On The Old Men at Walmart by Paul Juhasz
By Quraysh Ali Lansana
Hi, I’m Quraysh Ali Lansana, a poet, author and professor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, here for Poets on the Plains. Today, I’m delighted to explore a poem by one of my favorite Oklahoma poets, Paul Juhasz.
Paul is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated author of six books: Fulfillment: Diary of a Warehouse Picker, a mock journal chronicling his seven-month term as a picker at an Amazon Fulfillment Center; As If Place Matters, a collection of short fiction; and four collections of poetry: Ronin: Mostly Prose Poems, a finalist for the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award, The Inner Life of Comics, and The Fires of Heraclitus, a finalist for the 2025 Oklahoma Book Award, and, most recently, Katabasis, published in February 2026 by Turning Plow Press, which has been nominated for a National Book Award. He served as curator and coordinator of the Woody Guthrie Poets from 2020-2024 and currently lives in Oklahoma City.
The poem of his that I’ve selected to share is The Old Men at Walmart, from Katabasis, which is an exquisite example of the distillation of moment and the blurring of time. Here’s the poem:
The Old Men at Walmart
It is not the witching hour, nor anything akin to that, for there is
no magic here. Still, there is something solemn about these early
Saturday hours; an indifferent gathering, like a storm drain
assemblage, when the single old men do their shopping away from
the glares and stares, away from the wonderous judgment of
community. They wander down their lonely aisles, wondering how it
came to this, while silently assembling a paltry pile of items. Barely
enough to justify a cart, but pride still keeps them away from the
finality of hand-baskets. There are no children, begging for candy or
toys, at this hour. No wives or partners parsing through future-laden
lists and dinner plan promises. There are just the old men.
They do not buy much, for they have lost most of it already. They
wander down their lonely aisles, wondering how it came to this,
wondering whether they should count out their days in microwave
burritos or chicken pot pies. The hardware section nothing but a
vague, shadowy echo of days as distant as the Cretaceous, as
mythologized as Valhalla. The clothes section sped through, a forced
and fated indifference grabbing for shelves (for it no longer matters
whether boxers or briefs). Some stay outside, huddled in the lea of
the storefront, furtively smoking in passive suicide, but most of us
shuffle, fatigued and silent, within; wandering down our lonely aisles,
wondering how it came to this.
Used with permission
I find this poem stunning for many reasons. The opening sentence does so much work. “It is not the witching hour, nor anything akin to that, for there is “no magic here.” It establishes a sense of netherworldliness and a tone of aloneness, a suspension of time, yet, from the title, we are rooted in place. A place that is public, yet insular. The interiority of these men on display in a communal setting. That tension, that friction, drives the quiet desperation of the poem.
Then there’s the juxtaposition of“...these early Saturday hours…” and “...an indifferent gathering, like a storm drain/ assemblage, when the single old men do their shopping away from/ the glares and stares, away from the wonderous judgment of/community. Saturday mornings conjure cartoons, cereal and the laughter of children. Here, the men shop glumly, brooding collectively in stark contrast.
Then Paul employs what I call physical metaphor:
“They wander down their lonely aisles, wondering how it
came to this, while silently assembling a paltry pile of items. Barely
enough to justify a cart, but pride still keeps them away from the
finality of hand-baskets.”
Many things are in play at all at once in these two understated sentences. The aisles, of course, are full of stocked shelves with numerous items. The aisles are neither lonely or alone, yet the men wander them under unspoken weight. Then, the weight of pride is uttered, through the vehicle of the distinction between a cart and hand-baskets. That somehow dignity is discovered through this, though through “...a paltry pile of items,” reveals fragility and is a remarkable moment where the handful of physical objects are both meaning and metaphor.
The poem then grounds us in grim reality, literally. But it is the dependent clause that closes the first sentence of the second stanza that makes us feel it, “...for they have lost most of it already.” It is here that the poem turns to focus on the listless state of the men in great small detail. It is the minutiae of this stanza that invites us into the worlds of these men. “...whether they should count out their days in microwave burritos or chicken pot pies.” “The hardware section nothing but a/
vague, shadowy echo of days…” “The clothes section sped through, a forced/
and fated indifference grabbing for shelves (for it no longer matters/
whether boxers or briefs).” These are mundane truths dispelled in eloquent, quiet pleas of longing.
The poem closes with the men idling: a kind of purgatory, whether outside the store “…furtively smoking in passive suicide,” or “…fatigued and silent within;…”
And then the slight refrain from the first stanza: “…wandering down our lonely aisles, wondering how it came to this.”
The Old Men at Walmart captures the interior of loss, displacement and interrupted lives, but Juhasz also asks us to not only visit the heartache, but the humanity.
Thank you for being with us for Poets on the Plains. I’m Quraysh Ali Lansana, poet, author and professor coming to you from the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of over twenty books in poetry, nonfiction and children’s literature. Lansana is Applied Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing and Media Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he is also Director of the African American Studies program and the Media Lab. Lansana is an alumnus of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and was formerly a Lecturer in Africana Studies at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa where he also served as Director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation.
He is a founding member of Tri-City Collective and serves on the Board of Directors of Oklahoma Humanities and the Tulsa Press Club. Lansana is a Curatorial Scholar for The Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. He is a Cave Canem alumnus and a member of the first cohort of the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing Fellowship. https://www.tricitycollective.com/quraysh-ali-lansana
FEATURED POET
Paul Juhasz is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated author of six books: Fulfillment: Diary of a Warehouse Picker, a mock journal chronicling his seven-month term as a picker at an Amazon Fulfillment Center; As If Place Matters, a collection of short fiction; and four collections of poetry: Ronin: Mostly Prose Poems, a finalist for the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award, The Inner Life of Comics, and The Fires of Heraclitus, a finalists for the 2025 Oklahoma Book Award, and, most recently, Katabasis published in February 2026 by Turning Plow Press. He served as curator and coordinator of the Woody Guthrie Poets from 2020-2024 and currently lives in Oklahoma City. https://www.facebook.com/fearthebigtuna/
