A soulless body she was
Pale skin, chapped lips, dreary eyes
Her ribcage filled with soil
Flowers sprouting from her mouth
Her veins like vines,
Wrapped around her legs
Her skin, ripped
Corrupting was her flesh
Worms coming out—
Out of her senseless ears
As unfathomable as nadir—
She buried herself,
The insignia and rosettes,
The books she read,
The verses she chanted,
Her dreams, her fears—
A forgotten temple she was
Hidden in the middle
Of a busy city filled with people
She never knew
And at night, she would write
About nothingness,
Her cats, the mustiness of her youth
Tasting the divinity from the salt
Flowing from her eyes
She wanted god, she wanted sin
Pondering on the elusive thought
Of life and of death—
She just craved for sleep
Lay her body on a casket,
Be one with dirt—
So she drank the ink,
Poisoned her senses
And with her pen, a dagger
She stabbed her core
Rejoicing as she bled magenta—
She decided to die,
She decided to die
Before the monsters inside
Would have feasted on her meat

Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

****** universal ****, as if the sun
Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

Fat!  Fat!  Fat!  Fat!  I am the personal.
Your world is you.  I am my world.

You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.

Icy tangs are all the early morning, budding its flower
The young mother born into the sonata of her own being
That seems so foreign to thick sheltered blood,
My adult notch in this Exquisite Rotation.

Humid skies are as spy glasses to the truth
So says the colossus with our sun for an eye;
She steps out of the illusion beautifully blue
Robed in silks of celestial gold;
The skin hangs taught over the most beautiful
Pair of collarbones you’ve ever seen
The pass of your previous life comes in sublime waves
Of crashing aether and all the souls flee with irreclaimable mirth
Before popping in the atmosphere like spit and wishes
And everyday is the day of rest, a pondering
Of avant-gardens where a savior once walked.
He and his church left the path of the geese
For, he hears not, the pass of prayer on their lips.
But, I do not blame them: their mouths are full
With the sky’s drawstrings, reinvigorated from their disuse,
They’ve no time for the good word.
My family of geese fly for the astral bodies’ abode above
Where the casual speak of poets, philosophers can be hears
Talking about their *** lives, talking about themselves
No longer galvanized by their own recreations.

And as I go to place this thing in the place of pain
Warm rushes in the shifting life-force, the green of
Exuberant joy hits our hydrophobic throats
And we exhale, watching it roll back as the geese fly overhead
With no mind or reason why.

E coli colonies
And clusters of blisters
Pink clusters of blisters
And scabs and lice
Do they taste good your cockles?
Do they feel satisfies your mussels?
Do you feel alive, alive, oh?
Candid she is ah
The women of the water
Of beds of sand burrowed deep
Shadows under rocks
On the corners of streets
A parasitic mass
Not the proverbial grain of sand
A fluid called nacre
Or mother of pearl is
Deposited
Layer upon layer
Until a pearl
Is formed
The product of an irritant
A cluster of blisters
Opalescent blisters
Sweet pink satisfaction in
The labial palp
The entrance way to the mouth

‘I’m so cold and I’m so scared
And I’m so alone’


I just
So, a pearl fisher needs to wear waders
There’s no dignified way to put on waders
And when it gets cold you have to **** yourself to keep warm
You also need a set of tangs
Mine are hazel
I got them from the wood
I cut it down but first I asked the tree if it was okay
The tree is part of the river too you see
It nourishes the peat
That filters the water that
Drips back into the river
That is filtered by the mussel
That the salmon and trout swim in
Then the mussel
The larvae attached to the salmon and the trout
And it forms a symbiotic relationship
Where the mussel filters the water and
The salmon and the trout
Spread their offspring
The way you can tell the difference
Between a male and a female mussel
Is that when you pick up a male it's
Literally dripping in *****
A constant *******
The females all spawn at the same time
A mussel is an indicator species,
Which in ecological terms means
That it is a species that will
Be
The perfect indicator of the health
Of the river
The other things you need are
A river speculum
I haven’t made mine yet
But we used plastic ones
With glass cut to shape
But it enables you to see the river
The secret part of the secret river
It’s red down there
And it’s cold
The women of the water
They hide in the shadows under rocks
And burrowed deep
They can move very slowly across the river
Bed
A colony of mussels
A family
When you find mussels
When you f
When you find a beautiful
When you find lots of them it’s
Called a
Good crook and this is where
You’ll find pearls
If you ask me the man who takes them is a good crook himself
Bad crook
And it’s I’m looking at it now and I can see
It with the moonlight on it
And it just it
Keeps going
But it’s tidal here it’s not fresh
I’d have to distil it myself
With copper pipes
Copper tubes
Copper coil
When copper ages it turns blue
And you don’t weld copper
You braze it
Soldering at a high temperature
A Heat
Mussels can live up to 150 years old
I held a 120-year-old one
And it was so wise and venerable
I didn’t know what to do
I couldn’t speak
This mussel
She was alone
Down there in the red
The angry red water
She lived through
WW1 and 2
And women’s suffrage
My grandmother was alive two
I wore silk because it’s pure
And women are supposed to be pure
Don’t know
Freshwater nymphs
I can see it right now
And it’s just like little tiny mirrors
Little tiny mirrors that are reflecting light back
Speculum is the Latin for mirror
Maybe the water’s a mirror
But it’s tidal here so I’d have to distil it
Saltwater mirrors
Saltwater speculums
Spectators of atrocity
And mussels they grow
With annual rings
Annually
They reach maturity around the
Age of 30
Like tree trunks
Like the hazel
That helps me to keep them
Catch them in its tangs
But I want to protect them
I am one

Little plaster shells
But I cracked one
And it wasn’t plaster
Split her in half
Not with tongs
With silicone
Pink flexible
Gooey silicone
Their linings bleed every month

It was a dark orange
Red colour
Because of the peat that was draining into the water

But I have to protect them
Cause I am one.

Ayr ye scurvy turnpike,
turn yer eyes from me!
The beauty of yer blizzard blue
tears me flannel heart.

Ye bake me mind into applesauce
that hotly drools on down,
me stomache is dissolvin-
all me courage ye have drowned.

Ayre ye wretched rogue of lies,
no one could be so fair.
Must be an imagination demon
with soft an tender hair.

When yer tongue tangs sharply on me lips
me life is drained and dying.
shut that song of love ye sing
that sets me soul a flyin.

Ayre ye **** banshee
Don't never let me go,
Grip me with yer slender claws
so closely we can gro.

This world can't stop yer fire
were gonna burn it down,
with nights of satin passion
were gonna paint the town.

Ayre me ***** of wonders,
ye know I keep ye dear.
I thank ye for yer nightmares
that ye give me every year.

He reminds me of a mandarin orange,
easy to hold and easy to peel
with a slightly rough yet firm exterior;
sensitive to the cold.

His character is that of the sweet flesh
like his gentle words and actions;
with sour tangs that emerge on rare occasions
like a nudge of loneliness from being homesick.

But his mind and soul are the little seeds buried
deep within the depths of his eyes and his heart:
he stays rooted despite in drought; persevered
and grown to enjoy the fruit of his labor.

There is something about the mandarin and its layers
which bring me much more than luck,
love, and even life.
All of it—he—brings me home.

I love the carnival
I don’t love butterflies or photographs
But I love the wings and faces
When they’re caught in the lights of the rusted rides

I love the way the light dances on your face
And makes amber to hold your pupils
I love the way you blur when we go in circles
The way your nectarine laugh tangs over the children’s
When the wind makes your hair a fury
And your teeth are naked in the glow

I love the ferris wheel
Over the river at night
The fake dahlias hanging from the booth tresses
The lilac smell of warm nightfall
And the cold fence wires passing over my fingers
While four eyes are hitched to the stars

I love the immortality
Like a kitten I was too afraid to touch
Delicate as a paper ornament
When I would twitch around 9:30
At the thought of my feet on the carpet
And my raspberry joints turning sour again
You overhearing the mortal in me
Became my midnight sigher

Ambrosia, I think
Is made of wet cotton candy
And the games we won

It’s made of teacups
The peer in the dark
And the way you looked into adult eyes
Older than they will ever be
And more innocent than their children
Your sneakers covered in dust
And your head lolling against the car window
With our hands touching like wind chimes
In our candlelit drive by the ocean
Your lips would open ever so slightly
When you started to fall asleep
As though you had something more to say

Man,
You carry me higher than any big drop
With your arms at your side
And when I go to the carnival at night
I still look up at the stars

Hands tick to tock
Minutes slip and slide
Time painfully dies
Poisoned off clocks

Faces familiar and new
Enclose caps and gowns
Grouped up in two
Sprinting the home stretch
Turns of tassels
One voice shouts
Before hundreds of caps
Flying off small heads

Tangs of bitter
Smiles of sweet
Here comes goodbye
One journey complete

the salt tangs and swirls
in the mist
giving the world outside
my door
an ocean lisp
all the tree's now indistinct
and ghostly
all the world now mostly
secrets and whispers, soft this morn
the cloud have come to visit
and the sun....
he is up there somewhere
the little blucat has made
his decision....hibernation
is the mode of coping...
the boys of the same intonation...
who am i to disturb the flow
....back to bed with book i go,

I wish to kiss the mountain with my feet
And burrow tight within its frozen maw
To craft a trail amidst an angry sleet
To puncture frozen shell with metal claw

I wish to hold the ocean in my reach
And drift amongst a swirl of yellow tangs
To float and flip and light a sunken beach
To dart away from rows of gnashing fangs

O how I wish to find my world of light
And sleep within the cradle that I've missed
To shed this sack of flesh and free my blight
To feel her soothing hold and once be kissed

Encased in flame, my body will rescind
Ascending to my mother in the wind

Two beaten baboons
Cling to each other
His dear wives

Kids flinch
Cross banana fingers
Hope for the best

Flamingos are shallow as ****

'How do lions go?'
'Rrrrah'
'See him in the corner
Shall we go to the shop
And buy one'

The last time I was
At the zoo
I contracted
   Ragworm

Regal tangs
In aquariums
Across the globe
Are sick to the back gills
Of being called Dory
By over excited children

S
Lucy really wants to eat a mountain chicken frog
Lucy would touch that croc's
Xylophone tail
No issues
Lucy doesn't reckon
I could pass
As a zoologist

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

By evelight lay lackless when by happenstance,
Moved to stoke fires by a wordsmith's en-trance.
Salute you Oh Scribe whose savour words evoke
Mellow cheese, crusted bread and drippings fire smoked.

And on to kitchen with hungergreed,
Then to see what we shall find.

Greeishly seeking  ** hum! Hubbardmum!
Remorsal to not spy no plump honeycrumb.
Hoardings bereft of gorgeulent fripwhips,
Desumed save for wholesmug and blandiment pips.

And on to bed with hungerneed,
Then to dreams alone to dine.

Ill-matched vestements, quick-foot before routine,
Grogful from slumberfast, not spruced nor clean.
Green of the wind that bites first to incense,
Cornflaked under boot, toiling towards drudgcompence.

And on to secure with hungerspeed,
Then to home with food on mind.

To sizzle, not to bake,  fits the need to be sated,
Though the tangs now unaired bring relief once it's plated.
From first ****** to last spurt no sooner guzzied down,
With all gourmeaches now quelled and all yearnishes drowned.

Beneath this world where life was birthed,
is painted in awesome mystery;
Eden-like beauty fills its silent world
and creation beyond imagining.

Shimmery scales flash before my eyes
in the quiet of the afternoon sun,
as blue tangs dart about in unison
in the turquoise of the shallow seas.

A world pulsing with life,
sparkling with newness every day,
awaiting us to learn its secrets,
within the school of the seas.

You live in an imaginary world
where there are high dromedary burled
Where pings and pangs and yings and yangs
and the tasty tings and tangs wing and bang
seriously even deliriously I've previously deviously
doubted even pouted surreptitiously scouted 'n been outed
you know it as a you know it as a who wrote it 'n gloated
this was front loaded and goaded not oded high roaded
the hurt of that last spurt stops these beating flops