[I Liked the Look of the Last One]

I liked the look of the last one
as I was writing it. It's exhibition
not regular season. The new
camera angles, insect-
eyed replays relay
memory, imprint
memory. It's the color
of the t-shirt, watermark
of logo. We're not wrong
in eating more, hating faster.
Slap-single switch-hitter helmet,
brand of ownership mendacity. Sniff.
We didn't kill them when we had the chance
and for that we will never forgive them.

[I Am Tablet-Blocked and My Pens Can Ink but Cannot Write]

I am tablet-blocked. My pens can ink but can't write.
I tried composing a poem in Word. Why I am tablet-blocked
and my pens ink but can't write is another poem.

I learned to not to compose in Word and cut/paste to Blogger.
Cut/pasting Word into Blogger fucks up the poem's
display. Line breaks are lost, stanzas collapse then reform

into (sometimes better poetry - which I can't use by the same
moral self-strictures that've tablet-blocked me, made my pens
ink but not write, though particulars vary) deformed

blocks and jagged single lines. The HTML coding is forty times
longer than the poem before the poem starts. Each line of the poem
has five times as much coding as line. If I remove one <br/ >

to delete a line or add one  <div /> to separate stanzas
Blogger's pink banner of Fuck You, You Idiot!
mocks me when I try to save the clusterfuck. But typing

versus calligraphy as salve? Workaround? Unfaithfulness?
Salvation? When I'm tablet-blocked and my pens can ink
but I can't write? Is working. I'm happier with what's typed

the past few months than what was scribbled in tablet the three
months preceding (though I know how much I adore
redefining old rules: it's how I invigorate my product line).

[No One Would Have Noticed Had I Not Showed Up]

No one would have noticed had I not showed up.
People were surprised and seemed pleased to see me.

Nods from heads swiveling in pre-service
reconnaissance, shouldered neighbors

heads turning, faces smiling, in recognition: I
don’t socialize with my co-workers, go to staff

meetings, holiday parties, though I’m cordial
when necessary and always friendly with many.

I rarely, as in today makes the fourth time
in twenty-five years, am in a room

with co-workers when we are not working.
The hired string quartet stopped, a priest

walked to the altar, the service started.
I was unashamedly tearful

when and where I’m trained to be tearful.
The chapel was beautiful, small and large

with stain-glassed sunlight. My friend helped me
when I needed him, I think he needed me
   

when I helped him. At the reception
people I haven’t seen in years,  people

I see every workday, sought me out,
me, I know it might not sound sincere,

I never imagined any of them seeking me out
as more than a colleague, me, dope, 
  
at a memorial service for a co-worker
who helped save my life, and me his.

[On the Road in Bad Weather Conditions]

On the road, in bad weather conditions,
team behind, a young quarterback panics
mouths the washed-up running-back
on the ESPN deaf scroll. I'm Martian in these places.
I have friends but I don't know citizens,
this woman telling strangers
about her husband, two lovers, six
kids. Guys suck she tells a table of guys.
There is truth in loathing benefactors'
questionable motives. Why should
we help the help, though if that's
the max consider the pits. Which
is to say I wouldn't be eating
the best pizza of my life
at dark dingy wainscotted Shamrocks
on Wisconsin 35, Superior,Wisconsin,
but for the recommendation
by the minimum-waged desk clerk
with meth-addict's acne
of the Duluth Minnesota Holiday Inn.