day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTEEN

questions about islam

hustling through

the atlantic avenue terminal

with straphangers

who wouldn’t know the difference

between a sufi and a sunni

trains not running right again

a little weekend secret we keep over here

from the tourists in manhattan

and they are passing out brochures

every few paces

with titles like

questions about islam?

islam?

so you know it’s gone down again

this time a massacre in egypt

that our own dipshit president

is exploiting to build his wall

to keep the innocent out of america

three hundred and five mystics slaughtered

a thumbnail difference in your religion

that can get you killed

all we wonder now

is which cab driver will take a beating for it

for being a muslim when he probably isn’t even a muslim

which mosque will get hit with graffiti

the gentlemen passing out the brochures

to hurried brooklynites buried under holiday shopping bags

clutching starbucks troughs of coffee

look happy and docile

because they have to look that way

even when people brush them off

and tell them to go to hell

go back to your own country

good judeo-christian men and women

sitting on their thrones of judgement

too young to remember their centuries of holy war

heading home to apartments and houses

in the land of the free and the home of the brave

massacre-a-week-america

built on land settled by fanatics

so crazed with god

that they were kicked out of their own country

and had to sail across an ocean

to found this violent, bullshit one.               

--John Grochalski                                           

day THREE HUNDRED and FOURTEEN

Post Script
(after Kristen Kalp)

Shake out the match once the wick is lit:
no reward comes from fingers burnt, so
when it all falls apart, let it.

A pearl begins as a speck of grit,
but unlike a fire, its way is slow.
Quickly! Shake out the match once the wick is lit.

Buildings will crumble, the earth will split,
from ash is where the new things grow;
so when it all falls apart, let it.

Feel the jangle in your golden bracelet
as you give the candle its turn to glow -
remember to shake out the match once the wick is lit -

then watch this tiny flame, a parapet
that will tumble with its wax castle below:
when it all falls apart, let it.

See the new way the old pieces fit
when you let their old way of being go.
Shake out the match once the wick is lit,
and when it all falls apart, let it.

--Kerrilee Hunter

day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTEEN

the guy with the book on trump

winning the presidency

comes up to me hands me the book

and says,

hey, have you read this?

i look at the cover

and there’s trump and there’s bannon

clasping each other’s shoulders

like the devil shit-packers they are

and i say….yeah….i’ve read it

the guy with the book on trump

winning the presidency says,

yeah, but, like…is it good?

i tell him that it’s all right

i tell him that i didn’t like the ending

but he doesn’t laugh at that

the guy with the book on trump

winning the presidency says,

no, like, if  read this will people

think that i’m smart?

you mean other than the mouth breather you are?

i want to say

but, instead, i hand him back the book

i tell him

they’ll think you know something about

trump and why he won the presidency

they’ll think you know stuff

about stephen bannon

cool, says the guy with the book on trump

winning the presidency

before he leaves me

to get up

and go wash my hands thoroughly

just like i did

the last time that i held the book

on trump winning the presidency.

--John Grochalski

                                   

day THREE HUNDRED and TWELVE

Wise Potato Chips

are my absolute favorite
and can’t be beat.

Not only are the
chips fried the most golden,
or that every once in a while
a burned one appears
like a raunchy dream,
it’s reaching in
and pulling out
obnoxiously
large chips, still sturdy
for a glob of dip,
usually from
a tub of Turner’s, but
often from Scheinder’s,
which is sweet.

Drunk, they’re
clouds in the sky.
I’ve crunched
dog heads and
patron saints, dunked
elephants fried stiff.
Some take two, three bites.
Stood in the snack aisle
snuffing back tears
on Super Bowl Sunday
after grabbing the last
giant bag the year
my father died.
He made dip out of
cream cheese, chopped
green olives w/pimento
and a bunch of brine.

Wise potato chips are fucking
delicious and now
I have to unpack this:
Found out they’re owned
by a huge nasty conglomerate
and it pangs. I could
live with it being
the official chip
of the NY Mets, but this?
What are we to do?
No matter how much we try
our greasy fingers
we will always
have to choose.
A trip to the
grocery store
is a political test.
Buying salmon at
Wal Mart funds
North Korea’s nukes?
Yeungling run
by a bunch of
union-busting
dickweeds.
Hell, even
texting someone
you love
is carried on the
backs of Chinese
slaves. All those
tiny parts dipped
in mercury.
Each breath
an injustice.
Our grandparent’s
love for bananas
peeled skin
from human skulls.
A man buried
in the Westinghouse
Bridge, some
Croatian guy,
who gives a shit?

Been this way forever.
All our bones
deserve to be crushed.
I dip and I dip.

--Bob Pajich

day THREE HUNDRED and ELEVEN

I Miss the Cold War

I miss the Cold War:

cloak and dagger; spies; secret codes;

shorelines bristling with nukes;

Mutual Assured Destruction — MAD! —

how cheerful that now sounds!

I miss the enemy:

that broad-faced mass of men with sickles

and women with brooms; black-haired

multitudes in red Mao jackets;

Young Pioneers; mustachioed dictators;

reds; pinko commie sympathizers —

how I miss the old, predictable adversary!

I miss the Red Phone, the Black Box,

the Button, the Domino Theory, bomb shelters,

the constant threat of nuclear strike.

How safe, how comfortable, that ungainly

teeter-totter seems from the darkness

of this new and lonely perch.

I miss being one of the good guys,

miss knowing we were right.

--Tamara Madison

day THREE HUNDRED and TEN

thoughts and prayers

my thoughts:

i’d like paul ryan

to get a horrible case of

anal warts

my prayers:

are that it happens really soon

….like right now

--John Grochalski

WineDrunk SideWalk : ShipWrecked in TrumpLand week FORTY FOUR wrap up

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

day THREE HUNDRED and NINE

Art  by Rob Plath

day THREE HUNDRED and EIGHT

choke on it

choke on it

you fat swine

choke on your dead dry bird

and cold gravy

choke on your pumpkin pie

and stuffing

huff your lumpy mashed potatoes

like you huff your gas

do your opioids in the bathroom, honky

while grandma thinks you’re taking a shit

have a heart attack over a football game

bitch at those black players

for taking a knee on some billionaire’s dime

tell me again

how we’re making america great

choke on it, uncle dave

choke on the wishbone that never brought you shit

but your thirty-five year old son

living in the basement

and your daughter doing coke in georgia

choke on it, aunt sarah

as you suck down that broccoli casserole

so you have enough time to make it to the mall

for smart tvs and an iphone x

sit down, cousin bill

let me get you another drink, you soused cunt

or a third helping of this slop we call freedom

choke on your secular holiday, america

fuck you, you pig ignorant shits

as you waddle toward the super hero exits of the cineplex

shove your yams

up your ass while you’re at it

eat the rich

burry the poor

while everyone in between gets a tax hike

for christmas

choke on it, america

suffocate on your hypocrisy

but don’t forget that after dinner mint

so that the rest of the world

doesn’t know

that your soul and your breath

both smell like shit.

--John Grochalski 

                                    

day THREE HUNDRED and SEVEN

Hymn to Paradise

I watched sunrise at Rehoboth

I watch sunset over Paradise

stuck in a fucking traffic jam

map sprawled across passenger seat

cell phone sleeps in a cup holder

analogue man tries for peace in a digital world

I’ve crossed three states in two days

excessive drives to see an ocean

once before the year ends

once again like last year

same week, same circumstance

same places, same hotel

same part of the beach after the same walk

a different joint

listen to the waves

hood up against the cold

a monk in darkness

I’ve marveled at herons in estuaries

watched saw grass shake across wind

watched foxes across frozen cornfields

there are so many shorelines to  memorize

before we change them

before the ocean swallows them

brake lights gridlock along the highway

the shortest days of the year

so much time in darkness

peaceful, I lock on a thumbnail moon

if the world ended now

if the world ended now

--Jason Baldinger  

day THREE HUNDRED and SIX

Wear Your Sorrow

We wake to the day at hand

like another thing we never wanted

but can't quite bring ourselves

to give away

outside the billboards

and the faces advertise

the latest version of fear

but we've already bought

the deluxe edition

with the lifetime warranty

so we find a place

where we can rest a bit

and get some poison in our guts

so we'll be safe awhile

from the things that chase us

the world's no different

from anyone

just another sad thing

trying to make it through

on nights without sleep

it cries for lost things

and the lack of what it once

dreamed to be

wear your sorrow like a favorite dress

and I'll sing you songs of no second chances

our only crime is imagining the world

more beautiful than it was born to be

if we met it on the street today

it wouldn't even know our names

but I swear to you it loved us once

and you can't buy that kind of thing anymore

not even on computers.

--William Taylor Jr.

day THREE HUNDRED and FIVE

Electioneering

Even if he is more challenged chemically
Temporarily, follicularly than not
The candidate is none the less right:

With restricted growth, he’s chatting amicably
Right now with a wheelchair user, and
A person with visual and hearing impairments

Yes, he does look as vertically challenged
As she is cosmetically different, and
You are certainly not differently logical

Although he is a reactionary member of
The white power elite, he is socially misaligned
In fact. What comes the least best is the very way

He knows he is ethically disoriented as uniquely
Coordinated, but he longs to be our politically correct
Representative. Yes, vote me, you damned assholes!

--Yuan Changming


bio]:: Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include Best of the Best Canadian Poetry:10th Anniv. Ed., BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1339 others worldwide.

day THREE HUNDRED and FOUR

Climate Change

They are without clean water
mud lapping against their homes
they are lost and scared
after the storm ripped
from their hands
everything they ever had
to define themselves by.

They wait for him
to send help.
They wait for him
to arrive.
To hold them
and help them.

They wait for him to see them.

They check the air
for the hum of a plane,
hold phones up
for service
like a hand reaching skyward
for food
and water
and love

as they wade through the destruction
they wait for him

oh father,
benevolent one,
please hear us
they pray
they scream
till they are hoarse

They reach out
with tired hands
with frightened hearts
but their hands are the wrong color
and their votes do not count
and he is not coming
because
this
is not Texas.

--Ally Malinenko

day THREE HUNDRED and THREE

hair

paul ryan

is a nice man

because he’s got good hair

he’s a handsome man

my mother thinks

therefore he is trustworthy

paul ryan would never take a knee

in front of the american flag

and the trunp boys are so well groomed

with their hair parted back

and to the side

like your high school graduation photo

my mother says

why can’t you wear your hair like that again

like the trump boys?

maybe i should go and kill a lion too

i think

but instead i nod and drink my wine

look at my gray and greasy visage

in the reflection of her tv and shrug

that ivanka is so well-spoken

my mother says

you can tell that she really loves her dad

and would do anything for her kids

and her husband is so handsome

with his hair parted to the side

and not a trace of facial hair

i hope that he and paul ryan both get ass cancer

i say out loud

but everyone laughs

because no one really

wishes that kind of shit on people

my mother says,

but i don’t understand trump

she says,

all of that money and all of that power

and you want to tell me that he can’t

do anything about that hair of his?

it’s a shame, she says

an american tragedy, i agree

then i have some more wine

and go down to the basement

to take a good old hearty shit

for uncle sam

for america

and in celebration

for all of the well-groomed white men

burying america

with their hair products

and suburban charm

--John Grochalski

                                   

WineDrunk SideWalk ; ShipWrekced in TrumpLand weeky FORTY THREE wrap up

i don't know about you folks out there but, to me, nothing says patriotism and "america first" like siding with Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence agencies and then finishing off your Idiot Abroad journey by meeting with a murderous thug like Rodrigo Duterte and declaring that you have a "great relationship" with him.....well...i guess it's the old adage that mediocre autocrats tend to think alike.

i know i took a week off from this shit....but here in week FORTY THREE it continues to boggle my mind that this jack-off is president of the united states...that he's actually allowed to travel to asia and beyond in that name of the united states....what a pig fucker of a nation we are....all of us.

Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and wait on the next mass shooting. (I wrote this the morning of the Rancho Tehama shootings and I'm leaving it on here just as a reminder of how sickly predictable this failing nation has become).

But speaking of pig fuckers.....Roy Moore.....what are we going to do about Roy Moore, America? As of this writing a fifth woman has come out to accuse the GOP senate nominee of sexual harassment when she was under the age of 18. (ACTUALLY AS OF THURSDAY MORNING I DO BELIEVE WE'RE UP TO NINE NOW). Look, I know this is Alabama, and most of the people from there are married to one of their relatives and can probably count a cousin or two or a farm animal as a viable ex....but we've got laws in this country folks....and most of them, i think, state that you don't assault or sexually harass a woman when she's under the age of 18....this is America....we're only allowed to catcall and shout abusive things to women under 18.

but Roy Moore....i tell you....this douche bag already had an impressive list of 'achievements" before all of these accuser came out.  A little background on Roy the Assaulter? Roy Moore is a staunch evangelical christian which means that he hates women, hates people of color, hates Muslims and liberals and anyone who doesn't want government to comport itself as if it were an organic and democratic body of government. Moore is a theocrat.  Roy is virulently anti-gay, hates same sex marriage and like to give gay parents are hard time by labeling their "homosexual conduct" as detrimental to children...but I'll bet that he likes a good action film where the body count is nice and high.  He was actually removed by a judicial ethics panel for not taking down his bullshit ten commandments plaque....and in his spare time Roy Moore likes to espouse upon the threats of Sharia law taking over America....when he isn't writing his comically nationalistic and racist poetry.

Now.....I understand that Roy Moore wasn't the GOP first choice for the senate.....BUT after he won that primary they'd pretty much shut their mouths about Roy...i mean why say anything when he's up 10 points in polling? Then the sexual harassment charges happened...and Mitch McConnell and those moral stalwarts in the GOP have begun making noise about how Roy Moore isn't fit to be in the Senate...how he doesn't uphold the moral values of the Senate

That's all fine and dandy....but I'd like to take a poll of GOP senators....i'm curious how many of these fine and upstanding moral stalwarts voted last November to put a racist, sexist, xenophobic reality TV star nutbag with a rape allegation and at least 11 sexual assault claims against him, into the highest office in the land.

And let's not kid ourselves about Mitch "believing" the women. If Roy Moore was the accepted GOP candidate and not some hick mouthpiece for Stephen Bannon's Neo-Nazi platform, Mitch and Co. would be doing everything in their power to cast blame upon the victims here....If Roy was the GOP man you'd be hearing stories and tall tales about promiscuous young women, about the sexual culture of the time, and about the loose morality of one specific gender.....I mean, honestly, FUCK Mitch McConnell and his bogus moral grandstanding.  Roy Moore shouldn't be a senator. Hell, he shouldn't even be a citizen....but save it Mitch....save it GOP....you are the problem here.

For those of you who still think you live in a democracy and not a cartoon dictatorship in a third world nation  run a muck with the iPhone X....word on the street is that the Justice Department is looking to open an investigation into the Clinton foundation and whether or not they accepted donations in return for the Obama administration allowing a Russian nuclear agency to purchase Uranium One, which was/is a company that was allowed access to uranium in the United States.

First of all this is bullshit. Second of all....this is bullshit. Third.this is also an attempt by the DOUCHE administration to insert itself into the justice system like some kind of third world strong man to punish political rivals.....motherfucker has been spending too much time licking Putin's balls. What this also does is it gives Jeffy the racist Sessions as chance to maybe compromise current special investigator Robert Mueller, as he was FBI director at the time....that said....I believe in his lie-filled confirmation hearing that Jeffy the Racist said that he would recuse himself from any Clinton investigation.....let's see if that happens.

but...the GOP man....liar, criminals and thieves....every last one of them. Party beholden to oligarchs who couldn't give a FUCK about democracy.

Like using a tax bill to remove the Affordable Care Act mandate.....christ, the GOP will try any and EVERYTHING to screw people out of healthcare. Can't actually get your party to vote to repeal and replace? Don't actually have a clue WHAT to replace the ACA with other than YOU....Poor Person...DIE? Why not add it to the tax bill?  Or maybe get together that infrastructure bill that DOUCHE was talking about during his Nazi campaign and kill the ACA with that? Nah, but that would never happen. An infrastructure bill? The GOP doesn't improve things like that....unless the Koch Brothers say so.

I guess I should mention that Jeffy the Racist was in front of another House Judiciary Committee again this week not remembering Russia....or things were too hectic trying to get a rapist Nazi elected president to remember....or Jeffy was too busy making the Keebler cookies to remember....honestly this hillbilly, midget racist lies so much these days its getting harder and harder to tell when he's telling the truth......Jeffy is from Alabama, right? Explains a lot.

In a week where more gropers and forced kissers and possibly even rapists have once again come into the national consciousness....the Keystone pipeline has sprung a leak...a 210,000 gallon leak.....i'm just gonna let that one sit there for a minute........

....usa....usa....usa....

on thursday this pack of assholes passed their oligarch-boner causing tax bill in the House:

But the word is still out on whether or not this gilded baby has legs in the Senate.

One last.....I was a disappointed as a lot of people to have Al Franken added to the rapey/gropey/douche bag club....but it was the height of irony having good ol' Donny John DOUCHE Donald J. Trump mocking him on Twitter......so I'll say this b/c I know Donny John is an avid reader of this blog...it makes no sense, you gilded, Cheeto prick to mock someone when you yourself have at LEAST 11 women claiming sexual assault against you and when your first wife actually claimed that you RAPED HER......prick.

Anyway...another week in Red White and Blue nationalistic hell has come to a close. Stick around...if you dare....I'll be your 10:30 am dalliance with poetry today and tomorrow at 10:30 it'll be the great Ally Malinenko.

Send me your poems/fiction/essays/art/rants so we can keep this thing going.

SUBMIT2RESIST : winedrunksidewalk@gmail.com

day THREE HUNDRED and TWO

belay the night / last
operating
device to final friend

when plants rule
again
choking

out
the singularity
of our mechanized
union

i will send
a final instant message to sin

dear verdant abyss

series of blinks
man in the shadow of a hoe

the vines the
leaves the petals

win

honey on a fifth
wheel trailer tongue
no one

to move the comb

- Paul Koniecki

day THREE HUNDRED and ONE

Intolerable Conditions

“The right thing to do is pray in moments like this.” – Paul Ryan

Camille reads moronic responses

to the latest assault weapon slaughter,

implores the goddess

to intercede, impose sanity,

vaporize clueless males.

She is fed up with

second-amendment fanatics

who fail to comprehend automatic guns

capable of mowing down hundreds

had not been invented

when the constitution was written.

Camille fantasizes a sea of white,

Republican men on their knees,

begging to be spared as she smiles,

presses the trigger of her AK-47,

targets hypocrisy, drops them like flies.

--Jennifer Lagier

day THREE HUNDRED

Yes, yes....i know it's that orange cocksmoker's 300th day in office...but politics blah blah blah....today is also the 20th anniversary of my first date with the poet/novelist Ally Malinenko, who eventually made me so happy....by becoming my wife.

pittsburgh like a postcard

full of wine

and thai food

i ask you

what you’d like to do next

and you tell me

whatever

as long as it doesn’t involve

you going one way

and me going the other

that instant

when i knew loving you

would be a simple game of genius

played out in the first fall snow

that framed pittsburgh like a postcard.

--John Grochalski

day TWO HUNDRED and NINETY NINE

Long Ago and Far Away

I tell my younger wife

in my Jungian daze

long ago before the moon was full

before pen pals

before pencil pals

in the goose quill days

we had to go out in dark of night

for black to grind

and trek to oughter water

to make liquid ink to write

on the cut down clarinet reeds

we slowly beat to pulp

and dried for paper and envelope

hoping the snail express came that year

to take our letter

and communication was soooooo slow

it took seven years to get an answer

from one who lived just down the street

but it was two miles uphill to their house

and three miles uphill back to ours

before the TV worked

this box that just sat there

next to the dinosaur egg

doing nothing

jack squat

and we said what is that box?

why do we have it?

so we had no commercials

no reality shows

no faux-haired orange-skinned men

who tried to grab pussies

with their hands so small

they couldn't clutch logic

so lied a lot

and whined in their cheesy suits
and we were happy

--Steven B. Smith

day TWO HUNDRED and NINETY EIGHT

Edith Piaf Sings Her Broken Heart

Late afternoon in the Tenderloin.

The sun glints on wheelchairs and crutches

and broken glass.

I'm hiding from the world

in this little cafe

and there's a man

sprawled on the sidewalk

next to a walker made of tin.

No one bothers

to check if he is ill or dead,

all of us

as indifferent as the sun.

Another man scours the ground

for things to smoke or to eat

as Edith Piaf sings

her broken heart

and I sit here with a beer and money in my pocket

never knowing whether to feel lucky

or ashamed.

--Willaim Taylor Jr.

day TWO HUNDRED and NINETY SEVEN

If You Float You Burn

The really popular comedian
is on my television
talking

about abortion.

This is what he chose to start his set with.
He keeps telling me
that I have a

right

to choose but that
let’s be honest
abortion
it is just killing babies, right?
I mean at the end of the day that
is what we’re talking about

and

the audience is laughing.
It is a sign
of agreement
that they are there with him

against me
and

I get it.
I can see from my couch
what it is he’s talking about.
It’s simple really
what he’s saying is
when women
chose to not have a child
they are also choosing to be

murderers

because even though
it literally takes two people
to create a third
it is women at the end of the day
that carry that weight
that burden
that labor
because to raise
a human being
means that your entire life
is sidetracked
but that is not a choice
women should make

and laughs are laughs
and that is what he is paid in
except
I can’t help but wonder
what the damage is
when you talk about women
as vehicles
to babies

and nothing more.

I think of assembly lines
and
car parts

What happens to
women who are reduced to
just their reproductive abilities
instead of their autonomy?

What is humanity?

Where are their futures?
Their dreams?
Where is the novel they would have written?
What disease could they have cured?
What is the life they could have lived
before
motherhood became

slavery

But
still what I’m saying
is old
and trite and women
have been made
to feel useless for ages.

We have one purpose
as the men tell us
one purpose
and that is to
create

more

men.

--Ally Malinenko

day TWO HUNDRED and NINETY SIX

Now Considering Eschatology

they burned in all-terrain vehicles

on abandoned graffiti highways

tires whine on paint, bud light cans

rattle teeth in unseasonable mouths

they did wheelies

while people milled

tried to bury or bring

feeling or question to the surface

what is America?

what is reality?

are there ghosts

and if so, is death real?

pavement buckles

vents for heat underground

to burst through, volcanos

of memories time can’t hold

graffiti changes each visit

some strange chance to make

a mark on time, which disappears

foot prints in dust, now

considering eschatology

guardrails taken with scribble

rocks painted so drunks

keep their feet in neon dark

trees, lovers trysts, breathe

wonder, why silver lips

huff dozens of empty

waiting spray cans

we are scavengers

we are scraping at the sides

we are alive, wondering

if this is another dream

another chance to fail

an epoch with fear

surveillance films of  bacchanals

cemeteries cremate

bodies, already buried, bones

dust and earth, there can be no

zombies, apocalypse is a word

often overused

--Jason Baldinger

day TWO HUNDRED and NINETY FIVE

Poet of the Americas

for RQF

It was in Hell

when he finally got

his big break

The Devil had him

in a headlock

and his armpit

smelled of herring

but Terry Gross was there

“How was it

being the great poet

of the Americas?” she asked

“Hell is bad,” he said,

“but I’ve had

it worse.”

--Jon Bennett

day TWO HUNDRED and NINETY FOUR

The News

I'd like

to hear

the news

through a

15 dollar radio

or out

of an

ancient jukebox

in a

dusty bar

on State st.

I'd like

to hear 

the news

as pillow talk

from old

lovers in

sexy dreams

from the

mouth of

babes in

graffiti under

the bridge 

on 16th

I'd like

to hear

the news

somewhere

anywhere

unexpected or

unantncipated

because the

current news

in America

today

like revenge

is best

served cold.

-- Matthew Borczon