So much music discovered late in life
You never got around to listening
Sometimes the singer goes away before
Returning in a late career triumph
After so many decades of silence
As if somehow suddenly reappeared
In time to leave one last final reprise
Though our life is as fresh as a daisy
The lesson is you must live till you die
You never know what song may come along
To save you as so much is departing
Those two eyes you will never see again
If there could be somebody made for me
I hope to meet them as the rainbow ends
Tag: Poetry
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JulyPoWriMo 19
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JulyPoWriMo 18
If the march had not been accomplished yet
If children could see you in your trench coat
If bridges can be renamed or rebuilt
If not one of us lives to see our work
If time were nearly as long as it seems
If history could be what outlives us
If it is by the telling of stories
If your name is written on all of us
If you were nearly killed trying to live
If we truly lived by the signs we write
If the struggle goes on day after day
If good trouble is worth getting into
If we find a way to get in the way
If we still can we will remember you
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JulyPoWriMo 17
If anything the time that we have will
Not be given back no inopportune
Circumstances dictate the scope of loss
Erasing ourselves from the barren room
This earth has become in our minuscule
Absence the birds have been singing louder
Each morning while our windows remain closed
So we do not hear the ghastly silence
Of what this world would be like without us
The thousand natural shocks flesh is air
Breathing as normal through the fabric gauze
Gazing over bridges running errands
To take our lives back now though accosted
By those who will never pay the cost of
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JulyPoWriMo 16
Extraordinary measures find us here
Defining an abundance of caution
As the positive absence of lacking
All sense of decorum thrown to the waves
There is no way out not even sideways
Or pretending numbers unreported
Somehow do not count like all the people
You pass by the street exchanging glances
Pretending to smile underneath your mask
Like saying we’re all in this together
Though the one percent will find a profit
On untested remedies out of reach
The spoils are growing along with the war
The bean counter does not tick anymore
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JulyPoWriMo 15
If this year is an indication of
Time’s intractable elasticity
The past four months have easily lasted
As long as a whole administration
Meanwhile some of us are still stuck in March
Hoping to open the doors by Easter
Instead we’ve been drinking our lives away
Waiting for sourdough starters to arise
Ticking off human’s inhumanity
To other humans or maybe science
The fabric of our lives collecting spit
To throw it in other people’s faces
Maybe we don’t deserve the earth at all
The comet in the sky was made to fall
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JulyPoWriMo 14
To those who say it’s cakes all the way down
I have no response—Diversionary
Tactics may bring us to the point where we
Don’t believe our own eyes seeing as how
Nothing is real except the government
Killing citizens by malign neglect
Or strapped on a table in the middle
Of the night when pandemic dreams arise
For those lucky enough to be sleeping
Dreams cutting into each other like cakes
Or kneeled upon in the street unbreathing
If death is a release for those who die
Where does that leave us who live out their dreams?
Baking another cake torn at the seams
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JulyPoWriMo 13
When the rage becomes so overwhelming
There is no where to turn except some chords
And words declaimed with the simplicity
It seems unobtainable to muster
At least the artist could put the song out
Into the ether where all sound bites live
And find a way into your synapses
So you can mouth the words and feel the pulse
The unmasked faces will try to silence
As the days and months hours minutes seconds
Drag to an unresolvable future
As the wind turns in many directions
So many might hear at once the same sound
The death of silence spins the world around
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JulyPoWriMo 12
Maybe we’ve discovered that we don’t need
To travel as much as we did before
At least not in our physical bodies
Because I travel to the precincts of
My childhood at least as much as I did
On business trips to conferences that
Did nothing to improve my networking
Skills as you can tell I’m all alone here
Dreaming incessant dreams unremembered
That move at least a million miles an hour
Forgotten houses and acquaintances
Populating each unwaking moment
Like the pandemic wasn’t happening
How close they are to each other and me
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JulyPoWriMo 11
This could have been over by now this could
Have been over by now this could have been
Over by now this could have been over
By now this could have been over by now
If we had only followed the advice
Of the post in your feed which one was it
Scroll back a little ways now stop right there
No that wasn’t it but it’s kinda close
The one where the guy coughed into his hand
To make a point and then he coughed again
Only this time it was for real and now
No one listens because we are humans
Which by definition means we’re awful
Yet still this could have been over by now
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JulyPoWriMo 10
The punctuation of this pandemic
Now passes for uninterrupted sleep
Soon numbers themselves won’t make sense without
Counting the numbers we have not counted
Like who gets to return to a normal
Resembling the normal they had before
Who can ride out the storm without riding
Into an abyss we have not seen yet
God does not have enough hands to hold them
Microscopic anti-creatures reside
Everywhere we dare not care but to look
Least of all where the seat of power drifts
Into an endless ellipsis sinking
Further out of reach not even blinking
Joshua Keiter 