diet pills and non-alcoholic beer By John Grochalski

jimmy says,

the government cured cancer, you know

and aids

and alzheimer’s

and all that other bullshit

they got all these bigfoots in captivity

in one of their faceless facilities

jimmy says,

i mean we know the government

killed kennedy 

and his brother

mlk and malcolm x too

he has a pull on his beer

they probably killed john lennon

and tupac

and biggie 

yeah, the government is always up to something

9/11 for one

and like how they lied to us about u.f.o.s all those years

he looks up at the bar ceiling

they’re probably amongst us right now, 

jimmy says

did i tell you that the government has a way

to fix the weather?

they have this thing

like iodine or iodide or something

i don’t know

that they can just shoot into the sky

and poof we’d have nothing but sunny and 70 every day 

but no

instead they let us have 

blizzards and rain

and hurricanes and typhoons and tornados

that kill people and knock down homes

the government could be out here right now

jimmy says

doing real things to help

but instead they give lazy people money

for not working

tax cuts for the rich

and all the rest of us get from them 

are diet pills and non-alcoholic beer

and they want us to think

that’s something big

like progress

or some shit like that.

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.