You were a lost soul (they said) but you found me.
May 19, 2021
Ajax Kallistrate
there's not enough money in the world for outselling the pace of personal com- promise in this red- hot deal of a glass barrel. such a shame! time being worth more than money. (i get out when i can) i don't do it for the alarm. no sir. when they tell me no two jacket buttons are the same i know they're lying. i wander. there's no electrical current in the first place. or so they said. (i can't get it with my hand caught in the door.) without negation. i summarize my position. ahem. grand enveloping space which ought to know better. but i can't go alone. brittle names all on fixed incomes. stay, they said. but how can i tell? there's an echo. in between the words. (i'd laugh) but i'm going home now.
May 19, 2021
i live a simple life.
uncomplicated. unsophisticated.
unconventional. (a lot of uns
because it's easier to define
an it by what it's not) a
wispy web too bare to
beat a penny's weight.
i don't mind. (i get to talk now)
simple needs need only simple
satisfactions. like a cat: good
food and a bit of sun.
i don't (here i go again) need
so many whats and wheres as one
might expect. (an assumption
of course) i do need (i'm full
up with) love. silly word to
have so many definitions.
'i feel this' but 'i do that'
and do we agree to disagree?
(i never know)
i have so much. i carry with me
the trembling of white violets
electrified by flecks of mica
in a slab of sidewalk. (no wonder
my backpack is so heavy) i leave
behind everything else, everything
i can't afford, which turns out to
be everything else.
i'm overwhelmed.
i gaze over that sleeping face,
along those leafy streets, up into
that distorting sleeve of atmosphere
and remember how small i am, how
short my life, how fleeting the little
waves that shape the shore of memory.
i don't mind.
i get to talk now.
May 12, 2021
the wide-set eyes of the bus through the leaves of the trees in July set my heart afloat above the viscera of urban daylight on a misty morning of red brick and hot concrete. call it what you will. naivete. a relic of unsophisticated two- dimensional suburban geometry. (i'll grant you.) the landscapes of cities, of this city, roll through me wavering waving trembling quaking aspen shouldering a burdenless frame of sixty-three inches of glass and peeling paint. resistless dissymmetry. neighbors gray bearded sidewalk chalk and sneakered steps rise with a rusty rail all jointed to touch the sky, palms up, content to face the same traffic light for a hundred years. lovely indifference! (i can't countenance in people what i seek in structure.) open out secret corner turns into the prettiest summer breath. how could it not? amblers, reflected heat shimmer, an elevated pitch all selling a walk as a long string of bright green, even that moment. standing alone at the bus stop. an approaching future. one day, just another day. but this day. this day.
May 7, 2021
some rooted hollow place where underneath the lips of the skull the lever pries loose the tolling of a bell in bronze or steel (i can never tell) ringing deep and bovine in an eclipse of shadows that fall in wash out sink subside across a flat plane un- done by a single strand of nervous attention (undone washed out) curling up rising into the dome of space overhead drinking deep from the shelter of wicked wicked talons
May 6, 2021
i walk to remind myself that i'm free.
i can walk away from this job.
i can walk away from this city.
i can walk away from my home,
from my friends. from you.
i can walk away and keep on walking.
but you remind me that i don't have to.
you remind me that i can choose to stay.
i can make my stand here.
i can make a home.
i can make a life. with my friends.
with you.
i have a choice. and i choose. to stay.
for now.
May 6, 2021
green haze through spring rain nets cloud reflected glass walls in perfect symmetry of pink and white translucent petals trembling with beads of fractured gold illuminating chlorophyll windows a thousand thousand times shimmering shimmering gentle drops down
May 4, 2021
I am a butterfly (I wrote, so long ago)
but only the worm part.
(I had no wings.)
We're all larvae (I suppose) at first.
Bloated neonates spilling milk-like
from the lips of proud opportunists
bursting with individualized pressure
differentials as familial as overripe fruit.
But my own squirming made no end.
I spun no cocoon in which to pupate,
to mature.
I remained instead an ugly,
useless thing.
A parasitic load of bad math.
A function of prone contemplation over
a mouthful of dirt,
unpalatable even to a hungry bird.
(I have no wings.)
But (perhaps) a life forged in the
interstices of other people's momentary
lapses can still be a pretty good life.
And so we've come to an arrangement,
myself and my liberty,
an exchange of time and space for a spiritual
stipend conducted by direct-deposit to an
opportunity-cost ATM.
(We don't get in each other's way out
of mutual respect.)
There's no longer any benefit in my doubt,
no half measures in my cups,
no pity in my patter,
but no matter how small (smaller,
smallest) I get,
I still can't afford the
premium on regret.
So I cut coupons,
trimming affectionate sales for a course
in Friendship and trading in the dog-watch
for a footsore list I'd otherwise do without.
(I cant these days.)
I'm no butterfly (nor worm,
I suppose).
Granny knotted puppet strings are all
the flightless aviation I can manage in
between twice divided transactional
assets of emotional freight.
(Ask around!)
But that doesn't make me a failure.
No.
I will blink out unhindered,
a sort of self-sufficient land-bound
crustacean pinked by a circulating
reminder of the original amnion.
(I do tend to forget.)
And in the meantime I will follow in my
own hesitant sidesteps a path forged by
its own absence.
(How can I do otherwise?)
Sensitive instruments require
sensitive recalibration.
I hum.
Buzz.
Shimmy and flutter.
(I'll never fly.)
I watch with compound eyes a
kaleidoscopic mosaic of past and present,
unable to translate impulses into any
fixed point,
a blind spotted future standing at the
intersection of tissue and electronic traffic.
I described it once.
I opened my mouth and words flowed
through me as if it were not me speaking,
as if the sounds were born as nakedly
tressed as Athene,
unincubated in their first fragile moments,
untended after by a loving overseer,
unguided by lighted road markers toward
their destination before being committed
to the execution of the soft palate.
I was given a name. For this phenomenon
is one wholly unfamiliar to me.
It was called.
I heard. (I'm not. But I could be.
Sometimes.)
To be.
(I already am.)
April 23, 2021
carpe diem you spring canaries! you
miser's ministers drawing closed
the curtains on the new mint-
ed day. how easily you step
aside
back
out
with
draw
ab
stain
remove your
selves from any risk taking
chances stepping in
side front and
center with
us
me
our go
ahead!
i'll walk alone, out of earshot, and
treasure dust for honesty.
better yet, i'll fly to stronger wings than
yours, you flapping lips, you phantasmal
featherweights, and leave you to your
own devices of self-service and
obdurate loyalty to be pre-
served like corks in a bottle.
me? i've got no background no
retreat no hallowed palace
full of old companions to
sustain me if i turn away
from a hand out-
stretched to
take my
own,
so
i
piece together a
constellation of bright-eyed
polestars to guide my steps
through weedy fields
of indifferent
strangers
to
teach me how to love! how to
appreciate the human capacity for being
in a state of grace, how to lift my eyes
beyond the universal accident that un-
folds ever outward in waves of chance
and portent, like hands grasping
(take my hand)
and let-
ting
go
and grasp-
ing other hands
until love fills in the gaps left
behind by the rearing of apes by apes,
until there are no broken souls,
until there are no wounds too deep to heal,
until we can release each other's pain with
an unwavering gaze, a word, a touch, until
no one of us is ever again pierced by the sin-
gular agony of forsaken loneliness. so
come talk to me. walk with me.
we're kin. for a moment. for-
ever.
for
now.
April 17, 2021
is this in the service of love?
these thoughts, these words, these actions?
am i loving freely, with an encircling heart,
embracing joy and grief alike? can i make
space for a friend? to speak, to feel, to find
a way out?
how do you put it into words? the answer is
that you don't have to.
i will stand in that fictitious space
where all receding points meet.
where the two-headed coin spins
because joy and grief are the same,
because an overflowing outpouring
stamp on the heart is an imprint of
letting go that has to be set free,
to fall, to fly. i stand aside. i will
hold you with open arms. i'm here.
i will meet you where you are.
is this in the service of love?
when i speak let my words come from my
better self.
when i listen let my heart be open to the
wisdom of other hearts.
when i act let compassion alone be my guide.
to forgive, to uplift, to let go.
to fall or fly.
to be free.
always in the service of love.
March 31, 2021
