Ajax Kallistrate

blind fish
rooting
for
a
billion
dollar food chain
telescoped into high-
waters and tennis shoes

a blind fish
rooting

snuffle snuff
snuff

dripping
drop

drop

spider cold
meat hands hunched
over electric dimes

a blind fish
gaping

serrated
lips mooing
mouse nosing
soft soil compost-
ing bubble breath
trailing

off
rising
up

a blind fish
rooting

for a million
mouths

hooking a

blind fish
rooting

raw

June 24, 2021

love them because of who they are,   
   not despite who they are;

love them for reminding you that
   you're vulnerable too;

hold them close, make space;

let go;

open your arms;

trust them;
   treasure them;

as much as you can, and when you can't,
   forgive yourself; try again;
   because

it's not about perfection;

it's never been about perfection;

it's about commitment; it's about
   compassion;

it's about love.

so

Love,
   and be free.

June 18, 2021

light-
weight
hollow
insect
shell de
void silent
waste-
land
platter
scratch
reel
reel-
ing out
hum un-
attended
bare knuckles
fish-eyed final
door grand window
opening onto concrete
dumpster magnifying dust
pan drip step fading up
over
out
in-
to
down
not for
me who's
home whose
home i never
recognize the
building i ask
are we am i
there
yet
am
i
have i
arrived?
i never
know
if
am i
home?

June 17, 2021

all the warmth i have to offer

is a bare light bulb beating
with an outdated coil a
white hot heart of
frosted glass
a finite
out-
pouring
of shining sand
a crown of lumens
stretched taut across
a minuscule fold of space

i hold nothing

back

as wax-melted wings flare
overhead beneath the
radiant corona of
a titan's poly-
chromatic
eye
lifting
me billow-
ing me heeling

me this tiniest

speck of dust this
ruptured cell this hollow
origin this sputtering flame
this ever inward wandering shore
this

flash!

eclipsed
by the brilliant metamorphosis
of super-heated fusion inside
an elemental engine
of iron
fueled by a
stream of incan-
descent particles flung
outward into the emptiness
of atmospheric
segrega-
tion
a
kalei-
doscopic
burst of static
charges reflecting
an upsweep of molten
synapses that speak only
in ablative prominences that

grant no umbral succor

that cry

out unrecognized unheard in-
side the echoing gravity
well of a spectral
current invisible
to the follow-
ers of
the
main
sequence

fortified

against

the
vacuum
of an inward
falling abyss by a
core of sympathetic dust
drawn twice over to bypass five

hundred thousand pairs of eyes

fast fading into darkness
sundered all along a
horizontal axis

still
reflecting
the electromagnetic
pulse
of
a

bare

bulb swallowed by the in-
different tide of
the night
sky

all alone.

June 7, 2021

love can't be legislated,
assembled, required,
conjured, or
forced,
but
if
you
make
space for people,
love can surprise you
in the most wonderful ways.

June 4, 2021

There was a little moon imprinted
on the sky this morning. A bird
circled it, as if it knew.
A man at the bus
stop, didn't.
I paid them no mind. I am living
my best life. Here.
I am
now.

June 3, 2021

metallic herringbone sky spiraling
outward over lush grazing lands
and snow removal signs
and the narrowest
curving bones
over my
inner-
most
heart

beat

with all future endeavors

in gentle palms

swaying

holding in

soaking my mask over my nose

i can't explain to anyone how intense
the green of spring's giving birth
to itself overhead only once a
year the tremble of corporate
tulip shafts and fluttering
petals of crab and cherry

every day that rush

of gratefulness

i am humbled

i'm here

to witness a moment that will never
come again seated front-facing on
a bus past sidewalks and corner
stores and hotels and apart-
ment buildings and the
homes of people i'll
never know and
lawns dotted
with dande-
lions and
violets
and
i

can only just bear that swell of
happiness my arms so full of
what had pierced my heart
with an in-rush of know-
ing what i wanted for
the first time in my
life and the yes
that carried
me to

this day

i offer up what love i have and
that love is returned ten-
thousand fold

can you understand?

such small things i hear in
people's voices when they
trouble the world when
all i have to do is
think back on
that laugh on
pancake
batter
on
a
cheap
futon on
a pixelated
farm on rain
darkened
window
glow
and
in

these two palms

i enclose

all wonderful things

in a disjointed life

i wouldn't trade for
all the world.

May 21, 2021

You were a lost soul
(they said)
but you
found
me.

May 19, 2021

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