he is the unlost lost boy
the one who sold his soul to reality
to escape Neverland, get out of the dreamworld
because no matter where you go,
your hometown is always your enemy
a thing of your destruction, a catalyst to your demon's whispers
but you will always miss it when you move on
as he drifted off to sea, his eyes were overwhelmed with waves of blue
his cuts were cleansed with ocean water, then doused with sea salt
he's really cute when he's high
and even when those blue eyes are so far gone, they're deeper than the ocean
and they light up at 1 am for the dumbest reasons,
because he finds comfort in the littlest things.
his voice in the darkness is my lullaby,
my ode to staying up to o late and regretting it in the morning
but then I remember a story,
or a laugh,
a dare,
or a secret
and I realize he is my hometown.
He is the beat up white car to get me out of here
and I'll pack him up in a cardboard box,
spread him out on my floor when I finally miss it too much
and realize maybe it wasn't so bad.

Alone,
so timid.
Watching the world,
the lost faces;
the stone sky.
Black and white.
These people claim "crushed soul",
the town claims "no life left unlost...",
beyond this grey sky.
Rainbow?
Wake up.
This world is too full.
This world of "just too plain."

The solitary reminder,
a sole survivor,
hopeful-placed,
forgivingly encased
in little boxes decorative
hidden in plain sight
throughout our home.

Single and incomplete,
the lonesome leftovers,
openly hid upon bookshelf,
desk corners, fireplace mantels,
storage units of the
I am unlost,
I am unfound,

Raise your hand,
stand up and say
that is me,
that is me.

Minor treasure chests,
of carved wood, seashell real,
acquisitions of trips
to faraway places,
these boxes, they themselves,
visible but unremembered,
just there, no cares,
no one knows,
when or why.

that is me,
is that me?

Space fillers, memory taunts,
grandchildren's playthings, delight,
when they someday come visit,
weather and parents permitting,
finding keys for locks, doors,
from three homes ago.

Can they unlock me too?

Boxes hoard the things
we have lost, but cannot discard,
can't sacrifice, gotta keep,
an admixture of buttons,
dried flowers, faded notes that
once upon a time mattered,
shook someone's world...

Some kept in hope,
others, sequestered, lock-up,
jails that we are both
jailor and jailed,
the joke being on me.

Should we, you and I,
exchange these
cases histories of lost hopes, memories,
it would not be surprising,
if when opened,
the contents identical,
even if you are in Manila,
Leeds, places of need,
and yet,
we would be shocked,
asking,

*that is me,
is that me?

the absence of darkness in the city
fragile upon the edge of light
empty and eerily awaiting the demise of the sun
lifeless city, ruthless in its takings
your decadence
sad and unheard by passers on the quiet streets
singled by the sounds of your own footsteps
unlost but wandering
for what you seek in a star
is hidden by shrouds of impurity

In the back of my stair storage
I have a bin
within my old sins lie
Otherwise I'll forget
as soon as it leaves my eyes
I'm liable

Distracted  
Careless
Unmindful

I have lost so many things
some misplaced
forgotten
stolen, I’m sure
I've lost people
For the same reasons

Its enough to drive me manic
I can’t trace
where the last place
I had it
was
The worst
Is when I don't even know
I've lost it
until the universe
decides to taunt and tease me
with that information

I've lost songs
that hold memories
of my childhood within their lyrics
I've lost movies
Some I've just watched too many times
I've lost feelings
at least all the intensity in them

So,
I've started hoarding

I told myself I'm not losing that nostalgia
So I'm boarding them up in boxes
I'm being present in my past
and these are the paradoxes
In which my unlost will hopefully last

Not to be dramatic
But I love to be dramatic
You're one thing I look for every time
But I couldn't find you if I tried
No crumbs, no remnant
nothing in these boxes
will cause remembrance

One day, I'll be going through
and one day, I won't care to find you

To tell the story of the nice-guy
is to tell a tale of unlost innocence.  

There is no complexity that circumstance can’t remedy.  There is no effort
to niceness; only a ****** world that blossoms
on genetically mutated ideology, growing larger than generations past.

Tomorrow, in Houston,

a butcher will wake up to slaughter a cow he may have named.  

There will no be no tears when he grills steak for the wife he wooed
and the children he prescribed himself.  

Three daughters,
from fifteen to twenty-two.  

Tiramisu for dessert.  

Ten guns in the cabinet beneath the stairs
and innocence buried behind the woodshed.

Pretend now, that you are forgiven.  

Mistakes fade like snow angels, regrets
float like chemtrails.

You love you as much as the world always did.  

You have not seen friends struck down by powders or lunacy,
you have only lived in the glow of their light.  Hearts remain full.  

The word swagger hasn’t been hijacked by hip hop
and bluejeans still mask imperfections.  Sunsets are memorable,

and so are first dates and last kisses.  

Sun won't blister fragile shoulders.  

Fields blossom just in time to suit your irregular taste buds,
satisfying sweet corn cravings on Christmas.

Forget your father’s words
or a stranger's hand.  

Forget improbability, impossibility,
impotence, importance,
impatience
and improper goodbyes.  

Forget the tears cried alone
into ***** filled sheets at midnight.  

Forget the effect but remember the cause,
camouflaged like a landmine of good ideas.  

Forget the fights and slow-turn walk-aways
that turned words flaccid.  

Forget friends ******* ex-girl friends
and amphetamines crashing into hallucinations.  

Nice-guys vanish like good ideas,
lost in the shuffle,
looking for pen and paper,

just like house cats die
on the forth of July,

and all that’s left are ashes
on a mantel
alongside fraudulent grins.

Bottled, bound in a brume blue-green,
a mist of Listerine again descends.
And slick, with what’s like shower’s
sweat, there's wipes of writing
on the wall. One thought, on
an endless loop of overcast,
warm marks on rippled sobbing glass:
o             u             t.

Seated, seeping. The mute little girl
fallen down the town well.  
We are half-aware of  the consequence
of these dreams of outside air. Clarity.
It kills me, but I suspect that now
a good deal of this vial’s moisture is mine.  

Chewing cautionary label gum,
(Do Not Swallow!)
We churn the potential
over and over in our mouth--
it taunts a minty tingle.
A curved black mark.
A chasm shadowed.
A welling up of a desire to gulp.

Desire for just one breath, one vision past
this germicidal upturned glass.
To live unlost, unwet, unmasked
a lifetime halled with gorgeous mirrors,
mirrors free from fog.

How to describe a sudden flight
when you stay inside your body yet soar...
There is fear. great fear. You hardly breathe.
But at the same time you feel free from anger,
from any emotion that clutters your mind.
It's the glorious finding of yourself outside of self.
And when you return to body after some minutes,
there's a feeling of great calm.
Such calm that was unknown to you before.
You just feel...found.

I see you have someone else now
Does this one make you want to continue to live?
Is this one brave enough to embrace your storms and  waves?
Is comfort found in their arms, their calm
and home in their clouded thunders?
Is this someone worth the dive?
Can they escape your love?
If they can, don't let them read this.
Don't tell them know our secrets.

Eager as they are,
let them walk alone with your angry jagged pieces
Make them want to go back in time
just to experience you over and over
This one maybe better than the last
Have you told yet?

Have you told why you fall so easily
Why at the breath of your favourite words you cave in
Why being told beautiful you easily feel like a treasure
Once hidden, now unlost
Taken cared of and practically important
Why you’ve always mistaken good words with promises
And staying for one night meant forever
And crying meant dying inside
And that falling apart is part of life
Inevitable and just meant for you
(6 times in a row, wow)
Why you’ve always thought of the clichés as pieces of precious art
Only meant for you, to feel, to realize, and to kiss goodbye
Why you’ve always settled with the good enough
Thinking you’re not capable of having more
Not worthy, to be precise

**You're just standing there, staring at me with your dead eyes. You haven't, have you?

The task I pay for change
With my thumbs I make my choice.
My very own choice without coercion
Oh! Hear me, my dearly pay for change.

The balance in my diet has flown.
See me and how I have become.
The 2nd to none to Iya oni Jedi
Since the constant change I chose,
Is nothing but inconsistent starch.
Tearful, I gaze at the Umbrella man.
And he mused:"Tunde!,
The task you paid for change"

My fresh fair skin has flown,
Replaced with spots as guinea fowl
Upon my flesh the night beast fed
For in darkness, my fair body lay
In night and day, no power
For my blade to blow away the beast
Ha! Bitter tablet becomes my mint.
Again he mused:"Emeka!,
The task you paid for change"

In abundance of what we own,
I drove to fuel, and got stuck.
Early at dawn under crescent sky,
My car, the endless queue has snatched
Alas! I now seek water and grass.
My keys unlost, but horse I ride
Since I starve in what abound.
Again he said: "Danladi!,
The task you pay for change"

Poet: Oluwatimilehin Adejumobi Alabi

My hands are there
just like an instrument
in need,
to feed
to embrace
to **** out your space
And so do people
as they like
to disguise themselves
unlikely greedy
to feed the world
with love of none
to scare the others
who are finding them
dumb

And what a frightenance
to seek a skeleton
like wind blows
imence
in a greater atmosphere
of the 8th sky over divine.
Unlost.

Halle lujah , who will praise
who will try to seek their own
way.

As sparrows eat the seed
and narrows finding their ****

The babys still can grow
the world needs more to show
and when you are there
you hope and find later  what was worth
was an ego of  longings
to enter the harder ship
were humans are contaminous
into sensitive.
fragical,
Just gaze, what is there
and the beauty appears
rehealing the one and beauty
of Gods,
were humans still can
that little
feel.
and powers reheal
your hands ,
and you Breath.

Then when the pens
Of oriental scribes
Descend, I find
Grief which undermines
Unstudied tombs of unlost time
Foundations of existence flood
Over me, as if in ambush lay
Unendurable pain is felt within
Its blame the extinguishing of the day

stop.
breathe.
slow.
leeee.

my heart races as i watch your gentle paces but everything you do seems gentle and every time i see you it's monumental because my mind moves so fast it even falls behind itself as if a thousand thoughts are moving, but with stealth, because as i see you walking by, each second seems to beckon a thousand more thoughts, leaving me a thousand times more fraught with emotions i never do process, yet in acknowledging this i have made progress, progress that will undoubtedly be undone by some internal battle that remains unwon and unlost, a stalemate between two sides fighting for the same thing, my hands stuck to my face like a magnet to a steel plate, two things uniting oppositely charged particles, as my brain continues to write this long, boring, hopeless article, understanding that as you walk away, the feeling doesn't stay... and everything.... slows..... down...... in....... the........ worst......... kind.......... of........... way............

don't.
leave.
love.
meeee.

I remember us calm and wild and calm
lost, unlost, and lost again
I remember us sleeping in tangles together,
and waking in tangles alone
I remember us happening slowly
and both so quickly
I remember us seperating so unexpectedly,
as I always expected,
no other way
no other way

As the winterly ice case bubbles
untrace the tracks on cobbled streets
at the visible foot prints of ecstacy
unleash the angelic coded chords

Let's lay under the moon haunted rays
diving with whisks of shiny anticipation
on the icy silky sheets, shaking the undrunk
inside the claused trays of the eyed desires

See the moonlight on our unlost chins
unafraid of the highs and the lows
above the rocketed skylight highlights
sailing deep in the caves of unclouded holy vice

Sweep your breath on my satin satiable lips
as your saliva washes the sins of the sun tilts
to lure and uncover the sainted desires of within
on the layered victory of the unconquered stars

I want to tell you a story of the rainbow
that faded on the rays of the sun stroke
ohh the ground that I walked all the way
torrential rains on the side of the river bed
eroding all there is over all that is ever was

They see, see numbers sinking  
inside the tray of the memory
fixtures of the broken marbles
overshadowed by the cardinal

I want to walk you in the green forest range
that ever rising vocal lullaby mileage
of love and true redemption certainly
the harvest a triage of unlost path
eroding all there is over all that is ever was

They see, see numbers sinking  
inside the tray of the memory
fixtures of the broken marbles
overshadowed by the cardinal

I have begun to be uninspired.
Little pieces of poems with a blank, surrounding screen.
I do not remember when writers block set in.
I do feel, however, that I can escape this listless typing.
With a little help and a lot of research on new words,
I can become un uninspired and unlost.

Here we go
Poets
Here we go

There's a left brained
world out there
needs righting

A discoloration
on all our hearts

Guilt
from the golden age
of **** tomorrow's
I'm not listening
I don't have to

The illusory I
meets the web of life
in our time.

Plinkers of words
with long tenuous connections
to hearts

Plink harder

This willingness
to think
under things

This willingness
to lay aggression
in beautiful lines

This refusal
to not be
*****

This refusal
to not
monkeying around

This quiet play
This finding our way
This Am i ok?

This is our work
This is our play

Now get out there and poesy

Time for this part
of all of us
to get unlost



Copyright@2018 Dennis Willis

Life..Life..and still Life

To all
Life is a mystery
To some
Life is a challenge
To others
Life is a rat race
To a few
Life is a lottery

Some born into light
And grew in light
Some born in darkness
Grew in darkness
Few born in dark hours
Yet grew into light
And some born in light
Yet grew in darkness

With empty bowel
Some build store house of grain
With silos in their house
Some grew  to beg for grains
Some met a talent
Increased it to two

From the dustbin baby
Some grew to be Kings
From palace of gold
Some slide into the trash house
Noise of the plane in the ear
Drove some kids to being pilot
Dance to the music in ear
Made some loose their path

Some are happy with a little
Yet live longer than excess
Some are in love with excess
Yet life end  so short
The begger on the street
Gives details of short life's of the rich
Their cars,wivies,parties and death
Some so rich without kids to call theirs
Some so poor with kids to throw away

Some so poor,
yet they return found riches
Some so rich
Yet steal unlost wealth
I saw the house of a dead rich man
Trees grew in his rooms
I saw that of a poor dead
The mud still glister like today

The car sticker ahead reads
Fear woman
That beside
Says trust women
My neighbor beats his wife
Yet she refuse a  divorce
Some men love theirs with all
Still got killed by them
A man with many wives
Lives to old age
One with one dies at a young age

Some prayed and are still praying
Yet appears no answer heard
Some laughed at those praying
Yet they had all they wanted
Some areligious life's are religion
Some religious life are no way

Some have no knowledge
Yet they are wisdom themselves
Some full of knowledge
Yet the wisdom is feeble
The rich says he dose not believe
Story of bedtime without food
The poor can't  imagines
Of left over in trash bin

Tossed by the wind
Some got  to house of Kings
Moving in defined direction
Some got tossed to no where
We see the distance
Not the destination
Not the destiny

Some clam been just matters
Some say they are souls
Other say they are spirit
Until we get there
We remain travellers
In this revolving globe
Call life.

I been drifting round for lifetimes
seeking found on shores unknown
weeds a'tangle, castles tower
all I want is to lie down

They say nature is our mother
moon a clock of ever change
try so hard to never waiver
steady tides wash in so blue

Rush and crash, break and swell
may be time to set new sails
rest on winds call it adventure
wake on dust not mine to claim

Sun a beam of hope unlost
do it all without a cause
found a lotus in the blinding
cresting waves ignore the fall

Rush and crash, break and swell
may be time to set new sails
rest on winds call it adventure
wake on dust not mine to claim

the spilling of gutsy gusto pends
to whatever the style may jaunt....
....with its walking cane of sermons
[a message i would never flaunt]

postage stamps with their letters pulled
across a tundra of stains;
some unlost refrains will gather stock
The human pangs gain it within their trace!

[with posted bills, or boasted pills,]
a lathering-up of the frock
so some suds get spilled in martyred frills
[but what if people talk?]

fine measurements roll, the tool and die men know,
straggling here for no reason.
[that which we've all known...
pregnant as swiftly drifting snow....
...] a plundered grab at some garment's seamstress.

the fashion forward sheet metal pleats on a skirted issue do make more sense
[yet how thick IS solid steel]