mornings of death
caked toothpaste and cat litter back rubs
toilet rings that elucidate decades of deep thought
bath tub stains of misery
with empty shampoo bottles loitering
a thousand soy sauce packages
and rotten tomatoes
antarctic freezers
full of vodka kamikaze ice cubes
broken blinds to keep the world out
a man could do much much worse, i know
dust ball racetracks
yellow paper hoarding and snot rag piñatas
memories nailed to the wall like crucifixes
and calendars marking off the days
the traces of last month’s meals
make splattered pollock’s on the kitchen floor
coffee grind fortunes
tea bag mountains and beer can havens
cracked floors, drawers that have given up
mounds of clothing strewn from porno daydreams
mingling with loose change and chapstick
an everest of poems unsent and unwanted
broken screens
and cracked window panes
bookshelves of failed genius
thin walls full of fetid breath
and other dull lives
static radio and cigarette smoke
wine bottle chimes
telephone horrors and internet virus ghosts
nights alive like suicide
with bloody feet splintered from decaying wood
and nothing left in the cabinets
but empty boxes
and band-aid wrappers
stuck to the floor.
John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and the novel, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the section that doesn’t have the bike sharing program.
Your One Phone Call 