Wednesday, March 22, 2023

the right way By John Grochalski


they give us

no right way to do it

 

the failure is complete

the moment we’re squeezed out

from between our mother’s thighs

 

then it is

 

god and government

country and flag

parents and teachers and bosses

 

days that are subservient

and insubstantial

 

we can blunt ourselves with alcohol

we can blunt ourselves with drugs

 

we can blunt ourselves

with love and anger

 

tv shows and the movies

 

but nothing ever really

does the trick

 

they give us

no right way to do it

 

but they expect us

to have all of their answers

 

in the flick of a wrist

in the blink of an eye

 

as we crawl away from them

nodding our dull compliance

 

our wills breaking

our fingers bleeding

our nails covered in mud

 

no safe space

left on earth

 

like the one we had

in that swirling beautiful void

 

before the dark madness

of conception



 




John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, 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 Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.

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