John Grochalski john.grochalski@gmail.com Bio (auto) I am a published writer whose poems have appeared in Avenue, Thieves Jargon, The Lilliput Review, The New Yinzer, The Blue Collar Review, The Deep Cleveland Junkmail Oracle, The ARTvoice, Modern Drunkard Magazine, The American Dissident, My Favorite Bullet, Words-Myth, The Main Street Rag, Underground Voices, Eclectica, Zygote In My Coffee, the Kennesaw Review, Octopus Beak Inc , Re)Verb, Clockwise Cat, Ink Sweat and Tears, Cherry Bleeds, Indite Circle, Lit Up, Gloom Cupboard, One Night Stanzas, American Tanka, Tattoo Highway, Lit Up, Ghoti, The Smoking Poet, Why Vandalism, The Delinquent, Delirio, The Chiron Review, Gutter Eloquence, Opium Poetry, Mad Swirl, Deep Tissue Magazine, The Loch Raven Review, The Hidden City Quarterly, Poetic Desperation, Red Fez, Eviscerator Heaven, Viral Cat, Leaf Garden, Alternative Reel, and the Orange Room Review My short fiction has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Fictionville, Bartleby Snopes, Retort, The Battered Suitcase, The Big Stupid Review, Pequin, The Legendary, The Moose & Pussy, and will be forthcoming in the anthology Living Room Handjob My column The Lost Yinzer appears quarterly in The New Yinzer (www.newyinzer.com) My book of poems The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out is out via Six Gallery Press and my chapbook Meditations On Misery With Women is due on Tainted Coffee Press in the summer of 2010. | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by John Grochalski and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
so you’re the one so you’re the one, she says i’m in the wine store with a handful of cheap french bottles trying to replace all of the wine that my wife and i drank you’re the one who’s been drinking all of my wine your wine? i say the store owner laughs nervously he dresses nice, better than i ever could i’m probably putting his kid through college with how much money i spend here yes, she says she points to my bottles that’s my favorite wine it’s so smooth and it doesn’t give you a headache that’s nice, i say, putting the bottles down the store owner rings them up on his brand new, digital cash register vivaldi is playing the background and i realize then and there how much i hate vivaldi and this wine store owner how much i wish there was somewhere else to go now i know, she says, putting her wine on the counter as soon as i take my bagged bottles now i know who’s been drinking all of my wine i can put a face to the culprit she says i guess you can, i say then i leave the store and begin the slow walk up third avenue toward the apartment bracing myself against the wind coming off the ugly, brown river. forty-seven
we are in bed my parents are visiting from pittsburgh my father has had the weather channel on for three straight hours i really liked that poem you posted my wife says thank you i just hope that my sister doesn’t read your blog why? well, because you criticized my family for the black friday dinner it was a joke you didn’t criticize your parents for staying with us for three days i have plenty of poems about my parents which ones? it was all in good fun anyway, i say some people won’t see it that way maybe your fans will i don’t have fans then we were quiet through the bedroom door i hear that it is going to be fifty degrees in new york tomorrow i hate the sound of televisions through thin apartment walls it’s going to be forty-seven on friday, i say i read it in the paper good, my wife says why don’t you write a poem about that too.
comb on the floor
my father is on his hands and knees he can’t find his comb on the floor and he is blaming my mother telling her she’s the one moving shit around all of the time they have been here for two days and i started drinking at eight in the morning on thanksgiving my father is on his hands and knees he finds his comb underneath his own travel bag he then proceeds to move all of his things across my living room away from my mother’s things and the two piles of luggage stay like that for the rest of the holiday separated like two boxers in their respective corners waiting for the next round to begin. |
Jason Sturner flowerpetalsonthecreek@yahoo.com Bio (auto) Jason Sturner resides in Wheaton, Illinois and makes his living as a botanist In 2004 he published his first book of poetry, titled Kairos, followed by two chapbooks in 2008: 10 Love Poems and Selected Poems 2004-2007 For more information, please visit www.jasonsturner.blogspot.com | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Jason Sturner and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author. The Props at My Funeral While I sleep throw ropes down my mouth Climb in But beware of the biting words that linger along the throat They are bitter, always questioning destiny’s decisions When you reach a path lit by embers Grab your cross, and hold it tight There, bits of heart decompose along the turn You should cover your head, for it drips still off the ribs (Remnants .of a splat- .ter-ed .love affair) You may even see her against the starless dark A ghostly angel playing the loose string of a smashed violin (It is true: sometimes the old sounds are deafening and you can’t hear the new ones) But I digress Follow the map that I gave you and gather the props as you go: The rusty crown The bloody pile of nightingale feathers The broken teeth of one genuine smile And don’t forget the dried up pen and quill I should remind you now to leave by morning, for tomorrow I will sit at the edge of the world There I will smile into the rising sun and without a thought drop off. |
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