Joshua Keiter

Still not sure if
it feels right to
participate in what
some might construe
to be a frivolous
endeavor while
people are dying 
at the rate of an eight 
year long police action
every thirty one days 
no wonder so many
are spending a few 
minutes each day 
determined to spell 
a five letter word
knowing it is all
they will have to solve
in their lives for 
the next twenty four 
hours at least

Amazed I went through the whole day
without thinking about what I dreamed 
last night and yet just a little jostle
and I’m back somehow telling a story
on The Moth podcast about the snowstorm
in Seattle some thirty one years ago my mind
copy editing the perfect improvised script 
as if the memory refined itself into prose
I can only recite unconsciously somewhere 
it must be written as it happened pushing 
the van on the way to the service project 
packing bags of unbroken ramen for the hungry 
my mom navigating the drive down the hill
the sand providing no traction for cars 
abandoned on the interstate until the news 
reminded people to pick them up I spent 
the week before vacation off from school
round about the time the floating highway 
sank because part of it actually floated 
maybe memory is just below the surface 
in perfect prose recited for the audience 
always waiting for the unconscious 
to make itself known before it is forgotten 
written on the universe to uncover another day

What will happen when we wake 
from this long interregnum 
surprised that all the familiar faces
we thought would greet us
trailing their creations from 
the other side have been leaving us
with suspended acceleration 
whole swaths of cultural production
if not removed then moved by 
their sudden reconfiguration 
occupying the territory of loss
surveying an expanse so wide 
and overgrown the little shoots 
springing from the ground
leave us to listen without a sound
the world waiting still in the past
grows to face us faceless wondering 
where we were looking so young 
for what grew up alongside us 
and passed like a memory outgrown
all things must pass on their way home

Why count weather 
that never comes 

predictions are not 
expectations 

just watch the pavement 
getting damper 

and then drier then 
freeze until impassable

minds don’t change 
overnight sometimes

it takes a vote 
gone wrong to get 

out the word
loss is not a given 

numbers are not
in your favor

one hundred percent 
chance against 

obstruction 
surviving another day

Truly we shouldn’t be surprised
at the lengths to which 
this country will enshrine 
minority votes 

witness how the thirty percent
who wouldn’t take the shot 
have dictated to the rest of us
how we should live

Everyone is exhausted 
everyone is exhausted of thinking 
they are exhausted 
everyone is going to great lengths 
to not do anything about being exhausted 
everyone needs a rest and they are saying
as much 
this is at least the fifth wave
of exhaustion and we are tired of it 
this is a notice that if you are not 
exhausted you are part of the problem
no one has written their novel
every live event is a simulacrum 
of what a live event might have been 
before everyone was exhausted 
we have run out of media 
to distract us from being/make us more exhausted 
we are looking forward to the time 
when we can remember how exhausted we were 
while inhabiting a new phase of post-exhaustion exhaustion
somehow the website to order tests
to measure our exhaustion did not crash 
but the tests are too few 
and the estimated delivery is six to eight weeks 
just in time for the next phase of exhaustion
no one is smiling under their fabric
that it turns out is not sufficient to cover their exhaustion
they’re exhausted
wake me when it’s never

Today I retweeted two things:

A thread of republicans
shamelessly exploiting King’s legacy
by pretending to honor King
with a tweet of the same 35 words 
while using their power to oppose 
everything that King stood for
generally without repercussions 

And a scholar almost disinvited 
from giving an MLK speech
for being a “discredited activist”
“unworthy of such association with King”
proceed to read excerpts from King’s speeches 
without telling anyone what she was doing 
to a deafening uncomfortable silence 

Tomorrow voting rights legislation 
in the senate will still be stalled