Joshua Keiter

Because nothing posted
on the internet ever goes away
I noticed some new comments
on YouTube videos I recorded
five years ago in the after and
before a lonely no longer kid
banging away on a guitar
in his bedroom like quarantine
songs that meant so much to him 
and still do he thinks maybe 
no one else does turns out they do
and sometimes they seek out
new versions because they want
to play them on guitar themselves
maybe they seek the chord changes
inadvertently they found everything
I was feeling at the time the encroaching
abyss at the edge of finding and losing
you not sure if you knew these songs
were for you I didn’t even write them
I just lived them for five minutes or so
and recorded them for whoever to find

The world is getting fuller 
of things to discuss 
with our child

we can’t even 
explain ourselves

To put things in perspective
today I learned that graupel exists 
a weather phenomenon of
frost-covered snowflakes

while a satellite observed
an ice shelf larger than NYC
breaking off eastern Antarctica 
an entirely worrisome event

always something to grapple with

The infinity of the camera
roll brings your face to life
or at least light so many
moments on the same day
which had been this day
some years in the past now
no matter for a flicker 
your face is alive see how
your eyes caught the same 
light without which you
would not have life where 
does light go without it 
we would not exist at all
ephemeral as a photograph 
fleeting to life as it flows past
the river of time a trickle
light glinting off the surface of all

What did they know
When did they know it
Is this the end times
Have we arrived at pivot
Is nothing scared
What about rule of law
How to turn the spigot off
Where did this gloom come from
Bring back lockdown people suck
Today I used google translate
To explain to someone 
Our facilities could not accommodate 
Five hundred people for a wedding
How about stalemate
Is this World War III
Does this mean World War II is over yet
Not a Cold War but a hot one
Just ten miles from the border
No one can report on this shooting
Turns out they were the victim

Why is it so easy
to find evidence of 
how awful so much 
of history was
just by turning 
on the radio and 
wondering who 
the hell is asking 
for the sake of retweets
such asinine “questions”
to the very definition 
of dignity and honor
historically personified?
Perhaps those questions
should disqualify them
from future public office?
Maybe their presence 
is proof that “heated” 
history is still with us?
Maybe history should
be voted out?

In the latest news 
from Russia 

apparently you can be 
arrested 

for holding a blank
sheet of paper

up in the air
without having 

written anything
incriminating on it 

merely the potential
for thought

is enough to make
you an enemy

of thoughtless 
absurd action