John Grochalski- A Poem

divas

lady gaga songs come on

in a bar full of old men watching football

on a sunday afternoon

and i think

what in the fuck?

but then it’s cher

donna summer

diana ross

adele and britney spears

it’s last dance at full speed

but i’m only on my third beer

this has to be some kind of joke

because the joint has suddenly morphed

into an old fag bar

have i been gone from here that long?

maybe they changed owners, i think

but the music keeps coming

courtesy of an old, thin queen

who keeps getting up to pump dollars in the juke

as cincy and baltimore play

another autumn sunday into oblivion

then it’s christina auguilera

mariah carey

saint whitney houston

beyonce

and something called a nicki minaj

before the immortal madonna blares

express yourself in a club remix for good measure

queeny keeps asking everyone

if they like the music

like he’s mayor

the grand dame d.j. of this diva joint

we all say, yeah

and he goes back to his dumpy blonde

at the end of the bar

contented

back to a woman who’s singing the madonna so loudly

i might never listen to the material girl again

and when colin comes in the bar

he kind of looks around

like he might be in the wrong place too

but then he sits and orders

his bud draft and the shot of jack

that he’s been sucking down for years

as a express yourself ends

and a last dance encore begins

as old men oblivious to disco hits

shout at the tv screen

and roll dice for money and free drinks

a whole row of newly anointed bears

only they don’t know it

and after colin takes down half the draft

he turns to me and says

what?

no celine dion this week?

BIO:  John Grochalski is the author of 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), and the forthcoming novel, The Librarian.  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he constantly worries about the high cost of everything.