Joshua Keiter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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