poem of the day 07.31.14

the politics of not giving up your seat

to a little kid on the subway or bus

my advice is to keep your head down

when the walking abomination enters

your line of sight

read a book if you have one

or if the little bastard starts moaning and wailing

about having to stand for his one stop

listen to music on your fancy device

play a video game or pretend you’re meditating

stretch your legs and wince

tell the man sitting next to you that it’s a war injury

you’ll find at least three people willing to call you a hero

and give their seat to you even though you already have one

act like the fake pain in your leg is a genetic defect

it’s not like you have to wear a handicapped sign

when you’re sitting on the subway or bus

(at least not yet anyway)

whatever you do don’t feel bad

it’s a kid for christ’s sake

they cry for sport and can’t color within the lines

they can’t even articulate their emotions or thoughts properly

remember that one day this kid will probably be your boss

tell yourself that you’re just doing the lady next to you a favor

by not letting the child sit next to her

she’s busy with the new york times anyway

and it’s not like anyone else offered to get up

know that you’re still a good person

even if the kid ends up falling on the floor

rolling from one end of the train car to the next

while his mother frantically chases after him

as if he were a dollar bill blowing in a breeze

you’ve given up your seat for plenty of people

the sick and the old

women that you were almost sure were pregnant

the occasional hot chick who’s just not hot enough

to have someone else pay her freight

look at the kid’s mother

nod and empathize with her plights

as she struggles to pick her son or daughter

off of the piss-stained floor

be sure to tell them to have a nice day when you depart

because it’s not only polite

but it’s the right thing to do.

poem of the day 07.30.14

no alternative

another day in america

i’m listening to the king of pop

there is a poster on this train

telling me that just one more drink can hurt

hurt what? i wonder

one more drink has been my salvation more often than not

on the poster there is a white guy

he’s in a suit and tie and he’s holding a beer outright

he looks like he’s pointing and yelling at someone

it’s no surprise though

white guys are always yelling at someone

immigrants, underlings, their kids or their women

take away the suit and tie

and he could just as easily be at a barbeque

telling someone what an effete commie the president is

the poster says

to keep your friends from hurting themselves or others

cut them off, it demands

this is all fine

but the poster offers no alternative to alcohol

like joining a bowling team

or selling your soul to jesus christ

it doesn’t get to the root of the problem

it doesn’t ask why people drink

or about violence, rape, bills, jobs, traffic,

boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, kids,

disease, squalor, guns, congressional bully pulpits

expired dairy products on grocery shelves

or white guys in suits always telling you what to do

the king of pop

he sings about being only human

but in america

we think we’re better than that

we smile and pretend

that every day is the fourth of july

in the land of immaculate exceptionalism

don’t end up like the white guy on the poster

another fortunate son going down that dark and lonely road

another statistic

go to college and become a businessman

the CEO of a major corporation

mainline while milk and caffeine

run a company into the ground for sport

only when the deal goes down don’t grab a drink

hit the beach in golden exile

sip coke until its coming out of your ears

learn how to play volleyball instead.

                                                           

poem of the day 07.29.14

saturday at the beach

there is a man

with a crucifix full of cotton candy

selling it on the train car home

from another long day at work

as if this were a carnival

as if it were another saturday at the beach

while lumps of flesh

push wrinkled, wet dollars into him

to stop their screaming children

from going haywire

only he can’t get by this obese family of five

taking up half the train

they look like fungus tops sitting

upon bowing plastic chairs

bell-shaped and breathing through their wide mouths

they’re passing around buckets of chicken

spitting pieces of carrion

into the dust and sunlight

caught between the moving buildings

as more children scream bloody murder

waging small wars over soda cans

and i stop everything and think

how men and women have given up their lives for this

how i drink because of this

hard and hot and long from sweating bottles

to forget these people

to forget this summertime america

of new nike shoes

and goombas in wife beaters and plaid shorts

yelling about the wide asses on their women

oh, if only those asses could grow

like pinocchio’s nose

then i could believe in this fallacy

this sticky american dream

as some fat bastard with no future

mainlines ketchup packets

and chokes on another crinkle-cut french fry

his woman wrapped in a

what you lookin’ at? beach towel

hurling cheetos and a 7-11 big gulp into her soul

as the guy next to her grins

with his hands in his pants

pumping

pumping

searching for gold

humming an original tune

this modern day mozart

in a t-shirt that reads

hard work is for the future

laziness is for now.

                                   

poem of the day 07.28.14

mint chocolate chip

the two girls sitting near me

have a loud one-act going on

about how much they love ice cream

ooooooooh, vanilla one of them shouts

oooooooooh, chocolate, the other counters piercingly

before this they’d spent fifteen minutes

shouting back and forth about the apps on their phones

and how much they love doritos

but hate the bright orange powder that gets stuck on their fingers

this is sadly an improvement

i loooovvvveee, strawberry, one of them says

ewwwwwwwwwwwww, the other responds

strawberry is soooooooo gross.

they are giving credence to the old adage

that children should be seen and not heard

they make year-round school seem like the right choice

i stop reading my book and look around

but there is nowhere for me to go

i’m stuck and they are stuck and we are stuck

talking about ice cream in the middle of the afternoon

butter pecan, my mother loves butter pecan

yeah, well, my sister loves cookie dough and coffee flavored

she says it like a challenge

mint chocolate chip! the one girl shouts

they both squeal

we’ve hit the motherload in this conversation

the apex, the big payoff in centuries of verbal communication

mint chocolate chip!

they both scream this time

it’s like a revelation

like being in a room with copernicus

when he figured out that everything

revolved around the sun

i can’t help but laugh

i look over at the two girls and they are beaming

they look as happy as children with tons of hours to kill

and not an ounce of responsibility in this world

kicking legs too small to reach the concrete

their lives full of ice cream dreams and soda pop ambition

christ, may the world

never force them to change, i think

then i go back to my book

and turn another page.

                                                                       

Hiatus time

hello all

taking a hiatus from ol' winedrunksidewalk starting tomorrow July 18th.  Unless i can find something better to do with myself than try and write poems, i should be back here on Monday, July 28th.

as always...thank you.

jg

poem of the day 07.17.14

a portrait of the artist watching his future wife

getting ready for their first date from outside her window

scotch breath from two rounds of nerve killers at the PHI

desperately trying to open a pack of mints on atwood street

ratty old leather coat ratty goatee feeling unwashed because

of fear the college kids already stalking the night in half-drunken

stumbling girls laughing boys howling all of oakland/pittsburgh

waiting on the snowfall black sky no moon no chance of running away

from this down mckee place he catches a glimpse of her on the third floor

in front of her mirror maroon shirt hair pulled back putting on make-up

her mouth puckered for the first time the same way he’ll see it

for so many years only he doesn’t know that yet he thinks he hopes

this’ll never get old he hates beginnings he hates ends he hates that

they are not as familiar yet as he wants them to be so he watches her

like a stranger with his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest

as someone shouts the revelry he feels and he thinks yes yes yes yes

she’s the one.

                                              

poem of the day 07.16.14

wanda

wanda was tall and lean

she was corn-fed

and came from the middle of pennsylvania

she was the first girl i laid eyes on in college

after doing four years of time

in an all-boys catholic high school

i used to sit in general writing class

and watch her play with her long, curly black hair

while she rubbed one foot off of the other and took notes

as the professor talked his game about wendell berry

maybe if wendell berry had long, curly black hair…

i stalked wanda on campus

i never meant it to be creepy

i wanted to talk to her but i could never figure out how

because for me talking to a girl

asking them for something as simple as getting a cup of coffee

was akin to asking their hand in marriage

so i was the idiot who walked ten paces behind

or needed the water fountain when wanda was done

or happened to be going into the men’s room

when she was going into the women’s

i was far, so very far from making a case for romance

once i had it in my head to ask her out

i waited for wanda to leave class

but then i became paralyzed

i couldn’t move

even the professor left before me

something grabbed me and made me get up

i tore down hallways and stooge-skidded around bends

on a stairwell i saw the top of wanda’s curly, black hair

three flight down

and i went for it

pushing past coeds and missing a step or two

on the last flight i decided to jump nearly the whole thing

i ended up slamming off a wall

and cracking my knee off of the concrete

wanda got away

and i ended up at the doctor’s two days later

with orders to take it easy for at least a week

there’d obviously never been a wanda in his life

by some miracle

i ended up asking her out right before christmas break

we got a cup of coffee

and sat with each other for nearly an hour

hardly saying a goddamned thing

we had nothing in common

and i didn’t know what to do

it was like catching a fish

and not knowing how to reel it in

so we flopped around words and circumstances

while i thought that it was such a grand success

just being somewhere public with a woman

and eventually wanda left for her last class

thanking me for the coffee

even though she only drank half of her cup

                                                            

Starting with the Last Name Grochalski

hello all

i have a new book of poems...which i totally forgot to mention on here.
this is the cover:

the book is out on Coleridge Street Books which is a little boutique press for Kristofer Collins'
Low Ghost Press, which was kind enough to publish my book, Glass City, back in 2010.
Starting with the Last Name Grochalski can be purchases in-store at Caliban Book Shop in Pittsburgh
and Gatsby Books in Long Beach, California. 

For my Internet friends and international friends....Starting with the Last Name Grochalski can
also be purchased at Amazon.com

Lastly...there is also a Goodreads page for the book.  So feel free to throw a positive and/or shitty
review my way.

as always thank you for taking the time to come by Winedrunk.

jh

poem of the day 07.15.14

the pittsburgh kid

his face is a sewer line

i mean i hate this kid

it seems like every time i go

to the car rental place he’s there

with his dumb smile

and his chipper, go-getter attitude

he’s the american morning made manifest

he’s no cure for a hangover

and he always wants to know where i’m going

i tell him pittsburgh

and his face lights up

pittsburgh, he says

i’m from pittsburgh too

and then there’s this story about how

he’s not really from pittsburgh

but from thirty miles outside of pittsburgh

then we have to have the requisite talk

about how much he misses home

the kid has no facial recognition

that or there’s so many ex-pittsburghers renting cars

that he can’t tell one of us from the other

we’re like members of a fucking cult

me and the pittsburgh kid

two neighborhood boys

done gone and moved to the big city

black and gold bumpkins

stumbling the wilds of brooklyn

i’m going home this weekend too, he says

yeah, gonna kick it in the ‘burgh for a while

good…he’ll be someone else to avoid

while trapped between those three rivers

he’s someone else to avoid here

on another hot and sweltering saturday morning

with his sewer line face

and his ginger buzzcut

his eyes twinkling the corporate creed

asking me

so how do you think them steelers

are going to do this season?

                                               

poem of the day 07.14.14

fine dining in america

there are twelve or thirteen of them

at one table

it is almost biblical

plates and napkins are stacked in dirty piles

cup and beer mugs like chess pieces

there is more leftover food on the table

than some countries see in a week

she is bitching at the manager

because one of their meals came out later than the rest

someone had to watch the others eat for a minute

before he was given his own trough of slop to consume

and now she demands satisfaction

this is fine dining in america on a saturday night

where they seat you with a smile

and give you tonight’s manager’s name

because they expect a complaint, they expect the problem

chain restaurants with twenty big screen televisions

raining down every sports channel known to the free world

where the music is so loud that you have to scream

to the person sitting next to you

or you just give up

and sit there in dumb and stunned silence

your very own neighborhood pub an grille

complete with proustian menus of no merit

and food described as stacked, slathered, smothered,

tender, rich, juicy, stuffed, heavy, drizzled, dripping

oppressed, choked, asphyxiated, loaded, piled, amassed

with the same adjectives that will most likely

end up on your medical report one fine day

everybody looks the same in here

dirt tans and t-shirts with some ordinary sarcasm scrawled on it

tired, over-worked, flabby masses

beaten down from days spent shopping

and suffering this weekend’s blockbuster movie

they are digging into the two for twenty meals

and shouting at the television screens

as the manager leaves the last supper fat and contented

with the promise of gift cards and free coca-cola

he’s stalking the space looking for the next misery

as we lift forks and spoons and knives

down glass chalices of watered down, ice cold beer

with a sweaty waitress grinning over us

at the ready to kiss our fat, greasy asses

and ask the eternal question

do you still have room for dessert?

                                                                        

poemS of the day 07.11.14

Four Haiku

his head buried

in her womb

she checks her phone, expectant

nothing but bad poems

and the lack of good

subway graffiti to read

orange-red apartment wall

dusted yellow from

a fistful of my knuckles

corn syrup children

smacking glass doors

at high noon

poem of the day 07.10.14

all life is suffering

i don’t know where calvin found her

because he was always so upstanding

and his mother tried her hardest to keep him

locked up on friday nights

but there she was in our booth

dressed in black with black hair and black lipstick

a bloody mary in her hand

and a clove cigarette in the ashtray

i’m a wiccan, she said

i can do all kinds of spells and curses

are you responsible for my two year sex drought? i asked

maybe, she said.

she sucked on her drink and then sucked on her smoke

she winked at me

and everything around us smelt like cinnamon

you mean you don’t believe in jesus? calvin asked

i believe in the environment around us

and the magic of sex, she told us

we believe that religion and magic and wisdom are all united

you don’t know many catholics do you? i said

catholics will kill you where you stand

there’s a reason for your two year drought, she said

you’re angry, you’re not open enough

then she winked at me again

i started thinking about having sex with this wiccan

this wicked witch of pittsburgh

chanting naked in the woods

drinking deer blood and dancing around a fire

sacrificing whole neighborhoods of working stiffs

then praying to the moon

before we made tantric love on the cold ground

a little less angry

a little bit more open

her black lipstick on my neck

when she said, calvin, we do it just like everyone else

in committed, loving, monogamous relationships

then she winked at me a third time

before i got up to get another beer

and a shot of cheap bourbon

pumping dollars into the jukebox

thinking that only the buddhists

have never let me down.

                                               

poem of the day 07.09.14

a vacation to antigua

trying to kill

w. somerset maugham

but the television in the waiting room is so loud

there’s no point in even compiling

an independent thought

there is another celebrity on the screen

some bubbly blonde who’s been around longer

than her talent should’ve allowed

she’s forty-one but looks twenty

and everyone in the waiting room is wowed by her

we’re obviously not at the plastic surgeon

the actress is talking about her new movie

a comedy, a sex comedy

you can see everything, she says

ev-ery-thing

a few people in the waiting room tisk

one lady shouts, if you’ve got it flaunt it

we’re lobbing hackneyed phrases out there

on a hot july afternoon

the interviewer asks the actress about children

she shakes her head and laughs

motherhood is too hard, she says. i could never do it

then she giggles and shakes her million dollar ass

in the waiting room there is a mutiny boiling

mothers, aunts, grandmothers, great aunts

and mothers-to-be are all scowling at the television

they suddenly hate this actress

she’s selfish, one of them says

who does she think she is, another shouts

prancing around on screen with her tits hanging out?

grow up, they shout

my children are my greatest joy, one says to another

they both nod the gentle nod of motherhood

as their kids continue to run around the waiting room

knocking over magazines

and smacking at the glass door with their fat palms

i look up at the television

the blonde actress’ face is wide with contentment

her eyes sparkle and her teeth are white

she’s everything we’ve ever paid our money to see

then i go back to

w. somerset maugham

as the interviewer asks her

about her rock star boyfriend

and the vacation that she took to antigua.

                                                           

poem of the day 07.08.14

nihil humanum a me alienum puto

this is a disney bar now

or it looks like one out of a disney movie

there are more televisions in the joint

then there are people

the people look like cartoons at last

blonde and tanned and without an ounce of fat

i don’t recognize the beers on tap

and the ones that i do are too rich for my blood

i can’t believe that i used to drink here

back when they broke the windows and the toilet never worked

and fights broke out as a matter of course on friday night

now there are fake fireplaces in the wall

and a beer garden out back

there is soccer playing on each and every television

and a digital jukebox playing pop on low

one of the blondes asks me what team i’m rooting for

and i respond, whatever teams ends this game the quickest

that ends the conversation

the chinese still come in here

hocking their bootleg dvds of the worst america

has to offer the world of cinematic art

back then the old guys used to pause from their drinks

to scan the movies and make conversation with the bootleggers

now no one says a thing to them

they watch soccer and have the bartender

pour them another expensive beer while they check their cell phones

more blonde and tan people shout from outside

because the beer garden has a television too

when the chinese bootlegger leaves

the three blondes drinking three red drinks with citrus fruit

all look at each other like they smelled a fart

the one says to the other two

oh my god, that’s like the third time

they’ve been in here today

like, get a life, one of the other ones says

they go back to watching the soccer match

almost two hours of dutch and costa rican men

running up and down the pitch and there’s still no score

they all look the same anyway, one of the blondes says

but who? i wonder are they talking about

the chinese

the sweating soccer players

themselves

or the rest of us.

                                   

poem of the day 07.07.14

the old man at the corner

the old man at the corner

hates this red light

it’s imperiling his freedom

his car is almost a block long

it’s sucking out black smoke

while he’s sucking gray smoke out of cigar

he’s blasting the star-spangled banner

the way teenagers blast rap

but he has an indignant look on his face

instead of the smirk of life-long privilege

that his type usually wears around on patriotic holidays

maybe it’s the rain and the wind

maybe it’s the mexicans outside the grocery

laughing and speaking spanish as they haul

more corn and watermelon from a graffiti-covered truck

whatever it is that’s bothering him

it’s making me feel sad and cautious

old white men idling at corners

shouldn’t look so down on the fourth of july

it’s like seeing a sad kid at christmas

christ, if old white men can’t enjoy the day

what hope do the rest of us have here?

i watch him waiting for the light to turn

glaring up at that neon and red communist ball of light

as the star-spangled banner reaches its crescendo

i think maybe i should skip the booze store

run across the street and try my best to cheer him up

together we could recite the declaration of independence

reminisce about the good old days

tell our best reagan story

but suddenly the streetlight

turns that familiar sea foam green

and the old man at the corner is gone with a horn blast

the opening bars of oh, beautiful

coming out of his big hunk of detroit wonder

as the sky breaks

and the sun trickles along the pavement

as if saying

there’s still hope for america

today.

                                                            

poem of the day 07.03.14

frozen

skip and i were the two idiots

scheduled for fourth of july

an all-day shift selling sporting goods at the mall

because nothing says america like commerce

there was no one in the mall

but the old and the lonely

and those who didn’t believe in the fallacy

of the american dream

we’d watched all of the sporting videos that we could

skip said, back in college….

he always had a story about college

everything good and true and right and erotic

had happened to skip in college

….i was dating this girl

she liked to do it anywhere and everywhere, he said

is that right, i said

i was eighteen and had yet to have a girl

who wanted to do it anywhere and everywhere

skip was thirty and had been in a self-admitted drought

for five years

one night we were out right after a blizzard, he said

there was all of this snow

skip smiled at the memory

we were drunk, he said

and we started making out right by these huge snow drifts

next thing i know we’re on the ground

and she’s on all fours with her pants down and her ass in the air

what did you do? i said

i wished that there were more sports videos to watch

because there was nothing more depressing

than hearing someone else’s sex stories

especially when you weren’t getting any your way

skip rolled his eyes, what do you think i did?

i dropped my drawers

got right down there on my knees in the snow drift

and the two of us let nature take its course

skip smiled, we didn’t care who saw us

okay, i said

i thought he was lying

you haven’t fucked until you’ve fucked frozen, he said

well, that night i was back at the mall

with all of my pals

a bunch of guys who weren’t getting laid

in snowdrifts or otherwise

we were there to see the fireworks

next to us was a pack of college girls

in their college clothing playing patriotic songs

out of a jukebox

i wondered what it would take in me to talk to one of them

i wondered if any of them ever fucked frozen

i pictured all of their bare asses in the air

in huge snowdrifts on a cold february night

then i thought, the hell with them

i want back to watching all of those ugly colors

explode in the black sky

as one of my friends threw smoke bombs

under people’s cars

laughing as packs of families scattered to and fro

while god bless america

played all around us

                                               

poem of the day 07.02.14

and the sheep goes bah

i’ve been trolling this old pal on facebook

because we are no longer friends for ideological reasons

and because he became a right wing douche bag

right now i’m living through constant anger

but he seems happy though

his been married for a number of years now

his wife has managed to squeeze out

a few heirs to his throne

while making a ton of money

and letting him stay home to raise the kids

i’m almost sure that he doesn’t call anyone

these days to talk about divorce

he looks like he’s settled in to this suburban life

of god, guns, and government

bald as a baby’s ass and physically fit

dressed to the nines in khaki pants or shorts

a flashy t-shirt or a polo that reeks of cologne

the pictures from his hackneyed vacations

seem like g-rated fun in the sun

they are dull enough to get the neighbors jealous anyway

those wild days of strip clubs

and hooker blow jobs are long in his rearview

there’s no need to pay for sex

when there’s ovulation on the horizon

and he probably hasn’t had a hangover in a decade

he’s a stand-up guy by all accounts

hell, the bible is listed as his favorite book

he’s now living his halcyon days

like a champion of the american dream

a true success story

a model for us all

weekend barbeques and church trips to cathedrals

little league games and lemonade ejaculations

fireworks every fourth of july

and always

always

asleep by nine o’clock on a quiet cul-de-sac

where cars never idle or honk their horns

where kids are seen but not heard

somewhere over the rainbow

where even the dogs are too polite to bark

or take their shits on the street

                                               

poem of the day 07.01.14

seeing the karl hendricks trio, april 1996

it had to happen for me in west virginia

some joy, some thing

man, i had been down on love 

so many girls and so little time for them to want me

but i soon realized that barry had no clear clue where he was taking us

we took i-279 south a bit

then we drove aimlessly through western pennsylvania

two hours later we were on the outskirts of west virginia and ohio

barry jerked the car into the parking lot of a star america grocery store

he began frantically searching the front seat

what’re you doing, man? i asked.

oh, i think i might have a map in here somewhere, barry said

in that casual, happy way he had back then

we never found the map

we were lost in our own neck of the woods

we ended up down a seedy stretch of road in wellsburg

where i had all of these kid memories bum rushing me

from the year my family spent doing time in that dirt town

i thought about all of the fights that my folks had

the divorce talk, the other bullshit

my mood was getting as black

as the night sky

barry was getting more and more nervous and angry

at each wrong turn we took

for me, we couldn’t leave fast enough

then the rains came 

they were light at first and easy to navigate

but after a few moments it poured hard and unmanageable 

barry pulled into an exxon station and let the car idle 

we sat there listening to the pellets of rain smack off the hood of the car

not really saying a word

maybe we should build an ark, barry said

i pointed through my smeared window

to the warm glow of the exxon shop

i’m going in there , i said

if the next set of directions are shit then i say we bag this

we'll catch the trio sometime back in pittsburgh

but it had to happen for me in west virginia

the directions that i got were on the mark. 

we made bethany college in almost no time after that

 

even the rains had stopped for us

 

barry sailed the car through the blackened west virginia night

like a pro 

when we reached the college

the auditorium was already packed with kids

listening to the karl hendricks trio

 

it was as if karl had lifted his scene from pittsburgh

and transplanted it into the midst of a secluded west virginia college

he had them so enraptured

in the grip of madness and joy

breathless and soaked to the bone

i took it all in 

that thing

and i let those proustian nightmares

just slip away