talking like rimbaud
i don’t talk enough
for them
they tell me that i don’t talk
we talk all day here
they say to me
but you just sit
and say nothing
i don’t know what happened to me
maybe i lost the passion for conversation
maybe i just got dull
i’d like to think
i was like rimbaud
that i did all of my talking at a young age
like he did his poetry
and that there was no need
for me to talk now
i’d tell them this
but then i’d have to explain rimbaud
so i tell them that my wife
would disagree with
their assessment of me
i tell them that i talk to my wife
all the time
talk and complain
is all i do at home
talk and threaten neighbors
and for some reason
they are offended by this
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). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.