John Grochalski- Three Poems

retiree

marty comes walking back into the office

like he’s king of the world

he retired last month

talks about how great it’s going

but he’s already back for a visit

so how great can it really be?

they swarm him like he’s a rock star

everybody wanting a taste of the good life

which marty is happy to give to them

talking about his plans for a vacation to dublin

the jazz festival he played a week ago

he shows everyone the concert t-shirt

with his name on the back

says i finally found some fame at sixty-four

they fawn over him like he’s a greek god

even though not three months ago they were

stalking around the building

talking about how lazy marty is

wondering when he’s going to retire

and get out of their hair for good

absence makes the heart grow fonder, i’m told

from a jack to a king and other clichés

they laugh and joke with marty

love him now because they don’t have to see him every day

i stay away from the man

i didn’t like him then

and i’m not going to pretend to like him now

he sent some of my poems to human resources

trying to get me fired

accused me of being an anti-semite because i’m polish

and my head is shaved

so why pretend to be best buddies

because it’s the common thing to do

from my point of view

marty wasted twenty-seven years of his life in this place

with nothing to show for it

but one divorce and a row of yellow teeth

he looks like a wasted old prune whose life is on the clock

i envy him nothing

but the time he’ll have now

only because i know he’ll squander it on stupid shit

when i could turn it into magic

he’ll keep coming back to this place on a weekly basis

shooting his breeze

telling everyone how good he has it

and they’ll listen less and less

complain about how good old marty is always showing up

right at lunchtime

check their watches

and hope that he’s found something better to do

this thursday afternoon

than come waltzing into this place

the scene at cookie’s clubhouse

we were both tired of being white

tired of punk rock

tattooed white idiots screaming into microphones

tired of summer nights in pittsburgh

we wandered down penn avenue

down to the black bar

because the music emanating from the place

was something that we both loved

and inside it was packed with bodies

jostling to music or just standing around

there were no white faces in the joint

just purple neon and joy

and this pleased us

so we went inside with our petty little fears

only it wasn’t like the movies

the music didn’t screech to a halt

no one turned our way

there were no rows of angry, suspecting faces

mad at us for killing their buzz, their good time

as we made our way toward the bar

just people singing along to d’angelo

and then tony toni tone

not an ounce of flaccid punk rock bravado in the joint

tattooed jackoffs screaming into microphones

no import beer

just budweiser in cold cans

which we drank at the bar

as nervous as two white boys in a black bar could be

but there was really nothing to be nervous about

just music and dancing

and conversation about another wasted pirates season

talk of the end of summer

talk of football

and we stood there decidedly white

decidedly not punk

when these two girls and a guy took pity on us

had us play darts with them

as tony toni tone morphed into blackstreet

morphed into johnny gill

and we looked at each other with wide eyes

because some bar was finally playing all of the music

that we listened to

in our white heads on black nights in the city

and the guy kept calling me ace ventura

his girlfriend said that he thought that i looked like jim carrey

maybe i did

jim carrey was a fine thing to be on a summer night

playing darts and drinking beer in cookie’s clubhouse

jim carrey probably got a lot of pussy

without the perils of color and punk rock

and i remembered you turned to me and smiled

whispered how much you’d like to date the other girl

if only

if only what? i said back

forgetting what city we were in

what time and place

which is forever that time and place

in america.

anonymous

my wife and i

watch a bad movie about shakespeare

we give it a half hour

before we shut it off

my wife is a fan of shakespeare

but i could give or take him

the movie we were watching

theorized that big willy never wrote his plays

that they were instead

written by the earl of oxford

that shakespeare never wrote his plays

is an old argument that scholars

and action film directors will keep having

until absolutely no one cares

what struck me was how this earl of oxford

could get away with it

at least in the bits that i saw, he did

how great it must’ve been to have lived

in total creative anonymity back then

without the internet to expose and scandalize

the people i work with looked me up

before i even started my job

they had me pegged and boxed

without my having said one word

and they’d been reading my poems for a year

before i found out

they still read my poems

only with not as much gusto as before

especially when people show up in the verse

who may or may not be them

then they get pissed at me and create drama

try and send my shit to human resources

i guess i miss being anonymous on the job

even on this small and petty scale

not having to dissect each bit of writing

so as not to offend

i miss coming in and being nothing but a worker for the day

going home and doing my writing

having no one be the wiser

even if it was only just an illusion to begin with

i suppose i could use a pseudonym

or stop writing about the job

but what would be the point now?

would if i could

i’d want to be like the earl of oxford

sit in my regal little box at the globe

and let some fucking actor take all of the credit

for my work

while i and i alone

knew who was really

getting the words down.