John Grochalski's poems have appeared in Avenue, The Smoking Poet, 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, Words-Myth, My Favorite Bullet, 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, One Night Stanzas, American Tanka, Tattoo Highway, Lit Up, Ghoti, Why Vandalism, The Delinquent, and the Orange Room Review. His short fiction has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Fictionville, Bartleby Snopes, Retort, The Battered Suitcase, The Big Stupid Review, Pequin, and will be forthcoming in the anthology Living Room Handjob. His column The "Lost Yinzer" appears quarterly in The New Yinzer (www.newyinzer.com). His book of poems The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out is out via Six Gallery Press and his chapbook Meditations On Misery With Women is due on Zygote In My Coffee Press in the fall of 2009.
Summer 2009
Table of Contents - Vol. V, No. 2
Poetry Essays Translations Fiction
John Grochalski
the two holy men
come into the library every day
when i’m working the ref desk
and answering the same questions
i always have to answer
or biding my time before
i have to toss our regular drunk
off of his computer
for swearing at old muhammad ali
boxing matches again
and taking hits off a pint of smirnoff.
but the two holy men
they have this routine
where they pick through all of
the free pencils until they’ve found
the sharpest ones
then they take piles of scrap paper
and sit right next to each other
where they spend the next two hours
drawing pictures of the bible and chalices
with the crucifix illuminated above the golden cup.
the two holy men are meticulous in this
they draw the same things over and over again
and the drawings are almost exact each time
with small variations that maybe you’d
be able to see if you had a trained eye.
it is insanity and genius incarnate.
and the only problem i ever have with them
is that one of the holy men thinks it’s a good idea
to hang his drawings up all over the library
and if i’m not paying attention
they’ll be drawings of chalices and bibles
all over the children’s department and bathroom
sketches shoved in with paperbacks
and self-help books
and the two holy men will be out the door
off to who knows where
to converse again with god
and i’ll have to get up and go around the library
throwing away all of the drawings
of bibles and chalices
with crucifixes illuminated above the golden cup
as if it were my divine and designated right to do so.
© John Grochalski
