Four poems by John Grochalski

wednesday morning anywhere
 
edward hopper scenes
from across the periwinkle street
 
sad, slouching sacks of flesh
illuminated in amber windows
 
small mechanized moments
between sips on coffee and the morning news
 
d.j.’s with no wit selling air
 
the hours that are never ours
even when we have them at our fingertips
 
barking dogs and booming bass
car horns and boat horns
 
scalding showers and unsatisfactory breakfasts
 
conversations that pass
into blandness or accusations
 
a dead cockroach that needs to be flushed
while searching for the hangover cure
 
another mass this, another mass that
 
politicians hanging freedoms like nooses
around that old poplar tree
 
blood on the leaves
 
that latest infotainment rag
glorious hollywood tits, glorious new york ass
 
all sewn up and bought and sold
 
rollicking commerce sailing down the river
echoing merrily, merrily, merrily
 
life is but the american dream.




03/06/2016
 
the people
have perfected themselves
into a wondrous
monotony
thin scarves
and coffee cups
smoothie sucking
in the sun
mechanical jubilations
coming from out
of sports bars
dog walker methane blues
a weekend repetition
playing out
on every block
swinging the wine bottle
i serpentine
a row of american flags
pass diners in an english pantry
writing cell phone novels
over their cold food
look into the grocery store
at the conveyors
of junk food
for conspicuous consumption
watch the cashiers
bag flavored
potato chips
tubs of ice cream
soda by the case
stealing debit card numbers
from frowning fat customers
so that they too
can have a small slice
of this
plastic
suffocating
sunny
american
daydream




we can’t go back
            --for kristofer collins
 
but it’s tuesday morning
sitting here over this coffee
another ceaseless brooklyn morning
shoulder pain and nose hairs
thinking but if i could go back
just once or a few times
maybe a weekday afternoon
with kris at the beehive
over those cappuccinos that
burned our hands each time
we took them up the steps
to that large room i remember
being bathed in gray light
from a sun that never quite
got caught in the pittsburgh sky
we’d sit somewhere where
we could both watch coeds and see that
oil painting of a southern preacher
the one who looked like george jefferson
and of course there’d be kerouac talk
conversation about girls and family and plans
to get out of pittsburgh for the summer
the ones that never materialized once
we received our first spring paychecks
and i’m not saying things were better back then
you see i’m done with that illusion
and i’ve somewhat accepted
the encroachment of time
maybe they were just different or
a touch less burdened or burdened
in a way that was suitable for the age
and i don’t go anywhere now where
i can kill hours like that
daydreaming away an afternoon
without thinking about the time i’ve lost
and most nights i can’t stay up
any later than ten on the dot
kris, we’ve talked kerouac to death
but, man, it’s been a long time
since i’ve had a cappuccino
bathed in that gray home city light
or really felt the sensation on

my chapped hands as i let them burn.      




the scam artist
 
looking out my kitchen window
into the vodka night
 
she passes dressed in a hoodie
clutching a cell phone
clutching herself
 
sees stupid me in the window
 
stops and spins
turns doe-eyed and comes closer
 
she says, since you’re looking
out the window anyway
i was wondering if i could ask you something
 
shoot, i say
because i still know how to talk to the young
and doe-eyed female
 
she says, you know 74th street
and shore drive, right
 
i nod
intimately, i say
 
well, she says, you see, my car….
 
i hold up my hand
and stop her right there
let me guess, i say
your car broke down and you need some money
 
she shakes her head
huddles into herself on a sixty degree night
for good measure
 
tilts her head and lifts those eyes
 
look, i tell her
i’ve heard this scam at least five times
in this neighborhood
 
it’s always some poor girl
clutching her dead phone at night
 
huddled into herself in any kind of weather
with a dead car just down the block.
 
sometimes they cry, i tell her
 
but have you heard it from me? she asks
 
silent
we stare at each other as the vodka night
starts to turn sober
 
i can’t help you, i finally say
 
she shrugs, gives me the finger
turns doe eyes and spins down the street
like it ain’t no thing
 
looking for the next idiot
around the next block
 
some money man who has yet to hear
her pitiful tale of woe
 
as i step away from the window
close the blinds on this side of humanity
 
and pour myself
another stiff one.


​

 Bio: John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), the novel, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and the forthcoming novel, The Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the section that doesn’t have the bike sharing program.

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