[Walter Invited Us Over to See Us Before He Dies]

Walter invited us over, he wanted to see us before
he dies. He's 86 with stage five liver cancer
now metastisized to all the minor giblets.
He's had days to live for three months now.

He started fast but faded quickly, the pain
the medicine he didn't take to stay lucid
wincing shut his thoughts, side-tracking
subjects into disconnections, wincing open

his crystalline awareness of his confusion.
He always liked me, my wife his second-cousin
removed or whatever but he her uncle in practice,
Walter, who likes me, we recognize we're

Brothers in Bullshit. He spooked for Langley
during the Cold War's Greatest Hits,
we never knew doing what. Today he said he conducted
interrogations, he winced, he open closed

opened his mouth, he looked at me, not my wife
not her brother, focused, said he deserves this pain,
winced, winked, lucid, at me, changed subject,
winced to pretend to my wife and brother-in-law

a dying cancer patient's incoherent babble.
Did I see what I saw, hear what I heard? Yes,
he whispered when I leaned down to say goodbye.
I'll tell you more if I see you again, he said.

[It Seems Important]

It seems important
to write down
I've nothing to say

it seems important
to say I've something
important to say

it seems important
what I think important
is only important

to me, I always knew
I always knew I could prove it
saying so much so often

[Anyway, There Was a Zebra]

Anyway, there was a zebra.
Better not ride him, Yesterday
cried, zebras aren't horses though x-rays
deceive. In the mystery of wombs
either/ors are required, vice
fallow but fat as usual.

Given the horse/zebra tension
(handsomely profitable), should
icicles v receptacles
(juicy with melted ice-cubes) queue
killer ratings, predictably
lurid, why curse the orderly

mundane? Always either. Never
neither. Either/or in mundane

order tripping ahead lamely,
petulant as a tailless kite.
Quota's are always thus justified:
raccoons aren't possums. The idea

search's objects must be hiding
teaches nothing can be found, grounds
usually thought a felony
veering too close to earnestness.

When eating either/or's dogma
X is never never, I call
Y who's yelling Z, bellowing
zebra! There was one anyway.

[We Talked About Death Again at Thanksgiving]

We talked about death again at Thanksgiving
like we always do, who is, how to.
Scattered ashes versus donated

organs versus taxidermy. Aunt
Wanda, who won't die again this week.
Teeth - cavities, root canals, implants,

crowns, general decay - dominates
dessert conversations three past years,
the competition for most anguish

endured not fierce but mean. Every meal
like every meal, holiday after
holiday: accounting for who died,

inventorying the remaining,
recitations of new impairments,
begrudged happiness that I was there.

[One More New Project]

One more new project
to replace an unfinished
now abandoned plan.

In the previous
my attempted confessions
failed predictably,

a designed success,
my private boring secrets
mute, wormed, kept from me.

Already amiss
with explanation, adrift
in defensive pose

more prose than poem (is
poem one syllable or two?),
after five stanzas

exit strategies
are contemplated. What I
can't write for myself

is what this poem can't
be. What every poem I write
is: about itself

and what I refuse
to admit. A viable
system and program

for filling tablets
with squiggles without effect
much less personal

edification.
I can write the kind of poem
I don't like to read,

self-referential,
concerned with clasping objects
against their subjects.

Now, stanzas again,
counting beats, repeating ploys
that work by failure.

[Knowing No One Is Watching]

Knowing no one is watching
doesn't prevent me pretending
that someone is watching

That no one is watching
after watching me scream Look at Me!
means I have been judged trained and broken

I buy the devices
spend hundreds a month
on my surveillance
knowing no one is watching

*

Have I made my troll apoplectic yet
today I was asked, I was asked
what's a carrot steak (at a pun

gone wanting), I said $25
a poker hand, $15 blackjack
I tell myself the Xth time

my ink voice isn't empty
but dried. Wait, he got the jokes
he says, my digital New Zealand
acquaintance who might be a bot.

Compliance Wins

First draft second draft last draft next draft...

*

*

Let me start by claiming seared or scalded, walking my aged
ignominy, nothing bores I don't remember dog, my hips worse
me more than arguing any of two week's than hers, I'll
apprehension. ago's images remember every town had duckpin
gah and gah is gone, I'm close bowling, baseball available only by radio.
to shutting down, landlord a calf tattoo Ernie Harwell's
landlord me or me myself. considered then no. died, my youth rest in unease.

See there re: the quiet here. Be back. Or not.