The memory of all the world ending
Almost four years ago even today
Fills you with the dread of going shopping
And little else maybe a visit to
A psychiatrist or peddler of drugs
To make you try to imagine the planes
Overhead were not transporting people
Into the past to erase history
Aliens grinning on a movie screen
While you ride harnessed in an ambulance
To detox alone in an ICU
And wake up no longer schizophrenic
Or terrified people were being harmed
The world was kindling ready to be burned
Tag: Poetry
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JulyPoWriMo 29
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JulyPoWriMo 28
The likelihood it will get worse before
It gets better seems approximately
Appropriate to the circumstances
The same way the dark is darkest ahead
Of the dawn if you’re chasing horizons
You could expect that the dawn never comes
Because it is always midnight somewhere
But in this case midnight is everywhere
And we are waiting for the dawn to come
Despite evidence to the contrary
Just a bit of graffiti on the walls
Maybe a firework set off at random
Could be an assault on the government
It’s not—but that’s where all your freedoms went
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JulyPoWriMo 27
In the aftermath of the before times
We don’t know which way the wind is blowing
Or how many times we should spit in it
To find out if we stand any chances
To screw things up even more than we have
Which is to say that things have been much worse
In that everything that could go wrong has
Turns out that is a feature not a bug
These problems were decades in the making
Expect many more before times before
Anything which—gestures at everything—
Shows any signs of any improvement
If we could only find the “any” key
Disaster movies got nothing on me
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JulyPoWriMo 26
They say story is what makes us human
Though we do not know who they really are
Because the fire around which they told them
Burned a little too brightly blinding us
We started thinking the fire was story
When crackles only made us miss a word
We could make up if we knew the context
The larger fire burning outside the frame
A hurricane may knock down all the walls
Keep one side of story from another
A crowd dispersed by sprays of weak power
Will go home to kiss their children asleep
The walls around our house will soon burn down
Tell the story so what is lost is found
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JulyPoWriMo 25
The enduring image from these long years
Though still unconstructed on the border
People took it upon themselves to build
A wall before all opposing forces
That would silence voices spraying tear gas
As if the air we breathe were not toxic
Already strewn as it is with retweets
Some unfortunate librarian will
Catalog if the future does happen
Turns out the walls that matter are living
Humans that gather even at nighttime
Though the pandemic may steal our breath yet
Let’s build a wall so that everyone sees
We stand together against tyrannies
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JulyPoWriMo 24
So the sacrifice we have made these months
Has been squandered as the past four decades
Idiotic ideology sent
Us spiraling from the rest of the globe
A disease trickling down oblivion
As schools open like any hardware store
Only with unremediated mold
From textbooks published in the seventies
Which will only be updated to teach
The controversy of evolution
As a species defined by empathy
Instead of the corporate bottom line
You are only useful if you ignore
Those you accost on your way out the door
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JulyPoWriMo 23
We are going to need a bigger boat
Even though the tide has certainly turned
When the outlier becomes prevalent
The waves are building all around us now
Shouting that Moms are here feds stay clear as
Baseball players are kneeling on the field
The silent majorities are watching
Law and Order shows on basic cable
While the rest of the country cuts the cord
Streaming stories in different voices
Surely something is slouching to be born
We may be susceptible to hacking
When the boats arrive be prepared to flee
Person Woman Man Camera TV
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JulyPoWriMo 22
Having no other places to visit
The past visits me quite regularly
Unannounced like houseguests we used to have
A corner of dust that outlives cleaning
They stand there blinking upon waking up
And fill moments reserved for the future
With images at best half remembered
The heartache of things that will never be
Although wished for with fervent devotion
Until the requisite moving along
Before you even know that they are gone
The allure rested in lonely absence
That face you wish you could see one more time
To stay alive if not inside my mind
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JulyPoWriMo 21
Watching disaster movies this summer
The ones where prehistoric animals
Along with genetic engineering
Massive hubris and short attention spans
Result in one long product placement for
The goods of late stage capitalism
Each scene a reminder of when things were
A thing—amusement parks filled with people
Inevitably picked up by monsters
And tossed about by another monster
Assembled together with care in post
A segue to another disaster
Remember when actors were scared of things
Filled in by someone’s imagination?
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JulyPoWriMo 20
The likelihood that we are witnessing
Attempted incompetent fascism
Is quite undeniable at this point
No need to defund the police when all
These officers have no insignia
And anyway they just catch and release
To break up the chaos on empty streets
Federal lands will not defend themselves
Anonymous faces in riot gear
Are the only recourse stemming the tide
Of people finding out their government
Does not have their best interests at heart
Open your schools or you won’t get money
If they have to they’ll force you at gunpoint
Joshua Keiter 