the people in the grocery store look like death warmed over. by John Gochalski

spoiled vegetables

and rancid meat

are what we get for a long day of servitude

long lines

and bored cashiers

playing on cell-phones

self-check machines

for the post-industrial world dandy

flat soda

and stale bread

warm beer by the caseload

that we’ll drink to insanity and bliss

the people in the grocery store

look like death warmed over

coming home from work

to their common miseries

and their self-inflicted wounds

microwaved leftovers

and the dread faces of loved ones

rank capitalists bound and gagged

i hate them

as i hate myself

for making each other

suffer this way.

John Gochalski is a writer whose poetry has appeared in several online and print publications including:  Red Fez, Rusty Truck, Outsider Writers Collective, Underground Voices, The Lilliput Review, The Main Street Rag, Zygote In My Coffee, The Camel Saloon, and Bartleby Snopes.  He is also the author four books of poetry The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch (Six Gallery Press, 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Press, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018).  I am also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press, 2013) and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press, 2016)