assonance
or consonance
or alliteration
or freedom


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

There is a poem
arising on this page
hesitantly

It doesn't know you
or what to festoon itself with
to get your attention

which is worth more
than diamonds

Unsure as to why that is
it unravels itself openly
unreels, uncoils, unfolds
even spills itself further
into this shallow dish
foolishly as always
and impetuous
not careful
or measured
just emptied
out