—Poems by John Grochalski, Brooklyn, NY
—Anonymous Photos of Brooklyn in Winter
drunk on wine
drunk on wine
going to buy more wine
i watch the people along third avenue
gussied up for a saturday night
sober grotesque clowns
strangled on their cheap perfume and cologne
cascading in the hopeless hope
of their carnal civility
i suddenly wish that i didn’t need another
bottle of red wine
and that i never had to come out
amongst these glamorous
stinking swine
in the first place.
$1400 a month for this?
a shower that dribbles
like warm piss
cracks in the linoleum
cracks in the blinds
black mold on the ceiling
plaster in cracks on the floor
clogged drains
and faucets that need a screwdriver
to shut off
barking dogs
and bitching kids
outside of ripped, screen windows
propped up by books
lights that flicker
for no reason at all
thunder neighbors rolling across the landscape
in the middle of the humid night
cockroaches that got the blues
and the landlord’s phone
that just keeps ringing and ringing
its siren call
for next month’s rent check
paid in full
by the first of the month.
the pirate
the little girl
is so obvious
she could be president
when she gets older
she says to me
you have long hair and an earring
i tell her i’m a pirate
she sticks out her tongue
and says,
you’re nothing but an ugly girl
before leaving
taking the shreds
of my dignity with her
like dog shit smeared
on the heel of her boot.
red meat
america separates
families at the border
america puts kids in cages
and leaves them there for years
america eats too much red meat
red meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner
it eats red meat shaped like bombs
while it kills itself at thankless jobs
and watches too much television
america watches kids
living in cages on television
in between commercials
for big cars and more red meat
gets drunk and jerks off to torture porn
then it gets on its knees
and prays for freedom and the love of god
before america
wraps itself up snug in the american flag
and puts its bloated body
full of red meat
to bed.
____________________
today’s littlenip:
godot
—john grochalski
the world continues
to go to hell
while i wait on packed buses
for genius to climb on board
and ask me
for the time.
___________________
Thank you, John Grochalski, for coming back to the Kitchen with your red-hot poems from that ice-cold borough (burrow?) of Brooklyn in January. And don’t wait so long next time!
For up-coming poetry events in our area, scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa, with gratitude for prodigal poets who return ~
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
