The traffic restores a sense that we are
doomed already destined by our actions
to travel in a circle endlessly
the same distances we went yesterday
and will again tomorrow not today
it does not exist only a concept
never attained except by emptying
all thought and emotion to the flux of
our incapacity to imagine
any alternate routes that would bring us
outside of this noisy impatient loop
a beltway if you will bloated by time
until filibustered it collapses
stands stock still while the rest of them passes
Tag: Sonnet
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OctPoWriMo 18
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OctPoWriMo 14
How many stories will we remember
when there is finally no one to tell them
it may seem like you hear them forever
but they have always happened in the past
the future is persistently untold
and hair falls out before it gets too old
the distant sound outside just keeps ringing
at this late hour what could they be bringing
to bear upon the earth in solid air
the ground gives way to what was never there
memory is imperfect so it lasts
without beginnings there can be no end
who is there to whisper and to listen
what is lost and found is only missing
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OctPoWriMo 11
In last night’s dream I was responsible
for driving my mum-mum to the airport
to return to her dream home of Oakland
at the close of my father’s church service
I knew the dream could have only happened
in the past but it was happening now
jump cut to a small cottage growing dark
I stepped out the screen door to see the sky
lit by an eclipse of two circling planets
soon the entire dome was filled with spinning
globes and stars I snapped pictures to capture
the magnificence then the earth fell down
to the ground as expected then it rose
again the light in the sky only grows
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OctPoWriMo 10
At some point in the fall your dreams become
far more vivid than your waking moments
most likely a quality of the light
or lack thereof therefore I shall record
my dreams as I recall them the next night
when they seem to become more vivid still
as they are soon likely to be resumed
last night I had two dreams that might have spanned
the entire length of sleep were it not for
the fact they contended with another
the first was vaguely apocalyptic
call its images anonymous Bosch
in the second I was riding a bike
and then I let the air out of the tires
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OctPoWriMo 7
Slipping into a kind of exhausted
routine not unlike the one you did not
miss when you had the time to do nothing
means there is less time to complain how much
you wish everyone who has a home would
just stay there not only to rid the world
of pathogens but maybe take some time
to figure out if you should contribute
to the growing gridlock which is a fact
of life as it was and probably will
be for an as yet undetermined time
at this rate non renewable fuels will
be exhausted before we figure out
what else there is to burn on our way out
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OctPoWriMo 6
The people talking on the radio
said something about how moving through space
or learning new things takes more energy
than anything else could be the reason
why my dreams are stuck on things I have done
but no longer do anymore last night
at the library I was put in charge
of sorting through the pile of donations
turns out they were all mine I packed them up
and was pleased to find a wooden bookcase
underneath that would hold all the books well
so that was mine too this was all I did
all day long in the dream night library
I woke up not wanting to wake up yet
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OctPoWriMo 4
Without any warning sorry something
went wrong every acquaintance you forgot
you had to spend your formative years with
we’re working on it and we’ll get it fixed
as soon as we can your current network
of close colleagues and allies tightly knit
unloosed to face the middle of the day
without a common language DNS
failure such that we’ve never seen before
go back where the cache displays memories
all you had time to click upon today
as silence descends misinformation
lost the main home it has to propagate
what’s on your mind? nothing much a blank slate
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OctPoWriMo 3
Maybe the worst article predictions
in that tab you kept open for a week
hesitating to read because depressed
will not come to pass at least not the way
you have doomscrolled these months with abandon
knowing things could get worse and of course have
continued in that angst uncertain way
you might never see your people again
only wonder where they land on the graph
that show things improving in slower ways
venues open unrecognizable
nobody goes anymore—too crowded
how to make the best out of a failed state
problems arrived early now it’s too late
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OctPoWriMo 2
Stories are for repeating the better
to remember them if you were not there
a curve tending back toward beginning
sleep somehow never coming overnight
drifting into the future like a dream
minutes lost unaccounted uncounted
hours never known that we are born into
space that would be empty if not for us
inhabited for a moment then gone
better to have been not forgotten yet
all of life a novel still left unread
printed on blank pages without a shelf
the end is our beginning without it
our moments would be nothing but a self
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OctPoWriMo 1
I take comfort that our carbon cousins
can take root in the smallest rock crevice
molecules packed so tightly together
even oxygen has no room to breathe
seeds seek sight unseen slightest patch of ground
reminder that left untended the world
would leave no room for anything but life
as much as we carve earth to suit our deaths
the blink that misses the river’s torrent
to forge a new prospect of the pavement
aspire to the plane of the parking lot
living as if already trod over
how much light to be as drift as the breeze
sowing consciousness where none of us sees
Joshua Keiter 