Ajax Kallistrate

shame is the sound
of rain
on wet pavement
sliced through
by car tires
shhhhhhh! rain
overflowing
pooling
sluicing
choked down
gullies and ditches
washing out
constellations
of garbage
that glitter in the sun
blinding me with
garbage
that glitters in the sun

May 4, 2018

i like bus people
poor people
like me
i like to listen
to fathers with babies
children with mothers
shift workers
regulars
drifters.

i listen
to their stories
of prison time and
chronic illness and
eviction and
homelessness,
to the jokes and laughter
to the young and the very young
to the old and the old spirits
to the lost middle-aged
like me
with a new job
with homework on their knees
reinventing themselves.

i like how we wait
with patience and grace
for mobility devices
making room, moving back
i like how we shout Wait!
Wait! someone is running
to catch the bus
for a shift or
a class or
a court date or
maybe they're just
running from where they are
and it doesn't matter where
they go.

it doesn't always matter
to me.

the places i knew,
closed up
and silent
the people i knew,
closed up
and silent.

only the bus
puts on its lights
for me
reaches the curb
and kneels
for me
folding open
to receive me
enclose me
shelter me
from wind and rain
and snow and ice
to take me away
or toward
the glow of a window
or a table between
me and strangers
who find me
wanting
where i want to be
or don't
even when
it doesn't matter.

October 2019

i wish that i could say that i
had made a string of friends.
alas, i didn't know to knot
and they all slipped off
the ends.

April 29, 2020

short walk
long ride
long walk
long shift
long walk
long ride
short walk
and tomorrow i have to do laundry

July 25, 2020

when i hold that
molten light
between my palms
i wonder if that golden
balm was netted in ancestral
fingers to soothe away
the fear of never ending
winter with the primal
warmth of the memory
of dawn.

February 9, 2021

when we don't see eye
to eye that's the quiet
place we need to be to
pare open the soft
underbelly of
lies disguised
as truth and
set free
that
uncomfortable
unrest that
roots like
a sharp
spine
through
entrails of
self delusion
until some pale
meaty bone breaks
through salty
soil and we
are once
again warmed
by the flame of
hungry intellect
sparked by fifty-
five million years
of primate evolution
when at last we see
eye to eye.

February 12, 2021