D. B. DEVILLIERS

Poetry

Category: Poetry

April 28, 2023

For Niki—In Lieu of a Text

hey nik been a minute
doubt I’ll text you so I’m doing this
you never read these anyway, did you
anyway, hope you’re well.
heard you started working where I used to work
it’s not a bad job.
I’ve had worse.
I went and got sober again. going on five
months already now wow
lost the benz oops
my mind too, lost that for a while
it sucked pretty bad.
missed you, might even still
miss you, but I don’t think I’ll
text you, I doubt I’ll
text you, I shouldn’t text you, so I’m
doing this. hey nik, missed
you. might even still
miss you.
I’m glad you didn’t die. I’m glad I
didn’t die. it was cool meeting
you. sorry I went into psychosis.
sorry you went to jail. heard you’re
working where I used to work.
doubt I’ll text you so tell randy I said hi
if you meet him, he’s all right.
missed you, might even still.
wish you hadn’t gone back to jail.
wish I hadn’t gone back Out
There but hey nik.
that’s life
isn’t it.

hope you’re good. have a good night.

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March 5, 2023

isn’t life cheerful

the song says: isn’t life small
isn’t life so small
isn’t life long
isn’t life simple

this is where the song plays:
the song plays in a room burrowed
into the
moon

this is who lives there:
a paperskinned man lives there
he sweats in the yellow bulbshine he’s
coming apart and the song says
isn’t life small
isn’t life simple

this is what the world thinks:
doesn’t it look small down there
doesn’t it, down there, doesn’t it
look so
small, the song says
isn’t life long
isn’t life cheerful

this is what the man thinks:
to be the dust in the moonrise moondust to
freeze in the not-sun in the bulb of the
not-world above the world where do they
go and the man peels the glove from his
frostbit hand the dust of it falls to the floor-
dust of the moonroom under the not-
world around the world and he thinks:
isn’t life long
isn’t life simple

there’s a box of dust in the center of the
room burrowed into the side of the
moon and the brass hardware of the
box of dust can’t tarnish in the not-
air and the child in the box does not
age in the not-time in the room in the
moon that the paperman dug as his
skin sweats and breaks apart and the
song says:

isn’t life small
isn’t life cheerful

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February 19, 2023

Partial Sonic Eclipse of the Sun

see the film:
see the screen gray and cracked
someone stole the bulb out the
projector, burned the reels for heat
who cares, the world ended
it happens all the time

see this:
see my failure to understand
my pitiful impotent rage
my old words, my dreams, dreams and
words, and this is a splitting
again, time and also a
headache in cold hands, soles of feet
sweaty salt the splitting
head in cold skin split in the
dry heat, when there’s
dry and when there’s
heat, to scar on broken glass
to circle endless circling suns, moons
Pilsbury crescents, shrieking manic gibbons
shadows to dance in the periphary
this song is terrible, this song is deafening
waxing waning waxing waning they
break my back I have to hold them up
I have to hold the world together
how could anyone possibly sleep when they
have to hold the world together
spinning, spinning
demarcations of linear time
or rather, linear demarcation of what?
is this the freeway or is this the exit
is there even a meaningful difference
and how could anyone sleep if there’s no
meaningful difference, how could anyone
possibly sleep if.

I am dustin’s failure to
understand
I am dustin’s failure to effectively
communicate—
what we have here is a
capital eff aye eye
elle you are
eastbound again buddy, in full flight from
oblivion to
oblivion
why on earth are we going so fast
why on earth

I need a favor:
take my clockwork heart out and
wind it up, click it away another day
counting off this hours-long second
stalled out slack mainspring
months of a minute
endlessly instant
I cannot escape it
but it’s quiet here
the walls are bare, they always were
I only just now noticed
there’s no one here
I can’t seem to escape
my blood is boiled off to ash and my
brain ran away with the spoon

xxxx:
I’ll never see you again
will I?
not in the sense that you mean, no
but who’s gonna wind up my heart then
dustin you’re misremembering again
you never let me do that
you never let anyone do that

but it doesn’t always have to be that way.

there was a mirror on the door in the
bathroom of the house I grew up in
and you could see it, the mirror, behind you
through the mirror above the sink
and in the mirror in the mirror,
if you got the angle
just right, then you
could see
forever.

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February 15, 2023

Aphelion

It didn’t feel quite like
anything at all, which you would’ve
found terribly apt, terribly fitting in
retrospect. It was quick, a few
seconds into the floating in your
brain and usually you stay attached—
some kinda psychic tether to the
corporeal form, but of course this
time the ambulance was quick but
something else was quicker, and
you never woke up. And the world is a
very beautiful place, I think, and it
used to be more beautiful
last week.

They buried your ashes on a Thursday
and then we got drunk
which if you can somehow still see us,
I’m sure you appreciated the
irony in that.
There are brilliant poets in America
who write beautiful words still in
current year, and one of them wrote
your obituary! and your death certificate
twenty-four years early, only they
didn’t know it when they put it on TV
testimonials and side-
effects listings and such.
We were now free from the
burdens of pain! and according to
clinical trials, less than
one percent
become addicted.

What excellent news.
What an encouraging figure.

The year you died, you died with one
hundred and seven thousand
others. 10.7 million people
in America are not prescribed Oxy-
Contin in current year
but that doesn’t matter anymore
of course. Not much does.

The argument can be made, of course,
that the intention of the good
people at Purdue was not to murder
children, but merely to make a
whole lot of money, which they did,
which they did, how terribly
nice for them.
And our contemporary freelance
manufacturers, importers, and
purveyors of
fentanyl are similarly well-
intentioned, I’m sure, being slaves to
socio-economy and
such. Who can blame a man for
making a profit, after all. Who can
blame a man.

Here’s what happens:
you undo a rubber band and remove one or
more wax paper packets from the bundle.
You unfurl the bags, flick them down, and
tear them at the
middle. With thumb and forefinger, you pour
powder into a water bottle cap. From the
water bottle you draw x number of units
into the set, then gently squeeze it onto
the powder in the cap. You
pull the plunger out and stir it up. Add
pinch of cigarette filter. Apply needle tip.
Draw.
Shake.
Squeeze.
Make a fist. Find a vein.
Lance it. Push.
Then black. That’s it. No sound, no fury. No
light. No tunnel. Your life does
not flash. No tears, no cry. That’s how you
actually die from an opioid
overdose.
You’re there, putting the shot in, antici-
pating, then
nothing.

An observer would see your breath go
shallow. Your eyes may close, they may
not. Breath slows and first the lips turn,
then the rest. But someone
somewhere made a lot of
money. Someone somewhere
bought a picasso. Someone
somewhere has never administered
narcan. Someone is in charge of the
Food and Drug Admistration and someone
runs the DEA.
Someone runs the department of
corrections and someone has a
badge and a stick. Someone has five
fresh rigs in a bag. Someone has
stock options. Some cars cost
a half a million dollars, do you
believe that, it’s true. Some
country clubs are very competitive.
So someone has to make all
this work. Someone very important
owns a chain of treatment centers. Someone very important needs you. Someone very important needs me.
Very important people need
our help. It’s been arranged,
bought, and
borrowed against.
Believe that.
It seems terribly
important to someone
terribly important that
we do this. All of us.
It seems terribly important
that we all

die.

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December 11, 2022

Who Dares Wins

I’m terribly afraid
so very afraid all the time, see
I can throw a punch and I can
fire a pistol and I can drink
more than anyone I’ve ever known
and those are some things I’m afraid of.
I guess it takes a lot to not.

Here are some of the things I can’t do:
I unfortunately cannot catch a bullet
and if someone punched me in the gut with conviction right now I’d probably go down
and if I stop drinking right now
I might potentially seize on the ground
Dustin, maybe fifth time is the
charm, maybe, they’ll teach me a little
hope

I think I used to know
I was young once
I was eleven years old
I stepped up to the plate and I
swung as hard as I could
and the ball sailed by, a foot above the
bat, and a second after I
swung it

out
the coach said, they don’t have
umps in little league usually
I had no arm, and I had no swing
and I wasn’t going to argue

and I got the ball! this now was basketball
and I ran like hell, I’m not sure anyone
ever felt like they ran so fast
and I shot it
but I was on the wrong side of the court
and anyways I missed the layup

then I was a swimmer
and that, I could actually do
the simple repetitive motions
no team, no coordination, just
move through the water

when I finally got good I was a sprinter
I swam in high school, got my jacket and
all that
I swam the fifty and one hundred freestyle
and also the b-team relays but
the fifty was my best
junior year I meditated on a
23 point for months
and at districts I dove in
(my dive was awful, as was my streamline, and my
flipturn, but I am strong, and I am stubborn, and
I always fucking fight

I pulled a 25.5, which isn’t even too bad
I took third in the second heat or
second in the third or some shit

the guy who won swam a 20 point
which is spectacular
so I introduced myself and congratulated
“Fast Eddy,” it said on his warm-
up jacket
a freshman
skinny little lanky kid, best kinda swimmer

if I remember right, he won states
seemed like a nice guy
he was proud
as he well shoulda been

the next year, I didn’t swim

do we ever get over ourselves? Does
childhood ever really end? And I’m not
talking about decorating Christmas trees and
bike rides with friends, I mean
do we ever stop thinking about the races we lost
the swings we missed
and some things we kinda remember
kinda forget
the root of it all
things too awful to
remember, to forget, to write about,
to tell your parents, they said
not to, right
and they’re the grownup
but that’s a poem for another day
and in any case
I don’t even know if it was real

I had a sales job once, some half a
pyramid scheme sort of thing when I was
eighteen
and my close rate was damn near ninety percent and
I remember every sale I missed
but only a couple that I made

I worked at a resort too, super cool job
and I remember every single awkward inter-
action I ever had
and very few of the ones where I really helped
the guests have the wonderful
vacation they were paying
through the nose for.
But it was a cool job, that
I remember.

there were some things I was good at
as a kid:
I could take tests
I could write essays
and for whatever reason for the most part
people seemed to want to like me
but nobody really cheers for all that

my big awkward uncoordinated ass was
trying to drive some golf balls today off my
parents’ front lawn
They’re letting me crash here for a couple
days and
it’s kinda therapeutic

one I smacked really good, like I nailed it
couple hundred yard drive prolly, if the
trees weren’t in the way
but the next one
my dad had come out just to see what the
hell I was up to
he stood for a minute watching
I put the ball on the tee and I swung four times
missed completely, each one

then I went inside and we watched a
Christmas movie
and I wrote this poem.

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December 10, 2022

Drowned Runners

I was thinking earlier today, when I put on
a sad song to listen to
while smoking the cheapest cigarette sold
and it felt cinematic and I thought about
what my funeral might look like
and what song I would ask them to play
and then the thought occurred to me
of fifteen people or so standing around a
box of me, awkwardly, and a
hole while something I
thought would be nice plays on a
Bluetooth speaker and everyone
avoids eye contact, waiting for the
three or four minutes to end,
and I thought about this and I finished
my cigarette
and I vomited something that looked like
coffee rinds.

this is not pretty, this is not beautiful,
this is exactly what it has to be
and I’ll write until I can’t move my
fingers anymore
I have to
I’ll wake up at like two o
clock in the morning and I’ll look at the
boxes of everything I still own and I’ll
wonder about a few things, beer
in hand

will they sell these socks? They were good
socks and someone will appreciate

them, and
no
no one will appreciate them except for me
they’ll end up in whatever landfill services
my corner of this black flammable rock
and they’re pretty good socks
because who has the time

people die, people live, people make
do

my guitar, I just bought it! It’s in my car
in an impound lot
my best friend got drunk and stole my
car and I guess my guitar too ha
ha
and he got it impounded and I guess
managed not to get a dui
he’s a lucky guy
like that

and I’m not even mad
(I’m only white-hot homicidally furious)
and I can’t make it right myself because
as my one or two regular readers know
I am simply and profoundly
alcoholic
and probably would’ve wrecked my fancy
fucking car anyway on a
long enough
timeline
so fuck it
right

but I would’ve liked to have had my guitar

I want to take the keys to my car and
hold them upright against the surface of my
childhood desk and sit there for a second
work up the will
and then bring my head down, swiftly, so
the key pierces my eye far enough to hit
grey matter

probably wouldn’t kill me
nevermind then
why bother
who cares
the binary thinking of the critically ill
mentally at least, and sometimes physically
so then how the fuck do I end this poem
I have to deal with things and don’t have
time to stay up all damn night writing it,
though I would, in better circumstances
but these are the circumstances I have

this is not a cry for help
this is a screaming atomic banshee shreik
help me
please if you can
help me

a person (this poet)
cannot and has never been
able to outrun
himself and so finally I’m overtook
my race ends
they fire the starting gun again and again and they pull the runners up out of the pool
they set their bodies up for the rifle
portion of the event
the bodies don’t fire, of course, they’ve
drowned because they’re
runners you put
in a pool

you never even taught them to swim
let alone to
fire rifles

yeah god, that last one is directed at you.

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May 4, 2022

I Wonder How Many Members Of Congress Could Even Spell Fentanyl

I don’t know much about
much, is what I know
I don’t know how to
solve anything
I cannot present a solution
I do not suffer anymore from any
delusions that poetry intersects anywhere
with public policy
and I don’t know if this is poetry or
more the feeble efforts of a deeply
troubled mind to make sense of
what cannot be made sense of.

You died to the best of my knowledge
on April 26 2022

lost his battle, is what they say in
such cases
lost his battle
and isn’t that a nice way to put it
apt, when it killed a hundred thousand people last year
that is an entire war
if war were compressed to just the death
no political aim, no fight, not really
just a dead generation in their bedrooms and
in gas station bathrooms and every single
other place, losing battles, a losing war
but Nicky you didn’t lose any battle
there was no war, no one fought
you were murdered by accident, by
a world that can present no
solution, that cannot regret, that cannot
fucking feel
I can’t pretend there’s any valor or glory or
tragic grandeur anymore
if there were any notion of justice in
this world, any fairness, any love or
decency then no one would have to
think up euphemisms to use in obituaries for an overdose, there would be no pharma
marketing drug names words like an alien
curse upon us all, it’s killing everyone, it’s
killing everyone and what can
we do
I don’t know
I can cry and I don’t
know, I have no solution
and it isn’t getting any better
lost the battle, hell
people follow battles in newspapers
people win and lose elections over battles
but this, this is killing everyone, and maybe
the world at large cares enough to cry
a little
but not enough to present a solution and make it
stop killing my fucking friends
and I get white hot heart pounding angry
and I think about this until I
realize I can do no better either.

there must be something please
it’s too hard
I don’t know how this isn’t the biggest
political issue in the country a
hundred thousand dead in a year it’s so big how
is it even real
I don’t know
I don’t know anything
I can’t parse it

it’s too hard.

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March 21, 2022

All We Ever Wanted (to know) Was Everything

that which does not kill me
might fuck me up irreparably
and maybe that’s real strength
after all a scar is stronger skin
a weld done well is stronger than
the initial casting
but it has to be done well
that’s important, that matters
it has to be done well

or maybe not, I don’t know
I’m not a welder.
I don’t know what I am.
I’m the carbide tooth at the tip of the bit at the
end of the shaft of a drill
spinning down through the ancient world
for purposes beyond me
and surmised only dimly even by the
driller
is he god? I don’t know
would god understand my hopes my
dreams my little anguishes any better than
I do those of the quarks that comprise
subatomic particles?
does a quark dream? I don’t know
I hope so.

I’m prehistoric peat moss buried by a
hundred million tons of time and
pressure burning at the nozzle cone of a
rocket
breaking the pull of the world whose
heat and gravity in the great and utter dark
where it all broke down
the devolution from biology into chemistry
the men came with carbide teeth spinning into the
spinning world and
through machinery and into the light
I was there
and this world
left, briefly
and from a great height maybe
put a picture on a TV screen on April 10 1997
maybe put a ton of TNT in a packed movie theater on December 16 1944
maybe put boots on alien rock on a
famous date
maybe blow apart seventy three
seconds after liftoff maybe
all the work
all the time all the love all the hate
maybe the sum of human sensory experience
could god even understand
could anyone
what is understanding
what does the carbide tooth think? I want to know
what does the crude oil think
where is the driller
where is the rocketeer
I want to know
I have questions

can you see me
can’t you see me
can’t you see how hard I’m trying
can’t you see the fire in my chest I hope to
burn forever
and will the weld hold?
and can a
quark dream?
I bet.
I hope so.

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March 12, 2022

Affirmations

at the jumping off point
that was a long time ago
quietly shivered in the back seat of a broke
down buick and that was
not so long
and my life is beautiful my life is
lovely and you are lovely and can’t we
look past the pockmark scars and the ruined smiles
and the mirror tells me I am
beautiful and I am
lovely
the slow motion implosion of small life is
compelling and tragic, the mirror
says, sneering, and you are beautiful and you are
lovely and my friend the worms in your
face aren’t real, the knife however
is
and that was years ago, years and years ago
I don’t forget
not things like that
only the good things, only the best things
cruel turn of the human mind isn’t it
I can’t forget
and the road we took took us to the place
we got
and I guess I got everything I ever wanted
and where was I
before the shouted promises we thought we
had capacity to mean, before
some things are too awful to even say
the words don’t hold them
but on the other hand, some things are
too wonderful
they explode the words like ships overladen
in a blow
and it all passes into the other
towering capital O
where what, we can at best just guess

where was I in the little spinning world
in its little rutted track around a light that
cannot care and will consume it without
even knowing when it dies
a long time a short cosmic blink away
five and a half light minutes from where
Dustin DeVilliers, 27, Fulfillment Specialist, Sober,
sits in a room and fights with himself
and spins circles
wishing for the right words
where was I in a wish upon a dream
fifteen or twenty years ago

I was here
I speak through the stone and I say,
I was here
and I hear:
it’s ok it’s ok.

I love you.
it’s ok.

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February 23, 2022

If It Isn’t Asking Too Much (It’s Always Too Much)

what a pretty prison I’ve built around myself
what a fortress

blow it to pieces.

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