Some words about mistakes made early on
the radio played while I was driving
into the future and home this evening
thinking of all the steps never taken
why the car behind me has their brights on
they can’t see anything this close to me
why is the future something before us
when all we can see is what lies behind
retrospect is the lesser nostalgia
when all the time hindsight is so last year
the days are filling up again which makes
the gaps so reticent in their absence
at one point we thought the quiet was nice
then we had to respond to all the noise
Category: Poems
-
SeptPoWriMo 21
-
SeptPoWriMo 20
Seeing those pictures from the farewell tour
seems we have leaped far into the future
the text from those memes claiming the year of
your birth is as far from World War Two as
it is from now just another cruel joke
played by the decades on the years as if
to say it is all accelerating
this pandemic lasting nine months times two
overtaken the hundred year old one
not in proportion to population
leave that up to our imaginations
the people we have not seen grown so old
visible now as a moth to a flame
loss is just another word for our name
-
SeptPoWriMo 19
Did not have the time to take a picture
of the deer close to the path on our walk
instead the camera captured blurry
leaves and stones that might have been foraged if
that dog had not come walking behind us
sending the deer away into the woods
where they might have rejoined the family
we have been seeing further from the path
perhaps a mother with two of her own
minding their business as we like to do
along this path until we see creatures
who might just find a way to outlive us
if retreat is any indication
they depend upon us staying away
-
SeptPoWriMo 18
I could remember the first home I left
because it was the first house that I missed
the constant feeling of being bereft
knowing you own only what you resist
how many friends are gone along the way
the paths you didn’t know that you would take
memories are too flexible to stay
in one place long enough for them to make
a journey within not walking distance
roads too easy for you alone to tread
companions they make all the difference
the crumbs you leave become your daily bread
I pick you up each time we cannot meet
the closed circle a new friend may complete
-
SeptPoWriMo 17
When I hear the score to the musical
I think of when I first listened to it
on a library record player my
first year of college it was not homework
for I had no idea where home might be
I might have been avoiding my roommate
(algorithms would have chosen better)
just a young kid I was with too long hair
wondering what the songs would sound like
in a phase of life I had not known yet
neither single nor yet getting married
but following all the chords and the rhymes
flowing so fast before they could arrive
lacking company for being alive
-
SeptHaikuWriMo 16
How do you know when
the things you used to know are
still waiting for you
across a divide
against all odds you have crossed
with uncertainty
reserved for doing
nothing and doing it well
such that you survive
having forgotten
how much you have lost losing
all your perspective
how to learn your lines
practice your musical parts
exist together
performing in the same space
-
SeptHaikuWriMo 15
No one knew which lane
they wanted their car to be
in on the highway
and I am tired of
excusing misbehavior
with pandemic or
ecological
collapse at least some of them
used their turn signals
I got off the road
went shopping for groceries
and drove to the house
which was still on solid ground
-
SeptHaikuWriMo 14
What if the summer
never actually ends
and we are left with
ever increasing
temperatures with a dash
of dust scattering
the atmosphere with
what might have been alive when
there were none of us
around to measure
how much we were to mess up
what does not belong
to us—instead view
the sunset in dead pixels
say the camera
does not do justice
-
SeptHaikuWriMo 13
I like not seeing
people’s faces in the store
a freeway where I
am not tailgated
some kind of reassurance
this is not the end
of toleration
or rational behavior
that the world might be
worth getting back to
that when you spit in the wind
someone else’s spit
does not reach you first
-
SeptHaikuWriMo 12
We will never know
if spectacular sunsets
are the result of
looking in the past
too intently to expect
particles drifting
out of horizon
to retrospect the future
haze obscures the sun
somewhere there is fire
vanishing from there to here
until immanent
the blaze outlasts us
Joshua Keiter 