In my life I never thought I would see
Such desperation in my own country
Mail piling up undeliverable
As if we can’t tell the bear from the bull
Each front page offers a new distraction
Burying the new lead of fascism
Like democracy was some sort of joke
To those who take pride in not being woke
Obsoleting all the machines we need
To select sort sift sign harvest or weed
They say a rising tide lifts all the boats
That crash into shore not counting our votes
What remedy will help us to bash this
Simple enough: this machine kills fascists
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AugPoWriMo 15
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AugPoWriMo 14
To have spent so long in this quarantine
That it seems normal you know what I mean
When ordinary summer things occur
You forget how much of life is a blur
It makes the ice cream taste even more sweet
In a childhood home on a childhood street
And all the parks with kids dangling on swings
Filled with promise of what tomorrow brings
It seems odd to feel quite this elated
When so much of the world is frustrated
Be in the world but don’t make it your home
Your spirit in body is free to roam
Past circumstance toward liberation
Feelings preceding imagination
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AugPoWriMo 13
Went three days without a cat on my lap
How easy it is for them to distract
Put your finger in my eyeball now please
Says the fluff sitting just above my knees
They purr on the bed they purr on my leg
The last thing they’ll do is borrow or beg
Demanding some treats demanding some nip
Haven’t had them since you went on your trip
Now they’re so happy but playing it cool
They’re not like those dogs that sometimes will drool
It’s bath time now see how they lick their paws
They’ll show that cardboard who’s got all the claws
These cats are everything you want to be
Sometimes they even watch birds on TV
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AugPoWriMo 12
Quiet hours begin when bugs are loud
There’s no quiet even when it is found
Just a sense of dread that things aren’t so good
As they were when they were misunderstood
I’m talking in my sleep dreams are so real
They feel what anybody wants to feel
Euphoric excited or even numb
Things that are gone haven’t even begun
One hundred fifty days in quarantine
Don’t even know what any of it means
I’m hiding my face I’m wearing my mask
The last shall be first the first shall be last
We climbed the mountain we’re on the way down
It’s quiet hours now there’s no one around
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AugPoWriMo 11
On this first day of my forty-first year
I woke up in the air conditioned woods
Walked with my partner on unseen new trails
Finding good wishes from friends near and far
Traveled a road I had never driven
Dined on favorite foods and birthday cake
Followed a bee from flower to flower
Waved at deer from the bed of a dry lake
Watched the sun as it set behind the trees
Admired the frogs hopping from leaf to leaf
Sat on the porch savoring written words
Felt new hope in electoral relief
Another year passed a new one begins
A moment of stillness while the earth spins
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AugPoWriMo 10
As if any of us need reminding
Everything that has been going on is
Still going on but with no end in sight
And no insight into where we have been
Which is still where we are both then and now
Not that the then we thought would be the now
Is any closer to the beginning
Of when this chapter will come to a close
And the work we knew we would have to do
Will somehow begin if that were the case
The progress we make will still be unmade
Erasures wait in line to be erased
If not can we sign a paper to say
This ends our problems they won’t go away
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AugPoWriMo 9
Driving the freeway for the first time since
I don’t even know how long it has been
Gives you the sense you are a resident
Of Earth not just the inside of a room
Or a mask you should keep above your nose
(Respiratory disease gets there too)
Altered landscapes make a new frame of mind
Beyond our reach in stationary chairs
Think of all the thoughts that have now been lost
Not only how many months it has been
Leaving us stranded astride of a hill
No matter how far you wish to follow
Will never let you catch the horizon
Once lost it’s impossible to find them
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AugPoWriMo 8
With every day that passes I wish that
All there were for me to worry about
Was the dysfunction in my brain making
Me believe my students were terrorists
Planning to destroy the United States
Even as they wrote about the crazy
Candidates running for the president
I remember spending a whole dark day
As I rewrote their final assignment
I woke up thinking decades had passed by
And as they brought me to the hospital
I checked my email for the late papers
I would never get any chance to grade
Written about the world depression made
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AugPoWriMo 7
I want to start a YouTube channel that
Consists entirely of me reacting
To people younger than me reacting
To music much older than both of us
The fact of a new Bill and Ted movie
Might mean that we are all time travelers
Moving day by day into the future
By gazing at detritus of the past
Through futuristic yet slow devices
That are all somehow due for an upgrade
Any day now though what that may look like
Is anyone’s guess which makes the future
So exciting to be living in—see
How much it sucks to go through history
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AugPoWriMo 6
I took another glance at my journal
That I no longer write in which offers
Helpfully a feature called On This Day
Dating back almost fifteen years ago
All of which I would not recall myself
Had I not put them down digitally
But even this sampling of existence
Seems random yet also contiguous
As if they could have been successive days
Yet here we are in fact an outlier
Neither bound by word nor are we written
We are ghost days passing secretively
Lucky if we will not be remembered
But more fortunate by chance if we are
Joshua Keiter 