Joshua Keiter

They say story is what makes us human
Though we do not know who they really are
Because the fire around which they told them
Burned a little too brightly blinding us
We started thinking the fire was story
When crackles only made us miss a word
We could make up if we knew the context
The larger fire burning outside the frame
A hurricane may knock down all the walls
Keep one side of story from another
A crowd dispersed by sprays of weak power
Will go home to kiss their children asleep
The walls around our house will soon burn down
Tell the story so what is lost is found

The enduring image from these long years
Though still unconstructed on the border
People took it upon themselves to build
A wall before all opposing forces
That would silence voices spraying tear gas
As if the air we breathe were not toxic
Already strewn as it is with retweets
Some unfortunate librarian will
Catalog if the future does happen
Turns out the walls that matter are living
Humans that gather even at nighttime
Though the pandemic may steal our breath yet
Let’s build a wall so that everyone sees
We stand together against tyrannies

So the sacrifice we have made these months
Has been squandered as the past four decades
Idiotic ideology sent
Us spiraling from the rest of the globe
A disease trickling down oblivion
As schools open like any hardware store
Only with unremediated mold
From textbooks published in the seventies
Which will only be updated to teach
The controversy of evolution
As a species defined by empathy
Instead of the corporate bottom line
You are only useful if you ignore
Those you accost on your way out the door

We are going to need a bigger boat
Even though the tide has certainly turned
When the outlier becomes prevalent
The waves are building all around us now
Shouting that Moms are here feds stay clear as
Baseball players are kneeling on the field
The silent majorities are watching
Law and Order shows on basic cable
While the rest of the country cuts the cord
Streaming stories in different voices
Surely something is slouching to be born
We may be susceptible to hacking
When the boats arrive be prepared to flee
Person Woman Man Camera TV

Having no other places to visit
The past visits me quite regularly
Unannounced like houseguests we used to have
A corner of dust that outlives cleaning
They stand there blinking upon waking up
And fill moments reserved for the future
With images at best half remembered
The heartache of things that will never be
Although wished for with fervent devotion
Until the requisite moving along
Before you even know that they are gone
The allure rested in lonely absence
That face you wish you could see one more time
To stay alive if not inside my mind

Watching disaster movies this summer
The ones where prehistoric animals
Along with genetic engineering
Massive hubris and short attention spans
Result in one long product placement for
The goods of late stage capitalism
Each scene a reminder of when things were
A thing—amusement parks filled with people
Inevitably picked up by monsters
And tossed about by another monster
Assembled together with care in post
A segue to another disaster
Remember when actors were scared of things
Filled in by someone’s imagination?

The likelihood that we are witnessing
Attempted incompetent fascism
Is quite undeniable at this point
No need to defund the police when all
These officers have no insignia
And anyway they just catch and release
To break up the chaos on empty streets
Federal lands will not defend themselves
Anonymous faces in riot gear
Are the only recourse stemming the tide
Of people finding out their government
Does not have their best interests at heart
Open your schools or you won’t get money
If they have to they’ll force you at gunpoint

So much music discovered late in life
You never got around to listening
Sometimes the singer goes away before
Returning in a late career triumph
After so many decades of silence
As if somehow suddenly reappeared
In time to leave one last final reprise
Though our life is as fresh as a daisy
The lesson is you must live till you die
You never know what song may come along
To save you as so much is departing
Those two eyes you will never see again
If there could be somebody made for me
I hope to meet them as the rainbow ends

If the march had not been accomplished yet
If children could see you in your trench coat
If bridges can be renamed or rebuilt
If not one of us lives to see our work
If time were nearly as long as it seems
If history could be what outlives us
If it is by the telling of stories
If your name is written on all of us
If you were nearly killed trying to live
If we truly lived by the signs we write
If the struggle goes on day after day
If good trouble is worth getting into
If we find a way to get in the way
If we still can we will remember you

If anything the time that we have will
Not be given back no inopportune
Circumstances dictate the scope of loss
Erasing ourselves from the barren room
This earth has become in our minuscule
Absence the birds have been singing louder
Each morning while our windows remain closed
So we do not hear the ghastly silence
Of what this world would be like without us
The thousand natural shocks flesh is air
Breathing as normal through the fabric gauze
Gazing over bridges running errands
To take our lives back now though accosted
By those who will never pay the cost of