UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/JOHN GROCHALSKI


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

JOHN GROCHALSKI

a nice moment

i rub her chest
and she tells me that's the nicest
i've been to her in weeks,
before she tells me again
everything i did wrong during
the argument
after the bottles of wine
before the pitcher of beer,
and the anniversary dinner we had
at that burger joint.
i guess i deserve it.
anyway i had been drinking
since nine in the morning,
and i had said the things she said
i said,
and i had done the things she said
i did.
but whatever it was
it's always hard to have your brutality
rehashed,
especially during a moment intimate
like this.
and as i listened
and yelled
and we got into it again,
a part of me wished that she'd just
been quiet while
i rubbed her sore chest,
and that a nice moment between us
could go unexamined
could not be judged against
past transgressions
the way nice moments
are supposed to go.

blades of light

i look through the drawn blinds
at the blades of light
coming in the bedroom,
as the cat vomit piles on the floor
and the unwashed clothes begin to stink
of their shit and come,
as the beer cans rust in the kitchen
and overturned wine bottles make bloody
stains on the linoleum,
as the cheese molds in the refrigerator
and the meat turns gray, and the lettuce brown,
as the coffee spores in the coffee pot
and the books and newspapers yellow
in unforgiving mounds,
as the cat shit collects in the liter pan, unscooped,
and hair covers the bathroom sink,
as soap rings encircle the tub
and another rung on the shower curtain breaks,
as the dogs howl outside and horns wail
and the neighbor's television permeates
through thin walls,
as the murder rates slow and rapes wither,
yet muggings and grand larceny are on the rise,
as i become just another cog in the food chain
and the meat grinder gets closer to my chin,
as the hangovers worsen
and the tolerance for humanity wanes,
as the scotch bottle empties
and we fight over nothing,
as the wallet becomes bare and stiff
and the work hours increase,
as war rages on in never-ending spurts,
and the rich make their plans for the poor,
as someone across the street lives in a perfect home,
eats perfect food, has the perfect kids,
goes to the perfect job, fucks the perfect wife,
fucks the perfect mistress, gambles, plays the stocks,
drives the perfect red car
and secretly wants to blow his brains out,
i look through the drawn blinds
at the blades of light
coming in the bedroom,
realizing how ugly the sun
really is.

John Grochalski is a published writer whose poetry has appeared in Avenue,
The Lilliput Review, The New Yinzer, The Blue Collar Review, The Deep
Cleveland Junkmail Oracle, The ARTvoice, Modern Drunkard Magazine,
The American Dissident, The New Yinzer, Words-Myth, My Favorite Bullet,
and The Main Street Rag. His short fiction has appeared in the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, and his column The Lost Yinzer appears quarterly in The New Yinzer
(www.newyinzer.com).

His book of poems The Noose Doesn't Get Any Looser After You Punch Out
is coming out via Six Gallery Press in 2008.