When a drop of sweat
from your chin lands between
a lover's *******, some women
will recoil in disgust.
Others will moan and get off
on your labor to deliver pleasure.
The dame who digs a little sweat
during the younger years
will mop it from your forehead
in the nursing home.

-Ron Gavalik

Drunk on the orange light of dusk.
High on drink in a thick glass.
Cocooned in cigar smoke that hovers,
it carries the scent of a sweet menace.
The best part is knowing your ***** hang
out of sweaty boxers on the back stoop
while the neighbor lady stares
out the window, ashamed
of the visual **** of her orderly life.
At that moment, you realize, that's it baby.
The concert of life has reached its crescendo.
A spontaneous smile begins to form,
as you also begin to understand,
that's all you ever wanted
in the first place.

-Ron Gavalik

Over years of sin,
the memories, the faces,
they're obscured by a fog
of whiskey and regret.
But I never really hurt anyone.
I was far too busy
damaging myself.

-Ron Gavalik

There's a small space
between the tip of a pen
and the fibers of notebook paper.
As it is with many truths,
that space cannot be seen.
Still, that small space is a universe
of holy ground where the miracle
of one’s soul is streamed
into the physical world
for all to see.

-Ron Gavalik

No matter how many showers
I take in the evenings
or in the afternoons,
I can't seem to wash away
that musky scent
from my thighs and fingers.
It's not always possible
to know how long the smell
of deception will linger.

A young writer
sat in my regular chair
inside the bookstore cafe.
He banged at the keys of his typer,
angry and without mercy.
Once he drained his coffee cup
the writer kept ******* at the rim
for a few remaining drops.
After staring blankly at the wall
for several minutes, the writer packed up
his supplies into a ratty backpack,
and walked out of the joint.
Finally, I figured, my chair had enough
of the games. It felt my presence
nearby and thus decided
we had sins to paint.

-Ron Gavalik

Nothing feels so empty as easy satisfaction
that requires little effort or sacrifice.
As filthy Johns in search of ******,
we salivate over and consume
the blood and the passion
of the artists who offer their beauty
in the hopes of small rewards.
In a gluttonous feast, we take
what we want, and without
offering one cup of coffee
or even a slice of bread.

-Ron Gavalik

As a writer and poet who absorbs the world and then bleeds out truth, I'm finding it harder and harder to break through the political propaganda that television, radio, and web media has conjured to dominate and control so many minds. I can work around the programming by introducing abstract moral truths, but the moment I reference modern cultural, my work goes ignored.

I feel myself losing touch with a society that I’ve taken for granted my entire writing life. In a gluttonous feast of sensational media
that has proven nearly impossible to extricate ourselves,
we allow the power of profiteers and con-artists
to stream content into our minds that programs us
to accept unprecedented levels of violence.
We celebrate military-style police powers
to remove our freedoms of expression,
the rights to own property at reasonable expense,
and our most basic rights to life under a banner of liberty.
In an **** of hatred and greed, a large swath of society
has proven comfortable with exterminating
or imprisoning human beings for the color of their skin
or the origin of their birth in private-for-profit prisons.
Yes, I definitely feel we are lost in a spiral of human descent,
where there is no end, only torment and death.

-Ron Gavalik

The cost of TRUTH
may at times burden
our mental energy and our wallets,
especially when we are delivered
so many cheap, comfortable lies.
TRUTH, however, is the tonic
that heals and fortifies our minds
against the constant flood of toxic oil
that pours from the gullets
of poseurs and profiteers.

The few who summon the courage
to embrace TRUTH are transformed
into angels of light. They rise above
the sewage of violence and hatred
of so many polluted minds,
the diseased souls condemned
to whither in misery.

There's a sadness
that flows through the veins
of people who survive empire.
For some, the sadness transforms
into a base fear of the unknown,
cowardice validated by con-artists
in the open air and by charlatans
who profit deep in the shadows.
The sadness in others can transform
into rage fueled by the thirst
for courage, truth, a moral balance.
Sadness that leads to action
to correct injustices,
that’s the only possible deliverance
from anguish and despair.

When a man can hear
a woman's screams and sobs
thunder across an empty parking lot,
from a lone truck
partly hidden by the blanket of night,
that man is faced with a choice.
He can ignore the cries
and continue to move forward,
or he can turn and fight.
Such terrible options are rarely requested,
and no matter which decision he makes
that man will be haunted
during the quiet moments
for the rest of his life.

One day I will die.
I'm reconciled to that truth.
My own death does not concern me.
The teenage boy who knocks on doors
in the rural white neighborhood,
he looks for odd jobs and new friends.
That boy really digs *** and bicycles,
girls, video games, and basketball.
One day, an older resident, propagandized
by cable news and talk radio,
they will call the cops in paralyzed fear,
and then that boy will be wiped
from the face of the Earth.

In younger years, I dreamt
about flying over lakes and mountains,
and I dreamt about *******
slutty women in ****** motels.
Sometimes I battled noble samurai
on ancient Japanese hillsides.
I've lived out those subconscious musings
in one form or another.
Now, I rarely remember dreams.
The few that stand out are simple
reflections of life's boring troubles.
Maybe the trick is to find new adventures
that will keep our dreamscapes active,
interesting, forever alive.

Calling out dead poets
as sexists or rapists or users
is the opposite of woke enlightenment.
The poet’s job is not to censor
his experiences or his madness
for sanitized comforts.
The poet’s truth is his gift
of insight, a naked wisdom
of hard love and difficult choices.
Narrow fools so often absorb
this sweat and blood poured onto the page.
After their souls are satisfied,
that’s when the fools unsheath
the long sword of ignorance
and ****** the blade square
in the poet’s back.

The problem with people-watching
in the middling suburbs outside Pittsburgh,
is everyone looks like they’re related,
a little too similar, bad photocopies
of the same dull morality.
The girls have similar haircuts
and the boys wear similar shorts.
The men and women,
they cannot stomach the ‘F’ word,
but they adore efficient order
enforced through totalitarian violence.
Chemical air fresheners are pumped
through department store ventilation systems.
Perhaps the compound is designed
to induce complacency for the status quo
and suppress everyone's style
or sense of fashion.

I often wonder
what the world wants
or expects of me.
Then I realize the truth.
All people from all places,
they search all their lives
for happiness.
Some people want and expect
me to deliver it upon them.
The smart ones, they pursue
happiness on their own.

There's something liberating
about watching old men
with gray beards and hats
read intently from thick books
while the world unfolds around them.
Their families are gone,
along with the desire to chase
fast women and fast cash.
These aged men of leisure,
they are the survivors
of war and capitalism,
religion and disease.
Nothing surprises these old men
in their final days of wisdom,
and so, it’s quite simple.
They read in peace.

In a cloud of humid, summer smoke
at a local bar, a brunette in a little black skirt
chatted and laughed hard among a group
of friends or co-workers while she nursed
the last ounce of a draft
from a clear plastic cup.

That skirt showed off her thick, muscular legs.
All over her calves and up her thighs were little cuts,
patches of red skin, and bruises.
Made up in dark eye shadow and lipstick,
the dame stood out among the workers
in mechanic uniforms and fast food smocks.

I made my way toward the group
and slid in beside her.
‘Can I get you another beer?’
The woman gave me a quick once over,
her expression quickly turned to a half frown.
‘How do you know I’m single?’
she said. ‘I might be married to him.’
She then pointed to a guy in her group,
twice her age and in a ***** flannel shirt.
‘I’ll take my chances.’

She stared at me for a few seconds,
the gears cranking behind her brown eyes,
deciding if a fat, bald stranger was worth her evening.
‘If you’re buying, I’m drinking,’ she said
and then laughed from the gut.

‘So, what do you do?’ she said.
‘I’m a writer.’
‘Oh yeah? What have you written?’
‘Nothing you’ve read,’ I said.
I’ve always despised explaining my work.
‘You any good at writing?’
‘I’m excellent, but listen,
what’s with those bruises on your legs?
Are you okay?’

‘I work in a warehouse,’ she said.
‘Gotcha.’
‘You know the best thing about that job?’
‘What’s that?’ I said.
‘I don't take it home with me.
All those doctors and executives get ****** up
on drugs to sleep and work. All I do is work
and then I take my *** home.’

I took sip of whiskey and ginger ale,
and then decided to share some truth.
‘Everyone takes their work home, baby.’
‘I’m not your baby.’
‘Some of us keep our hands clean
and pollute our minds until madness takes us.
Others destroy their bodies to stay sane.
Either way, we take it home,
we live our jobs at night, on weekends,
at church, even on vacation.’

Not surprisingly, that beautiful woman
did not come home with me
or share her number.

The old cashier at the car dealership,
she chain-smoked skinny, long cigarettes
all day, every day.
Her voice sounded like a bullfrog
that recently learned how to curse and laugh.
The crease lines around her mouth
and the folds in her neck
conveyed a relaxed style, confidence
earned from a hard life
and dangerous choices.

Sometimes there were no customers
in front of the cashier’s window
and no mechanics busting her chops.
That's when she’d rest her elbows on the counter
and cradle a skinny cigarette
between ******* near her cheek.
That woman’s eyes would gaze outside,
glossed over in what looked like daydreams
about all those lovers, in their graves,
and their cliché widows
with their tiresome grandchildren
and their sanitized lives.

Back in the day,
men in gray suits and skinny ties
never could resist her,
but then again,
so few ever tried.

Sometimes I think I love best
from afar,
observing impossible conquests
from behind crowds
of maniacs on sidewalks.
Sometimes I love through written notes
to people in far away places.
When up close, reality stops
the imaginings.
I dream of far better love
than I live.

-Ron Gavalik

In a world of wage servants
we are drugged, propagandized.
That's how the keep us
docile, in line.
Sometimes a servant refuses
to take his meds.
His spoken truth burns down
the facade, for a brief moment,
until he is silenced.

Good memories
drip slowly through the mind
They are drops of spring rain
that fall on my shoulders
from the train bridge
above the sidewalk
where we talked
for hours

The day I walked off a job,
without having another lined up,
the most pronounced emotion
that bubbled up through the stew
was that of liberation.
Positive as that may be,
most people equate self-determination
with the tranquility of happiness.
Certainly, one can lead to the other,
but staring at the stack of bills
shows us the bridge we must build
to span the divide
between freedom and our lives
requires our sweat and torment,
our blood and tears,
and often times,
our souls.

There are moments,
frozen capsules of time
burned into our brains.
Those memories feel
as if they'll outlive us.
Then there are the moments
that are forever lost,
and when a lover or friend
tells the story years later,
we quietly mourn
that memory's death.

-Ron Gavalik

On the sidewalk, in the spring rain,
she scowled at me hard,
the way a lion eyes its prey.
She stood motionless, silent, soaked.
The rain, or tears, rolled down her cheeks
and dripped from her chin.
An invisible rage radiated from her aura
that struck instant fear in the current of passersby
who rushed around her on that gray day.

My soul had been murdered before,
and so I figured, why not again.
Under the awning of that coffeehouse,
all I could do was not give a ****.
I lit my acid cigar and puffed
until the smoke clouded my vision.
That day, I would die or I would live.
Either way, there was no sense trying to control
events or time, when the inevitable rebirth
was certain, and would change everything.

The reasons for the standoff
and its conclusion are unimportant,
mere details we've all lived
and forgotten.

I don't really understand you,
your words, your actions.
Most people accept such ignorance
because they barely understand
themselves.
But I've taken the time
and I've spent the energy
to know myself, my truth.
Your presence gives me the desire
to dip my eyes in honey,
so my vision of you is clouded,
smeared, unclean,
much like my thoughts.

A flock of ducks on the riverbank
strolled through the grass, scrounging
for bugs and crumbs with their silly duck bills.
The birds mindlessly walked around
following each other, quacking and nibbling
the way ducks do.
There was this one colorful duck
who didn’t seem concerned with the flock.
His truth led him away
to find dinner elsewhere.
A few of the other ducks quacked at him
for flaunting his responsibility
to do what was expected.
That colorful duck ignored them all,
as if their opinions meant nothing.
He did his own scrounging, in style
while the orange sun skimmed the skyscrapers
before it set for the evening.

The sidewalks on Easter
are empty for the most part.
Few well-dressed parishioners
walk to and from their churches.
A **** woman with red lips.
wearing a little dress and heels,
she carries a cake. Her stressful frown
indicates she's marching
to the obligatory family dinner.
The sun shines bright
and the light breeze carries the chill
of lost friends.
In the distance, one can almost hear
voices call out in unison,
"He is risen!"

–Ron Gavalik

Imagine you've been tortured,
ridiculed, hated by the masses.
As you bleed to death on top of a hill,
another tortured soul asks you
for forgiveness for his sins.
The man did nothing to you,
but he feels the need to confess.
Writhing in pain, you want to die,
if only to end your own torment.
But instead, you listen to the man,
and you grant him your truest love, forgiveness.
You tell him he will soon be in paradise
with you, and you ******* mean it.
That's why some of us have faith
and we fight for the poor,
the marginalized, the despised.
They can **** us, as they so often do,
but they will never win.

The bosses always tell us
not to take their decisions personal.
When they hold the pay raises
we need for gas and shoes,
that cash stolen from our families
becomes quite personal.
When we gotta wait two more weeks
to pay the electric bill,
or when we pretend canned pasta
tastes like chicken with sauce,
that's ******* personal.
When the knife or the gun
feels just right in our hands,
that's personal too.

I lived with my grandparents
as a boy before kindergarten.
My grandfather, a union boilermaker,
always left for the job early in the morning before I woke.
In the evenings, pap would stumble through
the back door, covered in soot, exhausted.
Sometimes I'd run up to him and hug his leg,
a sign of appreciation, true love.
Pap always laughed in delight at the affection
and then he’d pat my back in approval.

As I clung to pap’s ***** work pants,
the sharp smell of burnt metal filled my world.
It was the scent of the Rust Belt
that often hung in the air around the steel mills
and so many manufacturing centers.
That familiar smell reflected the gritty region,
its culture of hard day labor and heavy Sunday dinners,
the only way of life we understood.

Fifteen years later, sitting together
on pap’s back porch next to his stack of books,
his retirement library, the metallic scent was gone,
along with the steel mills and the rail yards.
‘I miss that smell,’ I said.
Pap kind of frowned and rolled his eyes
in that way when we hear the young and naive
speak without wisdom or experience.
‘I don’t,’ he said.

Standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street
during a lunch break at the job,
a long funeral procession drove through the intersection.
The hearse and the limousine appeared washed,
they shined under the winter sun.
The other cars were older, filthy from salt
and road dirt. No one had time
for car washes when their friend or relative
lay dead in a box.

Most of the cars in the endless line
were driven by young men, their jaws clenched,
and their eyes focused straight on the road ahead.
Young women sat in some of the passenger seats,
their eyes puffy and red
as their attention roamed the city.

Eventually the cars stopped.
One sedan was stuck in the middle of the intersection,
driven by an older man, alone.
His eyes met mine, but he stared through me.
I removed my hat and bowed my head,
a gesture in a world we can’t understand
or hope to control.

The procession began to move forward.
Before he drove forward,
the man formed a slight smile
under his tortured eyes.
In those few seconds, he and I mourned
together, without names or histories.
It didn’t really matter.

At night, The fresh sweat
that rolls down succulent *******,
the *****, bourbon, and wine
that pours down guilty throats,
and good tobacco smoke
that hovers below the lights,
all of it carries the scent
of animal passions
released into the wild.

In the morning, those same smells
grow old, stale, out of favor.
Betrayal replaces desire
as ***** replaces the splendor of *****.
The reality of regret
that stares at us through bloodshot eyes
forever replaces another slice
of innocence.

A young woman stands on the sidewalk
in front of a vape shop.
Her long red hair is the dream
of desperate men
that flutters in the cool spring breeze.
She fiddles with her smartphone,
her thumb quickly scrolls screens
in an attempt to fight boredom.
She's waiting, waiting, waiting
for her next adventure,
but those skin tight yoga pants
and her filthy sneakers tell me
she has a long wait.

In the most ferocious winter storms,
there are people of honor
who will share their gloves.
During times of war,
some children continue to dream.
When famine strikes,
old men find the will
to be generous.
In a mall parking lot,
drivers will ram you to death
for a spot ten feet closer
to the door.

Sins boomerang.
If I teach you nothing else
in this short life,
please remember,
violence begets violence,
hate begets hate,
and good intentions
executed with incompetence
begets harsh revenge
from the people
we claimed to help.

Sins are almost always hurled
with the strength of our passion.
When they return,
they come fast, unforgiving,
and with the determination
to destroy.

I opened the door at a diner
to leave after a late night meal.
A cold blast of winter air
startled a guy who stood five feet away.
"Sorry," he said, without really looking at me,
as if the word was a knee-**** response
that lacked any thought or meaning.

Days later, I still have no idea
why the guy apologized.
In the social media age,
kindness and humility
have been replaced
with intimidation, approval,
and the seductive allure
of narcissistic validation.

After a tough week at the job,
a coworker slid on her coat.
"It's a Long Island Iced Tea kinda night,"
she said in a flat tone,
and with a straight face.
"Whatever gets the job done,"
I said, hoping she’d smile
at our brief liberation.
Instead, she stared through me,
as if I'd spoken some great truth.
She then walked out of the building
without saying goodbye.

-Ron Gavalik

The heavy dark eyeshadow
that wrapped around your blue gems
projected a depth
I later learned you simply didn't have.
Standing on the sidewalk,
kicking pebbles against a brick wall,
Dave approached.
I didn't speak. There was nothing
to say, and he read the sorrow on my face.
‘They can't all be artists,’
he said in a humorous tone.
We studied the complex surface of the moon
in silence, for at least fifteen minutes
before we parted for the night.

There are people of substance
all around us
who explore their worlds.
These people read books,
help their neighbors,
and eat delicious food with family.
These people laugh hard from the gut.
They pray and weep
over lost friends and lost causes.

Surrounded by so many unfortunate souls
who live in perpetual dumpster fires,
the occasional conversation
with someone who truly lives
is a rare gift of life.

At the coffee shop, a young black man in glasses
asked if he could plug his laptop
into the same outlet that charged my typer.
While he pulled the cord out of his backpack,
I asked if he had homework.

‘No," he said. "I'm looking for a job.’
‘What kind of job?’
‘Any job,’ he said
and let out a desperate kind of snort
usually only heard from older men,
humiliated by the world,
beaten down by life.

‘****'s tough out there, kid.’
‘I know the platitudes,’ he said.
He then stuck his nose into the screen.
I walked up to the counter for a refill,
to give the boy a little space.

The new generation,
they know how to use words
like platitude, but they can’t earn
enough for a home and internet
to avoid the men who use them
in place of real solutions.

After a long week at the job,
the demon voices in our heads scream in fury,
they rage at our better angels
who agreed to the working life,
all those many years wasted
on waged servitude.
After a long week of torment,
the voices of the demons
grow so loud and violent,
that we have no choice, but to escape
in the bottle, the powder, the *****.
No matter how intoxicating the self-abuse
those demons continue to murmur.
Much in the way we’re indentured
to the system that imprisons us,
the demon voices in our heads
will never leave.

"All of my stories
are true," I said.
"Even the lies?"
"Especially the lies."
She looked at the floor
in tortured disappointment
"Truth," I said, "is like treasure,
the value of which is in the eye
of the beholder."

All that really matters
in this short life
is how well we dance
through the fires in our paths.
That bitter taste in the morning
of waged servitude,
the dire consequences of *******
long and deep for simple pleasures,
and the eternal quest for imagined love,
these are the fires of our early deaths.
Warriors fight their enemies
to the point of exhaustion and collapse.
The dancers, the artists,
they use their nimble bodies
and creative minds to shuffle between
the hottest coals
with style and grace.

‪The bourbon we pour‬
‪after a hard day on the job‬
‪is our liquid salvation.‬
‪The workers who labor long hours‬
‪to grow the wealth of our betters,‬
‪we swallow this magic elixir‬
‪to help us cope, to forget‬
‪lost opportunities,‬
‪so many lost lovers,‬
‪and our daily sins.‬

A little boy at a local park
tried over and over again to scale
a child-sized rock climbing wall.
Over and over again he'd lose his grip
and fall into the grass
while his father watched on.

A random woman said to the father,
"Why don't you help him?"
"He's not making a sandwich,"
the man replied
without removing his eyes from the boy.
The woman pursed her lips
and walked away.

After what seemed to be about 97 attempts,
that little boy, his clothes and hair riddled with dirt,
finally scaled the wall.
Atop the playground equipment,
he raised his hands in triumph.
The look of delight and achievement
that formed on the boy’s face
was the reminder that
all things are possible.

Watching the planet thrash
in tortured pain
is akin to watching on helpless
as a friend loses weight,
their energy, their hair
while battling an aggressive cancer.
The cancer of this small blue world
is the most gluttonous enemy.
Blinded by its miserable conquest
to consume and exploit
everything in its path,
the cancer does not stop
until it murders its host
and destroys its only means
for survival.

The lack of ****** desire
for a woman kills any chance
at forming a romantic relationship.
Too much ****** desire
prematurely destroys
all romantic relationships.
Con artists write self-help books
and launch expensive dating sites
to convince us they possess
the magic formula for success in love.
In truth, if we **** and love each other
without the shackles of pre-defined
relationship statuses, political parties,
or other false marketing demographics,
happiness becomes a simple achievement.

As a child, I valued the loyalty
of friendships and family above all other
human endeavors.
That commitment led to consistent doses of disappointment.
In my adult years, those harsh lessons
have taught me the simple truth,
that comrades and cousins,
romantic partners and parents,
they carry the rich aroma of the best coffee.
Much like coffee, they help us
through our days, and give us a savory
expectation to greet each new morning.
Also much like coffee,
the mugs that contain those relationships
eventually run dry.
We can scramble to refill the meanings
behind each valued connection,
but we're often better off switching
to a lonely glass of whiskey.