oh, hudson street
it took me too long to find you
this morning.
i thought i’d be smart
and i got off at city hall
because i thought i needed the exercise.
but i watched a girl in a
gray skirt and lavender tights
make phone calls on her cell phone
and i got lost.
i ended up by the river,
the hudson river, hudson street,
and i looked at jersey and sighed
and i walked into the meat packing district
where all of the clubs were closed
and i couldn’t find one single tranny.
is new york city lying about them?
oh, hudson street
i was becoming late for a meeting
and i didn’t want to miss the free food
because my belly’s been hungry for years
and something has to fill it, right?
might as well be free food.
and i needed a drink, hudson street.
i knew the white horse was somewhere up you
and i thought maybe if i could find it
all my problems would be solved.
but i only found greenwich street
and the white horse would probably be closed.
the white horse.
home to dylan thomas’ and jack kerouac’s ghosts.
the white horse
where i cried in the bathroom too many times
orchestrating my death over
expensive beer and lackluster food.
the white horse
where some fucking idiot asked me
if i made art on my 30th birthday
as dale nuzzled her and ear and declared
he was off boys for good this time.
oh, hudson street
i look at this poem and i think i’m reading
too much allen ginsberg lately.
it doesn’t sound like me.
i go by allen’s apartments sometimes
and ring his bell
but he’s not there
just post no bills signs
and construction that has stopped because
the economy is for shit.
i can’t even find his ghost.
hudson street
i don’t usually write things like this
as i said
i’m much less discrete
i usually spill myself onto the page
and ask that someone else clean up the mess
but there’s something about you that
got me modest
and no it isn’t the cock and cunt shops
on christopher street
or the fact that i’m sitting at home
high on three scotches and waters and no food
hudson street
i think it’s because i hate america
and i think you know it.
you can tell it every time i walk you.
hudson street
you see the way i glare at the people
and the way i despise their commonality
hudson street
i’m going to choke on celebrity news and worthless talk.
i want to shake everyone and scream WAKE UP
i want someone to just once get through a weekend
without sweeping something under the rug
without cleaning their goddamned house.
hudson street
i’m such a fucking liar that i’m ready to explode
so watch me
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 ½ , 10...boom.
hudson street
John Grochalski lives and writes, and works in Brooklyn, New York. His column The Lost Yinzer appears quarterly in The New Yinzer (www.newyinzer.com). A book of poems The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out is out via Six Gallery Press.