36 years, 360 days….and counting

by John Grochalski

i don’t care
i sit here drinking cheap red wine
before the workday
and i do not care
i listen to the radio
read the fiction of peter stamm
and a biography on patrick henry
awaiting the late shift again
and i drink the cheap red
with exhaustion and resignation
and do not care about myself
or anything else
i think about the gray skies outside
and april showers bringing may flowers
for us to stand on
i marvel at the way wine burns
the empty stomach
and i have stories out there
useless stories written on useless mornings
poems easing down the information superhighway
seeping into third rate rags
like japanese radiation flowing into
the green ocean
and i drink the cheap red wine
just to feel the burn
and i do not care about the poems, the stories,
or the radiation
for i am hardly a man
hardly a poet
i am muted and hungry
i specialize in picking out lettuce and daffodils
on hungover sunday afternoons
i am no patrick henry
but i have a dumb, american confidence about me
that i just can’t quell
it shows on my face
and i have a new tube of toothpaste
to take away the wine taste
when my free time is all used up
and a sink that almost drains it all away
when i spit out the wine and blood
and peppermint flavor
so i must be doing something right
after all of these years.