Thursday, August 29, 2019

day NINE HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO


what i should’ve said when the liquor store clerk
asked me if i was going to the neighborhood summer festival

i don’t like the summer
and people strolling around without purpose

the word festival means asshole in russian, i believe

there are too many cops standing in cop rows
with cop smirks on their cop faces

italian sausages and fried dough are over-rated
and reek of imperialistic decline

if you’ve seen one shitty band covering the beatles
then you’ve seen them all, my friend

you can’t drink beer on the street…probably because of the cops

there are too many people
wearing t-shirts with the american flag on them

too many toddlers waving american flags at cops

there are too many american flags in general
and i can only stand to look at american flags for so long
before i become filled with existential anxiety and dread

most of the people in this neighborhood
voted republican for president
we should put them in cages instead of immigrants

but we let them run amuck
eating fried oreos and playing carnival games
in their stained american flag t-shirts
making friendly with the cops

fried oreos are a harbinger of doom

no, i think i’m going to go home, liquor man
sit on the couch in a dark room with the shades drawn
killing the environment as i blast the a/c
and poison myself with the vodka and wine you sold me

i’m going to imagine something more
than american flags and cops and summer festivals
and fireflies and humid summer nights
and pale-faced rapist boys chasing pale-faced girls

i’m going to get blind, stinking drunk, my good man
listen to a little bit of the real beatles

sing something at the top of my lungs

until my upstairs neighbor
newly home from the neighborhood summer festival
becomes so enraged that she pounds down on my ceiling
until the plaster begins to fall

then maybe i’ll go the hell to bed.

--John Grochalski

                                                          

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