Love is a Rosebush

 

John Grochalski
—Poetry by John A. Grochalski, Brooklyn, NY
—Photos Courtesy of John A. Grochalski

nine innings
 
in between
the car ads
 
the erectile disfunction ones
and the ads
 
for colon cancer
 
two teams manage
to play nine innings
 
while i sit
on the couch
 
drinking vodka and beer
 
daydreaming
i’m a billionaire
 
at home
 
on a
sick day
from work.

 

 

 

On The Dock

 

black dress
 
black dress
black mane of curly hair
 
black dress
that barely covers
your ass
 
wobbling around
this hotel lobby
in black high heels
 
it’s a known fact
 
that the world keeps making
twenty-year-old women
 
and that i
 
keep getting older
too.

 

 

 

Noir

 

to the woman stopping
to smell her armpits
 
you are at a street corner
ten-speed upright at your side
sniffing your armpits
 
like a dog sniffs at its own ass
 
rubbing soft flesh
and holding it to your nose
 
neither disgusted nor content
 
the only person in their only world
 
and you move me
like a symphony.

 

 

 

 Cast No Shadow

 

love is a rosebush
 
love
is
a
rosebush
and
i
am
its
thorn
prick
angrily
storming
away
from
you
on
a
dirty
city
street
again.

 

 

 

Italy, 2/2/74

 

 

the black heart of the cinema
 
the villains victorious
the bad guys won
 
and all i can do
is watch the little punks
who threw a bottle of soda
at me and my wife
 
run out of the theater
unscathed
 
while my helpless heroine
cleans sticky goo off of her jacket
 
and the credits roll
on this disaster film
of an afternoon.


___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Life is like a rose garden—watch for the thorns and keep the pest dust handy.

—Anonymous

___________________
 
Our thanks to newcomer John Grochalski for his poetry and photos today! John’s poetry has appeared in several online and print publications, including Red Fez, Outsider Writers Collective, Underground Voices, The Lilliput Review, The Main Street Rag, Zygote In My Coffee, The Camel Saloon, and Bartleby Snopes. He is the author of five books of poetry: The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch (Six Gallery Press, 2008); Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010); Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Press, 2014); The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018); and Eating a Cheeseburger During the End Times (Kung Fu Treachery, 2021). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press, 2013); Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press, 2016); and P-Town: Forever (Alien Buddha Press, 2021). Welcome to the Kitchen, John, and don’t be a stranger! 

 

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 John Grochalski











                                   
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry happenings in
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Littlesnake’s Glimmer of Hope:
beggar with empty pockets
spilled all his treasure
along the way;
now he has to start over…