Talking with David at 2am
You bro let's catch a buzz
David is gone
recently

I received some of his things
today a cherished sign (ikr)
his stash box handled so often

i can see him closing opening
cleaning rolling away
a moment at a time

here i am clenched fists
over a keyboard
of ache

I am spilling out
here in a chair
hair above
nothing there
not even square
speeding some
where is away
from I heard
from I am
from

that excavation
is done

as is you could
brush away

the crumbs from
your smile
and be happier

A man trapped and playing his role
looks out from under your eyes or mine
asking

This current, this current must I follow it
on your imaginary shore, you wrestle
advise

Carried, decried, decidedly unwrapped
a burning sensation from unknown parts
advances

Just long enough to ask what's wrong
has moved on to more fertile land t han
about you

and follows it

This cut
cuts away that
which holds me back

sliding from me
eyes dulling
is me

Yada dada
yada yada
yada yada yada
yaba
yaba?

I won't even try
to make what you want
I must exceed that

I need a slogan
or a hip-hip-hooray
or some **** thing
here he is
some **** thing
aren't we all
n e thin else
comes before the fall
proud of that
ieee

I'd write you a good
poem
but I don't have
time
or I don't know
how
and now I have
two stop

I was taken in by poetry
visions of diamonds and pearls
adulation and printed reviews
it was all going to be mine
i tell you
mine

On my way here
waiting for the box
I forgot the line
that I thought of

Rubbing my hand across
my phone's dark screen
it's time for bed
the battery said

I don't have
that

I'm planicking again
if this then flip out
if that then freak
otherwise be
overwhelmed

i don't see any flaws
in my reasoning
all my bases
are covered
fully prepared
for the day

Fury in the dosage of time
and no refills


Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

As if it was a game
I leap out
to spawn
an egregious word
again
unless we're talkin'
salmon and rapids
and then bears
reach and snag

gnash of day really
where you ranted
and I recanted
because it rhymed

and you didn't ***

Dealing with obliteration
Like a sandwich
Eating the edge off til you feel
Like a little machine
Or small animal
Maybe a squirrel
With your teeth
You click click click


@Copyright 2018 Dennis Willis

I'm left gasping
my false
version of you
shocks me
in new ways

All my versions
of you
scrawled hard
in my ink
on my fog

Attenuated
as dim
as possible
to avoid
more crying

Grooves scrape dark
'cross day
I go to bed
take a nap
sleep past you

And no one reads
my line
mouth open
clothes off
next to me

This latest poem is early
and burley
and surly
and isn't going to sit still
for any nonsense from you
Dear Reader
Check that reaction
that exaction
That Narrowing down
past my crafting hand
to your wanting
your line here

Or something
of piercing beauty
like you

All of our conversations end
with you giving me the finger
it is so satisfying that tonight's
did too

If that was our last one I'm glad
I was able to make it clear finally
just how wrong you have been
all of these years

I'm glad you can see how lucky
you are and just how much more
you should have listened
to my advice

I can see the look on your face
as you turn away and mutter
about the value of little brother
and signal

This air sizzles with chemo
and old paths uncovered
to be played once more
flipping off

Men with guns
seem to think
they are necessary
to life

So I thought I didn't want to
and then I did want to

All these thoughts
competing to explain
this here-i-am now
******* a keyboard

The degree seems perfect
balanced
between inebriants
taunting joy and depth
with discoloration

Instants strung out
waiting for acceptance
I accept I accept this
reality's
smoking gun

and head for another
lens on alliteration
I am a sounding
a turgid probe
reaching

I wait for understanding
in semi-darkness
Babylon plays
in the background
sinking

Your internal organs
push on
relentless while
your explanations run
to catch up

Thinking creates
physical possibility
Awareness finds
ready-to-be way
tho not like me
to take it

What does that mean
I ask someone other
than me inside my head
they respond quickly
inquiring as to my
need to know

I need to know  her number
her skin
her dimples
let's not dance around this
I need to know
her as a human

I don't know who you are
or how to please you
aiming imaginings
at opinion machines
and hoping a good one
comes crashing back
yours, carefully held
odds are, won't
this undeserving
won't
get acknowledged
right
it all ended there
crescendo'd
and then
awkwardly,
cresendo'd again

I spelled distasteful with my life
So I sit alone
And right




Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Every thought a line
breaking

I can smell you
on clean hands

Staying there
burns

What's in the now
rising please rise

moving around
bursting

this corded now
some how

in the grip
tomorrow

wailing at me
with my own lips

I make them
sputter with my finger

This is endless
no

This is all of me
trying

not to
end

endlessly
endlessly

i read the news

oh, <flame>,  out
shockingly

Calculating my years left

pushups tomorrow

poetry and poison
tonight

Dinner in the sun
squinting
leaning from shadow to blinded
your lazy beauty blinking soft
to searing
tilt again
everyone disappears
and i am in
with only the stellar
slow scalding
i hold still for it
your knifing

sip sip sip
tequila, salt, songs

queso dip dip dip
strangeness of you reading
on  your phone

i'm negotiating with silence
what sound might be okay
to break it

your lesson of leaving
things unsaid
holding them back

is love
buffered
not the unraveling

and this sandwich
of mirrors 'flects
too much

Will you take me
from here
I think at you

Please don't **** me
I grit at you
My fear

Just the right distance
from
Can't get far enough away
Safe
shadowed and still
you can't see me
out
here

where letters slow
down where typing
slows down and
letters want to crawl
back up my fingers
from whence
they came

undo close
undo undo undo
nothing happens
and the wound
doesn't close

I have 12 percent
distance
bowl distance
molecules
of masking flood
to the fingers
where the fight has declined
to skin on plastic keys
immune to pressure

the forefinger tip tracing the squarish
key of j
or is it J

Circling definitions feed
on my showing up as
posing weakness
and pieces drift away
like readers

Is a description of time labored
worked into crevices like grime
gritty seconds rolling like tanks
against bags of groceries thyme
sinking i am into sinking as a
sensation decline against mine
hard muscled now here hatted
by the paperwork of the day
this what keeps you away

Nice shot
this thought
in this barrel

to be triggered
bayou
by you

knifing again
and again
and and and

carved of time
waiting art
unpaints

a nice picture
executed
perfectly

I want to have a forest
its breath laden
its tongue brambled
and pathed I'll walk
some hearted river
crooked swallow flying
and of time ranging
hills so quiet
small meadows, purple
wild flowers, squirrels
its light; watery webs
and splashes
on surprised leaves
warming still

The difficulty of looking
even here
it is difficult
and I am looking
for the comeback
resonance wherein
I hear me
being this weird poet-y thing
awkward in appreciating
laughing at what no one else hears
the alliteration was delightful
not its social envelope of power

and I command herein
to be naught pressing
so you may be your pressure
unhindered
even welcomed
drawn in
'gainst my own's ok i guess

fashion this geography moot
and i am resting against
the beast of thought
who languidly
of course
thins away

Nothing to be said
is so loud
after such a thing

Mental health
is not all
it's cracked up
to be

This is similar
to everything else
unless this feeling
to you is foreign

Spoiler alert
You might not be
Well let's
leave it at that

But I can't
or won't
Not on
Saturday

I smoked
two bugs bunny's
on YouTube
& know what's up

I don't know if I'm singing at all
I got thanked for talking someone
out of suicide today, or at least the threat
and I'd like to spin a self mythology

So I hunker down, focus, crowd up to
this vague edge in this vague direction
I'll reach past pandering for the dark band
and I reach my hand in

This frightens me, no it doesn't, yes it does
I feel for the imaginary bulb of darkness
I could unscrew it or tighten it or smash it
or I could just write about it

Not sure I like
this experiment
this hazard
nature has
caste against

I don't know
how to say
what is
this force
that frays

I ablate
into something
egg like
having no use
for my
covering

i strike
with this
spear
that has
a look
so fierce

Look what I got done
look what I have here
look look look
at what
I have

Or when the door opens
are they just like

Whoa!
This is awesome!

Every
Single
Time

Not like they have to do
long range plannin'

Rotate the crops
Or put up for Winter

They have us
for that

'sif they smelled the danger
in big brains

Growled
Backed away

This
I think
they thought

Is it
the pinnacle

Let those big gangly
doofuses

Grow 'em
They're suckers

for a nuzzle
an' let'm touch u

Wah-woofin'-lah
free food

Don't think they ever imagined
At the beginning

They'd have us farming, canning
and Manufacturing

Gazillions
o' fuzzy wuzzys

to chew
on

Have us training to Ph.D.
In case they get an owie

prolly didn't anticipate
satellite collars though

Cats dominate the internet
Dogs the medical Market

My poetry
could use their marketing prowess

They even have us raising money
to take better care of more of them

You've seen
those sad commercials

As I prepare their dinner before my own
I realize

They've us
instead of reason

**** reason

Bark
******
Bark


Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

I too am aghast
it won't last

What is with me
what is us
maybe

Us is the will to live
I am one effort

what in the dickens
is a will to live

a foray into darkness
because hunger

I am so hungry
tonight

in sewing together
this

i've included you
as batting

****
too late

Done with this
Done with being
this person

Don't know if I need to make space
for the new tenant

or they  just
fill in

around the detritus
(does anyone but poets
use this word?)
of today's me

exploding in bits
*******
dishonor in luxury

**** me
and you
maybe not you

tho

you are really
very nice

aren't you?
it's that one next to you

done with
done with
done with

I so love
the drama
of being

at the
end
edge
never and ever
land

the heroic rise
is in my eyes

i get above
all

anxiety falls

the black engine
falters

blondes and brunettes
swoon

has anyone ever swooned
for real? (write and tell me please)

what i am done with
me

being me

then seeing me
beeing me

ah

close my eyes
this **** habit

open

what am I done with?
these bad habits?

nope
it's just these keys

begging for pressing
the satisfying clicking has momentum
draws the tips magnetically

and you
what presses
the keys
in turn

are you done with this shallow version
are you done with this thin living
are you done with this noise

and i turn away as if
a chord is struck in my neck

and this
a great breath
of chilled night air
bares its breast

and November falls to
December

I am not warm
here

I can find you
if necessary

revoke
something

and look away

you'll sit
swilling ink

and we'll all draw on this pool
of fettered blossoms

role it thin
cut shapes

bake, butter, serve
the unnerving

side of right now
where you must

be done with this
and you know why

Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

It's here early
and I'm flat
wisdom is a pretense
I think
pretending
I have
something
here
for you
I don't

Why are you leaving me
oh why why why
are you leaving me
don't leave me don't
leave me please don't
leave me please

I thought
I was so
good
but
this
is all
I have
to offer
I'm thinking

Let's lie to the wind
and the sun
let's tell them
all the work
is done
Let's invite in
all of your sins
do you have
them within
you now
In a sentence
what **** of
what would
you join
and why

Yes, I'm thinking about you
whom I won't have anything
to do with

You count me selfish
bent
sore loser

Yes
yes
yea

In this race, I lost
and pounded my fists
and cried, (still crying)

I rage against want
not want me
thaaaaaaat way

exploding things
across my vision
you know you **** well know