Joshua Keiter

The sunset
Brilliant and dull
In shades of orange gray
Red blue and purple

Seemed to linger
Behind us as we walked
I turned around
To take a picture

Motionless and stale
In its transparent
Reflections the trees
Giving structure

To the failing light
That took forever
Before you knew
It was gone

Click here for advice
On how to survive the agony
Of the next 24 hours

Here’s a recipe
That consists entirely
Of carbohydrates

And a cocktail/mocktail
That will keep you lit
As the returns come in

Check these 17 websites
Obsessively
To avoid spoiling the results

Pay no attention
To the Hatch Act violations
Behind this wall

How many counts does it take
To get to the center
Of some votes more important than others?

No one ever certified
Ratings on the first night
Of an epic miniseries event

High anxiety
What a wonderful phrase
It might be alleviated in a couple of days

In the meantime
Vote and sleep
Like your life depends upon it

Because it does

Even with a supposed
Extra hour

I did not get to write
My poem

Until after midnight
And I have

Nothing to fall back on
But the refrain

Of a folk song from
The previous century

As we head into an election
Eve unlike any other

The chorus bears
Repeating:

All you fascists bound to lose

Every day is a yesterday
In the interminable blur
Of each singular moment
That will not be repeated

The fallen leaves populated
Our walk today otherwise
It was unusually quiet
For a Saturday Halloween

We were not sure where
The trick or treaters went
Since the complex said
They couldn’t knock on our doors

In the meantime we have
A lot of candy I bought
Just in case and I am sure
It will last for awhile

Just as this never ending feeling
Keeps feeling never ending
But of course it has to end
Just as all our memories die

Only we do not know
When or how they will
So we keep going despite
All this emptiness

Because we have to

A reminder on the radio
In between New Wave goth obscurities
That tonight is mischief night

Which everyone in the car
Had forgotten was a thing
Is also a reminder of so many mistakes

Chief among these being
Someone threw paper towels
And toilet tissue all over the country

While some just let it happen
Now those with egg on their faces
Are claiming to be anti-toilet paper

When you know they’re the ones
Hoarding the multipacks
They bought back in March

While the rest of us are trying
With as many envelopes as necessary
Chiefly to clean up the mess

If not recycle all the waste

Thinking about all the things
I could have thought about
All this time if that big something
Had not been standing in the way

All the moments that might not
Have slipped through my fingers
All the images I could have captured
Rather than these perfunctory sentences

Somehow illuminating lethargic ennui
Which brings me back to my life in grad school
When avoiding responsibility became
An art I could put my name to

How many decades this year has been
How many lifetimes these years have taken
How many volumes we could have read
Rather than avoiding the nonfiction bestsellers

How much the attention economy
Keeps asking for your clicks
Apparently now we are judging people
By the contents of their refrigerators

It would be absurd if it weren’t so tragic
These new bottoms keep bottoming out
I wish I could say I can see things improving
But that is just a thought I cannot bear to think

Until we have some idea what we’re talking about

Even as the days fill
With more mist than sunlight

And the hours count down
To when it gets darker

Just by falling asleep one night
And waking up the next day

Even as these four years
Have seemed a blur at best

Though painstakingly traumatic
And deadly at worst

Even as we rise together
To say we will leave behind

The groaning engulfing anxiety
That has followed us here

To know it was all a dream
Yet the wreckage lies everywhere

Even if relief comes
Sooner than we expect it

There is still so much work
We will have to do

To recover what was lost
And so many lost

Who could help us get there
If they were still breathing

Even now their spirits shake
Through our gasps

Their hearts are beating

We are well past the point
Because we are not well
Of going a day commemorating

An infamous event
Without another taking its place
In the time stamped

Headlines no one clicks
Because they are busy
Willfully forgetting

We have been here before
Because we are always here
And going even a day

Without being shot eleven
Or fourteen times
Is a privilege fewer and fewer

Of us can claim
Because on the tree of life
We are the fallen branches

Our mothers call for help

Democracy is
A pre-existing condition
We have never been covered for

They may now have the power
To strip the rights
Of the majority away

Even as they confirm
The last gasps of their ideology
By spreading disease

They know their time is up
Their hands are bruised
Trying to hold the levers

That will soon crush them
Into inanimate dust
And crumbling edifices

They only fight so hard
Because they are losing
And will continue to lose

As long as we the people
See through their bullshit
Hypocritical bluster

And vote them into oblivion
The ball is in our court—
Start packing

RIP Diane di Prima

The only war that matters is
the war against the imagination
All other wars are subsumed in it

I have just realized that
the stakes are myself
I have no other

On this gutted breaking globe
but I can show you baby
enough to love
to break your heart forever