I wait for her eyes to open
Patience while she dreams
I will hear about it all the causes of the twitches.
It’s the best of times
Who was there… Who said what…
“The purple berries were sweet, Dad. I taste in my dreams, you know. A boy was telling me which way to go, I think it was Jolani. I said nothing back, and you know what that means… I am not going to do that.”


DENNIS MANTIN

It appears to me that in prayer, the dimensions of time are bridged…
When my daughter Zylia 6, told me that you don’t die, you just become a ghost.
Later that year, I took her to her grandmother’s grave…


DENNIS MANTIN

I asked my mother when I was a boy if she believed in God.

She answered, “Yes.”

I asked, “Why?” As children are prone to do. 

She said, “We eat food and get energy from that and in our bodies after we use the energy, we expel the waste from that food… Who else but a God could do That?

I have been sober for 13 plus years now and never have I craved in that time. I have not missed an opportunity to pray and turn my will over upon awakening to God in this time. 

My daughter is 6 now and she’s my friend and she’s with me today and I have never met anyone who has asked me more about my mother Margaret who passed away 48 years ago. She claims that she’s met Margaret. I have learned to keep an open mind. 

I am so grateful for this time and opportunity at life and fatherhood. 

DENNIS MANTIN 

I reached out to answer the call

The plea

Can’t be conned, smarter than y’all

That’s me 

Could it be I’m a little bored

Entertainment risk reward

Have I earned or been allowed 

A spot apart or above the crowd?

An actor in a minor con?

Financially emotionally  put upon?

Yes!

Wrong again 

Getting in touch with my humanity 

There’s but a few

Not too few to mention 

Not something new

You can feel the tension 

Dare take a stand 

Invite that honest fate

Hold torch in hand 

Diogenes cynically great 

“I am looking for a man

I am looking for an honest man.”

DENNIS MANTIN

I am less emotional

Not as much invested

In all that jazz

I have heard the pop…

The sound of my head

coming out of my arse

DENNIS MANTIN

I have learned to lean in and smile while placing one hand on my balls and tother on my wallet whenever I hear the utterance of those words… 

Never once giving up that great deception. 

It’s like back in the day on the stage of youth when most teachings came at extreme cost that I eventually learned that  if someone were telling me how honest they are;
 I was actually in the process of being robbed. 

Similarly these days when people tell me how spiritual they are I run.

DENNIS MANTIN 

The world is  changing 
You can hear it 

Grinding on its gears 

Whispers spitting shouts of something like discord however much more painful

I fear this will not end well and differently than most suspect 

I welcome the change embrace it really 

Hoping my daughter will experience the transference 

DENNIS MANTIN 

Thunderbirds and Fish on Turtle Island 

Acrylic on Birchbark 

Fabulous