18 is a hard age
to be black
and dead

tear-gas in our eyes
burns, baby, burns.

r ~ 8/14/14

I find you in the strangest of places
in empty streets beneath the trees
in crowded rooms full of music and strangers
and sometimes I even find your eyes catch mine or your voice say my name
I find you when you’re not there at all
in the lines of songs and the pages of books
in the caress of my pillow and the formation of my smile
But the strangest place I find you, strangest of all
is on my mind
constantly and irrevocably

Dancin'  shadow on dat wall,
white-blues-boy sing yawl song,
harmonica cry, guitar scream,
to dat beat beat so sweet song,
dat dancin' shadow is ah swayin'
in ma head.
Yawl blues echo like dat shiftin' breeze
and shiftin' bayou winds in time dat blow
so sweet, like da shiftin' silt and sounds on breezy thoughts
about red fiery dusks.
Yawl black shadow on dat wall
dances like dah vanchee* in heat.
Clamorous mixture is dat beat
frum dat white-blues-boy smooth-song
dat fills dat *** in heat of vanchee*calls
and his shiftin' black silhouette on dat wall,
dat smooth-song black man yawl becum...


RW Dennen (c)  2008

I could
probably
fit you
into more
places than
one*.

late night August moon
giant as a storm
frosts the yard,
the treetops, in light.
I mistake it for snow

she wore a soft white sundress
·weathered light cotton·
and when she stood just right
-in the August sun-
I could see clear through to Venus.

r ~ 8/24/14

i thought it’d be poetic
to leave you the same way i found you,
with a contentless text—
a simple entered space
(i knew you wouldn’t catch it)
although you seem to be someone
who thinks very deeply about all someones,
your thoughts about me are puddles
disguised as over-complimenting oceans

and i really do not know
what i am or what i’ve been to you,
or if i’ll be able to keep myself away
from you, or why you’d drive hours
to see me in the middle of the night
when you “plan on kissing at least one
girl in the next three months,”
(could care less if it’s me)

"what would i be waiting for," you asked.

i’m barefoot, chasing a train i know
is on tracks that lead away from where
i want and need to be (but i liked the way
it felt when your hand touched mine)

glad i never gave you any piece of my heart,
because you’re the type of boy who’d
rip it to shreds, hide your claws
behind your back, and tell me that
i should’ve seen it coming
(though you would’ve been right)

maybe you’re just bored,
and that’s why you decorate
your skin with ink and don’t care
about whose lips you’ve touched,
and i wish i could figure you out,
wish i could draw a perfect portrait
with my words (or even just
my thoughts) of who you are,
but i won’t pretend i know you

i hate you and your ***** tattoo
(but i don’t really hate you,
i hate the way i let you make me feel.)