the clown By John Grochalski

leaving the job

on a friday evening

 

going home

to act like a drunken millionaire

on the couch

 

all weekend

 

i wake up

hungover

 

into the horror

of monday morning

 

the clown suit

where i left it days ago

on the bedroom floor

 

clutching

a large red nose

 

in my

swollen

shaking hand.

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.