Dennis Formento

Dennis Formento

Dennis Formento lives in Slidell, LA, USA, near his native New Orleans. His books of poetry include Spirit Vessels (FootHills Publishing, 2018), Cineplex (Paper Press, 2014,) Looking for An Out Place (FootHills Publishing, 2010.) Dennis edited Mesechabe: The Journal of Surregionalism 1990-2001. He is the St. Tammany Parish organizer of poetry events for 100,000 Poets for Change, a network of poets for peace, sustainability and justice world-wide. His recent publications include translations out of Italian of poems by Florentine poet Cristina Campo (1923-1977), soon out from BlazeVOX, and a few of his own poems translated into Italian in the bioregional publication, Lato Selvatico.  

it’s got love out the yin-yang
it makes a sound like a zippered handbag being opened inside a cat
it feels the pleasant weight of its lover & cries out for the touch of her lungs
it fixes its eyes on the future & gets buggered by the past

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making that phone call home
daddy where are you
is this the right number
It’s supposed to ring the old phone

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his father wanted to raise his son in the others’ eyes
even though he knew the boy would never be a god—
it’s not something aspirational, you’ve got to be in it all the way

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and create something mystical out of this mud
Dude says, “somebody just shot me in the head!
I can’t pay attention to that! YOU pay attention to that!”
So I crawl 150 feet to the next gas station

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when you realize the air
you’ve been breathing for decades
doesn't smell right

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not everybody who dies will be guilty
not everybody
who dies will be coward
nor deserves
to be ground up and roasted

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