Tuesday, August 3, 2010

poem of the day 08.03.10

in the days of painters
and old men


i don’t know
what’s happened
to this bar
but it used to be filled
with painters
and old men
drinking stale beer
arguing in smears of thick color
talking so loudly over
the jukebox
that you couldn’t hear
the music

now
we all sit here
in silence
the jukebox broken
watching the air conditioning drip
through the metal ceiling tiles
while some young horn-nosed bitch
nursing a pitcher
of hard cider
shouts about how much
she can out drink
her sorority sisters
so in love with her own hubris
that it makes you sick

and the bartender
ignores us all
snacking on a rotting banana
watching a goddamned yankees game
to help kill
his hours

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"arguing in smears of thick color"- yes, that line made me poetry jealous..

This is anothere great piece..you just take real life, add that edge we all like and serve it to us in that WTF way.. I really enjoy your pieces..alot...

John Grochalski said...

Lynne...no need to be poetry jealous. I've been keeping up with your blog and there's a lot of great stuff on there. Keep writing!

Unknown said...

It's those salt-of-the-earth guys ... guys like my dad (and yours prolly) that kept the world runnin'...

Those are the guys that swept up at the end of the night...

John Grochalski said...

anthony...in pittsburgh, at one point, i was in a bar with my grandfather, and was related to almost everyone in the joint.