[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.