Monitor Your Self Talk

Watch for negativity
And doom-loop ruminations.
Change the topic. Steer away.

Think of something positive.
Remember, monitoring
Is what humans excel at.

Excel at monitoring
Yourself. Keep a watchful eye
On the small-talk floating by

So you can improve yourself,
Starting with your own insides.
It will improve your outside.

See how the species improves?
Monitoring must work well.

Being in Compliance

Tick those boxes.
Tick like a clock,
Grandfatherly,
A patient clock.

You’re not giving
In, you’re filling
Out the edges,
Filling the time,

Completing time,
Completely time,
All of its forms,
All of its lines.

No blanks, no failed
Assessments, no
Noncompliance,
Nothing but time.

What Do You Have to Do?

What do you have to go on about?
What do you have, what do you have to
Go on about what happened to you?

What do you have to work with? What, what
Do you have that you have to work with,
What’s in your past that you have to work?

What do you absolutely have to
Claim as your own as something you have
To go on to work with what you have?

The Humans in the Machine

Dig into the muck
Of any system
Or institution,
Get to the bottom,
And find the humans,

Who aren’t in control
So much as in fear
Of losing control,
Losing their grip, their
Privileges, their

Sinecures. Someone
Lurks in the belly
Of every faceless
Appearing machine,
Wanting human things

Like security
And indulgences,
And the fantasy
Of feeling in charge
Of all of these things.

There’s no system yet,
No institution,
That isn’t haunted
By humans hungry
To control humans.