so that i know there’s life

the woman in the apartment
above my bedroom
playing louis prima
and sinatra at full blast
the man next door to her
pacing back and forth
dropping bowling balls
or some other heavy shit

they’re doing it

the old chinese hag
next door
with her television dramas
and grandchildren pounding
on the walls

they’re doing it too

the couple down the hall
making the worst smelling food
the aging frat boys
on the fourth floor who smoke cigarettes
and recite lines from shitty movies
in front of my window
and the superintendent passed out
on a bench with a
wine hangover

all of them
they’re doing it

the dog walkers letting
their mongrels shit
in the foyer
the delivery men playing
their bad music
and honking their horns
and the teenagers throwing up
beer and pizza outside in the snow

they’re helping this along

the exterminator
and the mailman
the cable bill and the electric bill
the student loans
and the landlord
because he’s a part of this too

all of them
every last one
they keep on doing
what they’re doing
so that i know there’s life
outside my closed blinds

ugly gray life
dismal like a traffic jam
or intense diarrhea
and it just won’t stop
no matter how dark i keep the apartment
or my soul
no matter how goddamned long
i hide

- John Grochalski

(featured in the poetry forum 02.25.10)

one of those days

where the nightmares come
with a bill of sale
and the mattress feels like concrete
where the morning sun has stripped
all beauty from the world
and life is gray
where the hangover feels worse
than the last one
and you wonder how much more
can the body take
where everyone on the morning train
looks dead
acts dead
and friends feel like enemies
where there is no love
except that wanting to murder you
where you wonder
how much longer can you go on
with the world
before you burn into a fine ash
or go stale
if you’ve gone stale
where one kind face could maybe
save you
but you know that face will
never come
where all the food tastes bland
and the drink is dull
and conversation feels like war
where the clock starts mocking you
atop a mute television
with a dying screen
and the next hour feels like
water dropping slowly from
a broken faucet
where the idea of the next day
feels like a new kind of hell
where you go to bed feeling your heart
ready to explode in your chest
and the panic settling into your soul
where your eyes are afraid to close
where you can’t stand the images in your head
and the shadows on the wall make hell hounds
angling to swallow you whole
where you are having one of those days
where death feels like a respite from thought
and you pray the buddhists are wrong
one of those kinds of days
that lasts a psychotic’s eternity

tell me,
have you ever had a day
like that too?

- John Grochalski

(added 06.05.09)

fast exit

we’ll make a fast exit
i promise
so quick and painless
and our bank account
won’t even feel it.
we’ll let them feel good about it
slap us on the back
and give us those eyes
then we’ll run
far away
to the bar
to a fine restaurant
or just into the street
free for the moment
rich for a moment
tomorrow won’t matter
we’ll just look at the gray pavement
and the dumb faces
waiting on their crinkling pink papers
with a sigh of relief
because then at least it’ll be over
then we’ll hide the bills
we’ll make sure to stock
the liquor cabinets good
before we settle
in for the long haul
it’ll go so easily
it’ll be a fast exit
a mad dash out the door
i tell you
we won’t even let them finish
their sentence before we’re gone
we won’t hang around for
their empathy and promises
we’ll laugh like jackals
all the way to the end of brooklyn
we’ll smile like fools
we’ll be the happiest idiots
they’ve ever seen
free
two giddy twits galloping
like track horses toward the fast exit.

- John Grochalski

(featured in the poetry forum 06.05.09)

bullshit

from the top
to the bottom
of the human
trash heap
the people talk bullshit
but it’s all right
because people love
bullshit
they eat it up
like a fine meal
they drink it down
like an elegant wine
they get stuffed on it
they get drunk on it
they elect it to years
in high office
or pay it millions of dollars
to entertain
people fill up on so much
bullshit
that they must vomit it out
of their souls
like a wretched yellow
purge
and into our ears
where it sits in our brains
like a soft milky turd
waiting on the first fly
of spring
to come by
and rest its translucent
wings

- John Grochalski

(added 06.05.09)